The hottest Housing policy Substack posts right now

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A History of Operation Breakthrough

Construction Physics • 27977 implied HN points • 06 Mar 26
💾 History Housing policy
  1. Operation Breakthrough tried to industrialize U.S. homebuilding with factory-made systems but failed to create lasting, large-scale change even though thousands of units were built.
  2. The program overreached and was rushed: weak experimental design, heavy technical and logistical problems, local opposition, labor and code conflicts, and abrupt political and funding changes undermined scaling.
  3. The deeper lesson is that factory-built housing doesn’t automatically cut costs or scale; meaningful adoption needs sustained support, aggregated markets, careful iteration, and realistic expectations about where prefab actually delivers value.

San Francisco's urban revival is in danger

Noahpinion • 30235 implied HN points • 12 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. San Francisco’s recent turnaround — big drops in crime and some pro-housing moves — came from a moderate mayor working with a slim moderate majority on the Board of Supervisors.
  2. Before that, a hardline progressive board blocked housing and public-safety reforms, contributing to high crime, very low housing production, and economic decline.
  3. A single upcoming District 4 special election could flip the Board back to hardline progressives, which would likely derail the city’s recovery and make future reforms much harder to pass.

Will Evicting Blackstone Help Young People Buy Homes?

TK News by Matt Taibbi • 2437 implied HN points • 16 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Most people in Washington agree there's an epic housing crisis, and many blame mega institutional investors who buy up starter homes.
  2. Lawmakers from both parties are pushing limits on those firms — for example, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act would stop companies that own 350 or more homes from buying more and it passed the Senate by a large margin.
  3. But the housing market has many problems beyond big investors, and simply blocking firms like Blackstone won't by itself solve affordability or supply issues.

Let Mayors Cook

Odds and Ends of History • 469 implied HN points • 23 Mar 26
📰 News Housing policy
  1. Giving the mayor a slice of income tax would put real money and authority behind building infrastructure and getting projects done.
  2. Local BBC local-democracy reporting can have a NIMBY slant that frames housing development as a problem rather than a public good.
  3. Redrawing London’s boroughs and strengthening the mayor’s powers would simplify decisions and speed delivery, even though it would be controversial and make many people upset.

Singapore: Where your home loses value & everyone's better off

The Novelleist • 532 implied HN points • 05 Mar 26
🌐 International Housing policy
  1. The government owns most land and sells only time-limited leases, so homes lose value as leases run down and eventually revert to the state, making housing a place to live rather than a long-term investment.
  2. Control over leases and planned lease expirations lets the state auction land to developers, capture value through fees, and master-plan redevelopment on a 40–50 year horizon to increase density and modernize the city.
  3. Revenues from land leases and sovereign-wealth investments fund low taxes and broad social services—universal healthcare, subsidized education, CPF pensions, and near-universal affordable housing—helping deliver high living standards and strong economic performance.
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BOOM: Unanimous Vote Lands Land Value Tax Enablement on Governor’s Desk

Progress and Poverty • 1962 implied HN points • 05 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Virginia just cleared HB 282, which would let Charlottesville, Falls Church, Fredericksburg, and Newport News opt into a split-rate land value tax, making the state much closer to actual LVT implementation.
  2. Momentum is spreading beyond Virginia: Kentucky may allow Louisville to pilot a split-rate tax, Ohio has a high-profile push for statewide enablement, and cities like Syracuse and Buffalo are actively exploring the idea.
  3. Research and local advocacy show LVT shifts can be done revenue-neutrally and tend to tax vacant or underused land while rewarding dense, multifamily development, and grassroots advocates are doing the legal and data work to make pilots and laws happen.

The Gripes of Wrath: Inside NYC’s ‘Rental Ripoff’ Hearings

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 319 implied HN points • 12 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. People packed the Bronx hearing to call out bad landlords and complain about unsafe, exploitative housing; attendees were angry and demanding real change.
  2. The event offered tenant unions, know-your-rights workshops, and free legal aid booths, showing strong grassroots organizing and practical support for renters.
  3. The hearings are a political test for the mayor’s promise to challenge landlords, and tenants say they want concrete action, not just lip service.

