Sens. Warren and Scott Push Bipartisan Housing Bill

File photo by Graham Kilmer.

Every day at The Overhead Wire we sort through over 1,500 news items about cities and share the best ones with our email list. Each week, we take some of the most popular stories and share them with Urban Milwaukee readers. They are national (or international) links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes absurd, but hopefully useful.

Bipartisan housing bill: Senators Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott have put together a federal housing bill that has bipartisan support even after major administration cuts to housing programs. If passed as is, the bill would change rules related to manufactured housing, ties block grants to future housing production, and increases investments in opportunity zones. It doesn’t go into detail on how local red tape will be fixed. (Liz Goodwin and Rachel Siegel | Washington Post)

Housing supply impacts low income rental market most: In cities that have recently added a large amount of housing, rents in lower income neighborhoods have dropped the most according to research from Pew, suggesting that new supply impacts housing costs at the lower end of the market. Looking at over 1,600 zip codes, they found that a 10% increase in housing supply was connected to a 5% less increase in rents. (Seva Rodnyansky, Dennis Su, and Alex Horowitz | Pew Trusts)

Streets are shifting away from social uses: New research that used machine learning to look at how people used streets during William H Whyte‘s time versus 30 years later has found that people use streets more as thoroughfares and linger less than they did previously. It is not known however what exactly is leading to the behavior changes but the researchers suggest perhaps increases in incomes, more indoor spaces to congregate, and smart phone proliferation may be reasons why. (Fran Silverman | Yale School of the Environment)

Trips are now a commodity: Bill Fulton notes that in the 1980s, the head of SAS Airlines Jan Carlzon was forward thinking in that he thought of the whole trip on a journey versus just the leg where the customer was flying. Fast forward today and local trips have become commoditized in a similar way as some move away from having to own and take care of a vehicle and instead buy movement and access whether it’s food delivery, e-commerce delivery, or personal transportation. (Bill Fulton | The Future of Where)

Permitting slowing down transit projects: Transit agencies often have to partner with local agencies including cities and departments of transportation to build projects, which requires permits to build. But a new report suggests that one of the many reasons for increased construction costs and building timelines are the numerous permitting hoops transit agencies have to jump through to build. Fixing the problem could be a way to speed up the process. (Colleen Shalby | Los Angeles Times)

Quote of the Week

We are building a system that, like our roads, assumes ownership of a specific device – this time, the smartphone. The smartphone, invented just two decades ago, offers conveniences such as instant information, connection to loved ones and powerful tools at our fingertips. But we are building a system that binds us to them.

–Owen Haacke in NextCity discussing how society is creating smart phone dependence just like it created auto dependence.

This week on the Talking Headways podcast, we’re joined by Madeline Brozen of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. We talk about universal basic mobility and research her team has done on the LA Mobility Wallet Pilot Program.

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