Observations on the single-family rental debate re: the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 526 implied HN points • 11 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. The bill contains mostly useful housing reforms but adds last-minute rules that would likely kill the market for new single-family build-to-rent homes and sharply limit large-scale investors in existing single-family homes.
  2. Large-scale investors historically have not driven up single-family home prices; after 2008 lenders cut mortgage access for many would-be buyers, investors stepped in to buy discounted homes, while recent price increases are mainly driven by owner-occupiers and a housing shortage.
  3. Banning big investors risks cutting new rental supply just when millions of units are needed, so a better fix is to restore broader mortgage access for more families, which would reduce investor activity and help lower rents over time.

Why blue states are crashing, volume one trillion

Unreported Truths • 55 implied HN points • 23 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Wealthy blue states and cities are failing to deliver basic services despite large budgets and resources. Many public systems like schools, infrastructure, and safety are deteriorating for most residents.
  2. Local NIMBY land‑use rules and growth limits in liberal college towns choke housing supply and lock land from development. That drives up rents and home prices, pushing young families and businesses away.
  3. High taxes and anti‑growth policies create a feedback loop of low growth, shrinking tax bases, and budget shortfalls. The result is rising costs that squeeze out the middle class and threaten long‑term vitality.

It's time to abolish Natural England

Odds and Ends of History • 1675 implied HN points • 25 Feb 26
🌞 Climate & Environment Housing policy
  1. Politicians often pass politically risky decisions to arm's-length bodies to avoid blame, but that can prevent the government from actually delivering its strategy.
  2. Natural England’s statutory role in planning acts like a de facto veto—through SSSIs, nutrient rules and SANG requirements—causing delays and blocking housing projects even when the environmental case is weak.
  3. Abolishing or substantially reforming Natural England would put environmental trade-offs back with elected ministers so politicians must own the consequences, while keeping technical enforcement and data roles separate.

More thoughts on the investor ban and on homebuilders

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 295 implied HN points • 13 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. The investor ban is driven more by moral prejudice than by strong evidence, and it risks destroying an industry based on misleading interpretations of a few studies.
  2. Large investors have not been the primary cause of rising home prices — owner-occupiers and small buyers largely drive demand and investor share has fluctuated without large macro effects.
  3. Banning big investors would likely shrink housing supply, cost many jobs, and help land speculators and existing landlords, while making it harder to build the millions of rental homes the country needs.

America has only one real city

Noahpinion • 45059 implied HN points • 15 Aug 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. The only truly big city in America is New York City. Other cities like Chicago and Boston are not as dense or walkable as NYC.
  2. American cities have policies that limit building tall buildings and creating transit systems. This makes it hard for other cities to become like New York.
  3. Many people want to live in dense, urban areas like NYC. Without more cities like this, housing prices will keep rising and middle-class families may get pushed out.

San Francisco should be profitable—instead property owners are

The Novelleist • 401 implied HN points • 24 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Private land ownership and speculation have let landlords capture rising city land values, leaving municipalities unable to collect that wealth and making housing and public projects unaffordable. This concentration of unearned land rent stalls development and shifts gains away from city residents.
  2. Taxing only the unimproved value of land (a land value tax or Georgism) would punish speculation, encourage productive use of lots, and give cities a reliable revenue stream to fund services and infrastructure without taxing improvements. Land held in trusts or leased publicly achieves similar results by keeping land value for the community.
  3. Political and legal changes centralized tax power away from cities (and limited municipal control over land), so cities are economically productive but lack money and authority to execute big plans. When a city or public trust controls land, however, it can implement master plans and capture the benefits for the public, as seen in places that retain land ownership.

Follow Up to Multiple Binding Constraints Make Housing Analysis Hard

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 358 implied HN points • 09 Mar 26
💼 Business Housing policy
  1. Long-term construction capacity is constrained by hysteresis, so national production can only rise slowly. That makes local demand often hit a fixed national limit, leaving some metros effectively stuck with inelastic supply.
  2. Both claims — that supply is inelastic and that costs are too high — are true and connected. Fast-growing regions bid up inputs and materials, which raises costs elsewhere and pushes those markets into a more inelastic local supply state.
  3. Local reforms like upzoning can boost housing in a city but won’t instantly increase national capacity and can raise input prices elsewhere, so benefits may be limited or temporary. Policy must distinguish short-run vs long-run effects and target the real binding constraints (inputs, financing, regulations) to enable a lasting recovery.

Cities should own their land—like Vienna and Amsterdam

The Novelleist • 184 implied HN points • 02 Mar 26
🪑 Design Housing policy
  1. When a city keeps ownership of its land, it can treat that land as a permanent public asset instead of selling it off, allowing long-term planning and control.
  2. Progressive property taxes tied to rents and apartment size can generate steady revenue that cities can immediately invest in large-scale housing and public infrastructure.
  3. Public land ownership makes it possible to build master-planned neighborhoods with housing plus shared amenities like courtyards, laundries, childcare, and healthcare, producing more stable and higher-quality living for residents.

The Scottish island that bought itself

The Novelleist • 890 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26
🌐 International Housing policy
  1. Communities can buy and own the land they live on: on Eigg residents formed a trust to buy the island, sell 99-year leases to locals, and use the income to reinvest in the community.
  2. The trust acts like a tiny government with representatives from residents, the local council, and a wildlife trust, and it runs infrastructure and services. They built a renewable energy grid and manage tourism so money benefits locals instead of absentee landlords.
  3. Scotland scaled this idea with public funds and land-reform laws that give communities first rights to buy land, leading to hundreds of community-owned estates. This creates many small, self-supporting, resident-controlled places that could be a blueprint for better cities.

Corporations aren't the reason your rent is too high

Noahpinion • 31176 implied HN points • 13 Aug 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. High rent in desirable cities isn't mainly caused by corporations buying homes. The real issue is often local supply shortages and restrictive housing regulations.
  2. Claims about corporations like BlackRock driving up rents are often exaggerated. They own only a small fraction of the housing market and don't significantly affect rental prices.
  3. Corporate landlords can actually help lower housing costs by expanding rental supply, contrary to popular belief that they cause gentrification and higher rents.

Multiple Binding Constraints Make Housing Analysis Hard

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 295 implied HN points • 06 Mar 26
💼 Business Housing policy
  1. Housing supply is highly non-linear: some parts of the curve are nearly vertical (existing homes and permitting caps) while the middle is flat, and national construction capacity is stuck in hysteresis so output can only rise slowly.
  2. Limited capacity and input inflation direct materials to the fastest-growing cities, which pushes up local prices and raises the flat part of their supply curves; that means upzoning or banning big investors may have little effect if a city is on the wrong part of its curve.
  3. Ignoring these multiple binding constraints leads to misleading analysis and bad policy; lowering rents nationally requires raising overall construction capacity and reducing input costs, not just local zoning changes or investor bans.

Decades of Wisdom from an LVT Advocate: Josh Vincent

Progress and Poverty • 615 implied HN points • 24 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. A land value tax (LVT) is a practical way for cities to capture the unearned value of land to fund local services, lower taxes on buildings, and encourage infill development so cities can compete with suburbs.
  2. Getting LVT adopted is a pragmatic, local political project: start with a clear fiscal problem, recruit a local champion, run straightforward data showing most homeowners and small businesses will save, and design a revenue‑neutral shift.
  3. Compared with income, sales, or one‑off wealth taxes (and restrictive rules like Prop 13), LVT is harder to evade, better aligns incentives for land use, and is especially timely as cities and states take on more fiscal responsibility.

Ebenezer Howard built a better city than the government

The Novelleist • 271 implied HN points • 19 Feb 26
💾 History Housing policy
  1. Small, trust-owned garden cities were funded by investors who bought land and master-planned villages, then used rents from homes, shops, and farms to pay for everything.
  2. Each village was run by a charitable trust that collected local rents to fund schools, hospitals, pensions, and other services, shifting welfare funding from national taxes to local income.
  3. The idea mixes market incentives, public welfare, and local self-government by using land rents to finance social programs, and it was actually tested in practice.

Is Undervalued Vacant Land just a Baltimore problem?

Progress and Poverty • 692 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Chronic undervaluation of vacant land is a Baltimore-specific problem — other Maryland counties do not show the same widespread under-assessments.
  2. The state appraisal office has acknowledged the issue in Baltimore and begun fixes, which means the problem is correctable rather than systemic across SDAT.
  3. Fixes focus on better data quality and sales validation, proper use of the allocation method (use a single local land rate derived from prevailing improved-property values), and mapping land values to spot side-by-side inconsistencies.

Land should be a public good—not just private property

The Novelleist • 325 implied HN points • 11 Feb 26
💰 Finance Housing policy
  1. Design cities by starting with a clear vision of how people should live together, using that utopian horizon to guide practical planning choices.
  2. Treat land as a public good and organize its use around long-term stewardship instead of short-term speculation.
  3. Capture and return the value created by land to the community so cities become more stable, humane, and make residents stakeholders in local prosperity.

Mamdani's Estate Tax Will Suffocate NYC's Middle Class

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 44 implied HN points • 13 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. The plan cuts the estate tax exemption to $750,000 and raises the top rate to 50%, which sounds like it targets billionaires but the low threshold changes who actually gets hit.
  2. In New York City, $750,000 is often just a modest family home or the life savings of a teacher, nurse, or firefighter, so many middle-class estates would be taxed.
  3. Using this tax to close budget gaps would leave New York with one of the lowest exemptions in the country and end up taxing ordinary homeowners instead of only extreme wealth.

Landscape 6 – New Year, New Legislative Sessions and Launching the CLE Board

Progress and Poverty • 962 implied HN points • 21 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Land value tax legislation is gaining momentum nationwide, with new bills and carryover proposals active in states like Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Minnesota, Washington, Michigan, and Ohio.
  2. A new Center for Land Economics board has been launched with prominent housing, parking, and policy leaders, signaling more organized and mainstream support for land value tax advocacy.
  3. Media, research, and political figures are increasingly discussing and endorsing land value tax, bringing more attention through reports and editorials even as some local pushback and policy rollbacks occur.

A "Shortage" or "Crisis" versus Regular Scarcity: Part 1

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 358 implied HN points • 16 Feb 26
💼 Business Housing policy
  1. How much of your income goes to housing mostly depends on your income rank, so the common 30% rule is useful because a rise in the share of households above it signals real stress, not just normal variation.
  2. Over the last few decades housing stopped keeping pace with income growth and new homes got smaller, and political limits plus inflated land values have turned that divergence into a real, widespread shortage that would take millions of homes to fix.
  3. Owning and renting are different economic choices—ownership buys control and has different cash flows—so price/rent patterns vary by income and location, and the crisis shows up as people being forced to trade down or leave places they value because local rules block adequate supply.

Good cities can't exist without public order

Noahpinion • 18000 implied HN points • 23 Dec 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Good cities need safety and order for people to feel comfortable walking around. This makes neighborhoods lively and helps build a strong community.
  2. High crime can lead to people opposing new housing and transit options. This fear can contribute to NIMBY attitudes, stopping cities from growing and improving.
  3. Cities in Europe and Asia, along with places like New York City, show that having a strong police presence helps keep areas safe and makes urban living more appealing.

Cool Paper on the progressive effect of upzoning

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 252 implied HN points • 09 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Targeted upzoning mainly triggers redevelopment on low-density, high-value parcels near city centers, and those changes tend to take many years to materialize.
  2. Newly added floorspace lowers rents only modestly and diffusely because supply effects spread across the region, so undoing the large scarcity-driven rent premium would require much larger, citywide building and depends a lot on migration responses.
  3. Mid-20th-century zoning now imposes large welfare losses because floorspace prices far exceed construction costs, and the post-2008 mortgage/finance shock that curtailed suburban single-family building amplified the current housing shortage.

Enacting Land Value Return in your hometown

Progress and Poverty • 923 implied HN points • 18 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Find a local elected champion and build a coalition of nearby allies; motivated local people paired with the right official can win reforms without a huge grassroots movement.
  2. Do the homework: study local law (uniformity, classification, assessment rates, exemptions, millage), involve the assessor early, gather parcel and valuation data, map land values, and model a revenue‑neutral shift so you can show who wins and loses.
  3. Be pragmatic and start small with voluntary, revenue‑neutral local opt‑ins (split‑rate, universal building exemption, leases, or targeted capture), and use short policy briefs and clear visuals to convince busy politicians.

A "Shortage" or "Crisis" versus Regular Scarcity: Part 2

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 126 implied HN points • 17 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Stable rent-to-income ratios hide a real housing shortage because families cope by downsizing, delaying household formation, and accepting lower-quality housing, while prices and low‑tier rents rise much faster than rents for high‑end homes. This means survey spending shares can look unchanged even as scarcity and displacement get worse.
  2. Fixing housing requires a hierarchy of policies: expand single‑family rentals and mortgage access, then upzone to add dense, amenity‑rich housing, and only after that tackle hard socio‑economic planning like public safety and inclusion efforts; badly designed measures like inclusionary zoning can tax new supply and make shortages worse.
  3. Most recent home price gains are driven by inflated land value from scarcity, and broad property taxes already act like a Georgist land tax; building more homes and freeing up supply will reduce the land premium and bring prices down, whereas restricting supply keeps the scarcity tax in place.

Follow Up to Random Thoughts

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 210 implied HN points • 02 Feb 26
💰 Finance Housing policy
  1. The U.S. faces a large housing shortage — at least about 10 million homes and plausibly 12–15 million units — largely because construction fell after 2008 and vacancies have been depleted.
  2. Vacancies are at a functional bottom so new-home production must rise well above current rates to stop rent inflation, and major zoning reforms in supply-constrained (Closed Access) cities are needed to reach the higher end of the required housing.
  3. Per-capita housing consumption and residential investment are well below historical trends — conservatively about 13% below and equivalent to roughly $7 trillion (about 13 years of current investment) — meaning sustained, large-scale building is needed to close the gap.

Let Cities Build Utopia—new drop!

The Novelleist • 86 implied HN points • 10 Feb 26
🪑 Design Housing policy
  1. A long, deeply researched essay about the future of cities is being released as a print pamphlet, digital pamphlet, and audio essay and will be serialized across free and paid installments.
  2. Common models for “cities of the future”—autocratic, corporate, special zones, and charter projects—aren’t true utopias; the research shows companies, investors, island/counties, and tribes have sometimes built more humane, autonomous, and prosperous urban experiments.
  3. The central argument is that future cities should prioritize building utopia—focusing on quality of life, resident autonomy, and long-term resilience rather than only GDP and skyscrapers—and the project itself is an experiment in slow journalism with contributors credited and 10% of sales going back to the researchers and collaborators.

The Challenge of Commercial Upzoning

The Discourse Lounge • 854 implied HN points • 19 Nov 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Commercial upzoning can create more housing, but it needs to be balanced so local businesses can survive. Business owners worry that new developments will push them out and replace them with chain stores that can afford higher rents.
  2. The process to open a business can take a long time due to complex city rules, which can harm local shops. Simplifying the permit system could help more businesses start and thrive in the community.
  3. What happens to commercial spaces after new housing is built is important. It’s necessary to have a mix of housing and businesses to keep areas lively and support a walkable community.

“We Are Not as Wealthy as We Thought We Were”

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 505 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25
💰 Finance Housing policy
  1. Much of the $58 trillion in U.S. residential real estate value reflects higher prices on existing homes caused by constrained supply, so it is rent extraction rather than new wealth from better housing.
  2. New home construction has lagged, reversing the old "filtering down" process so older homes now "filter up," raising rents and lowering real incomes—especially for lower-income families.
  3. Official household net worth is overstated because future rent gains are counted as assets while the costs to tenants are not counted as liabilities, meaning measured wealth rose without improving living standards.

“We Are Not as Wealthy as We Thought We Were”: Part 3

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 421 implied HN points • 26 Dec 25
💼 Business Housing policy
  1. Filtering describes how homes change hands over time, and while houses used to "filter down" to lower-income buyers, since about 2008 many places have seen upward filtering where higher-income families replace lower-income ones and pay more for land rather than better homes.
  2. Upward filtering forces people into hard compromises — renters face steadily rising rents and many families are pushed to move away from schools, jobs, and social networks to avoid being priced out.
  3. The shift toward upward filtering is tied to chronic housing undersupply and restrictive permitting, so much of the apparent rise in household wealth is actually land-value gains captured by owners, not broader improvements in people's living standards.

It's Happening. Not good.

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 6870 implied HN points • 25 Jan 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Bills are being introduced in many states to stop corporations from owning single-family homes. This could seriously limit where families can live.
  2. There is a big need for new homes, around 15 to 20 million, but these new laws might block the creation of rental houses that could help solve the housing crisis.
  3. Many families are already struggling to find places to live, and if these bills pass, things could get even worse. It's like we're making it harder for ourselves to find good housing.

Anti-Abundance Types Are Wrong About Housing Market Concentration

Richard Hanania's Newsletter • 3462 implied HN points • 02 Jun 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Housing prices are rising mainly due to supply restrictions, not because of big companies controlling the market. If there are fewer houses available, prices go up.
  2. Although some believe that market concentration in housing is a problem, evidence shows that the housing market is actually quite competitive across the U.S.
  3. Some regions with stricter zoning laws face higher housing costs, suggesting that easing these regulations could help make housing more affordable.

What's the matter with SoDoSoPa?

Urben Field Notes • 97 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Housing policy
  1. City rezoning and artists moving into cheap lofts turned old industrial buildings into desirable live-work neighborhoods. This cultural rebranding made them attractive to the creative class and developers.
  2. People were drawn to these areas because they are walkable, centrally located, and relatively affordable. Restrictive zoning elsewhere and a shortage of similar housing funneled demand into industrial districts.
  3. Post-industrial neighborhoods reveal broader economic and cultural shifts and act as symbols of urban change. They can revitalize cities but also fuel gentrification and displacement, so results differ by place.

DeSantis is Half-Right About Property Taxes

Progress and Poverty • 1885 implied HN points • 16 Jul 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. DeSantis wants to remove property taxes, but he should keep the tax on land. Building taxes can hurt investment and should be removed since they don’t help with housing affordability.
  2. Land taxes are important because they make sure the community benefits from land value. If landowners aren't taxed, they might just sit on land without developing it, which can hurt the economy.
  3. DeSantis has a chance to be a leader in property tax reform, but he needs to understand the difference between building and land taxes. Removing just the building tax but keeping the land tax could lead to better development and growth.

No. Fed stimulus doesn't hurt first-time homebuyers

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 126 implied HN points • 27 Jan 26
💰 Finance Housing policy
  1. Changes in mortgage rates mainly shift short-term buying and prices, but they don't plausibly explain large, long-term declines in the share of first-time homebuyers.
  2. Factors like credit access rules, down-payment/LTV constraints, repeat-buyer activity, foreclosure and seller swings, and housing supply shortages are more important and lasting drivers of homeownership patterns.
  3. Empirical models that accumulate transitory rate shocks or use unrealistic assumptions (no construction, exogenous rents) can give misleading causal conclusions, so housing research needs better counterfactuals and out-of-sample testing.

A few takeaways from my friend’s new paper on loneliness

Sex and the State • 35 implied HN points • 17 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Housing policy
  1. Intensive parenting, later marriage, and fear of downward mobility are contributing to lower birthrates as people choose to have fewer or no children.
  2. Lonely people are more vulnerable to advertisers, cults, and political manipulation, and screens and social media worsen isolation by replacing real-life social time.
  3. Economic and social sorting — wealthy people clustering in homogeneous enclaves while poorer areas lose social capital — creates a vicious cycle that traps people in poverty and isolation, and it can be eased by mixed-income housing, more public social spaces, and policies that rebuild local civic life.