The hottest Land use Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top U.S. Politics Topics

🏙️ Higher love: The case for building up

Faster, Please! • 1188 implied HN points • 22 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. There’s broad agreement that the US needs more housing and that regulations block much of that supply, but current fixes like small infill and accessory units are too modest to meet the scale of the problem.
  2. Cities need to build up as well as out—taller buildings are a key way to increase density and urban productivity rather than just expanding footprints.
  3. Without allowing significant height, America’s most productive cities will constrain growth, so bolder vertical development is required to unlock more housing and economic opportunity.

Reading List 02/06/2026

Construction Physics • 12318 implied HN points • 06 Feb 26
🌞 Climate & Environment Land use
  1. US construction productivity is slipping because technological progress is slow, land-use rules are restrictive, and measurement problems hide the full picture.
  2. House price growth tracks average income growth more than median income, so affordability problems are tied to top-end income gains; renting costs less than owning in major metros and builders are pushing big programs to fill a large housing shortfall.
  3. Federal permitting uncertainty is delaying many wind and solar projects, but political opinion and industry moves are nudging solar forward, with new domestic panel manufacturing, landfill and rooftop deployments, and legislative proposals to create permitting certainty.

Stop idolizing Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and PrĂłspera

The Novelleist • 130 implied HN points • 10 Mar 26
🌍 World Politics Land use
  1. Autonomy for cities is promising but not enough on its own; good outcomes also require the right governance, policies, and attention to quality of life.
  2. Hong Kong shows that having near-identical autonomy and land-rent systems to Singapore didn’t produce the same results, so similar powers can lead to different outcomes.
  3. Don’t idolize Hong Kong, Shenzhen, or Próspera as automatic blueprints; there are other, better examples and deeper lessons to learn when building utopian cities.

The IBX could be the start of an outer borough transit renaissance

Urben Field Notes • 124 implied HN points • 17 Mar 26
🪑 Design Land use
  1. The IBX will create a new 14-mile orbital light-rail across Brooklyn and Queens that shortens cross-borough trips, serves subway deserts, and offers faster, high-ridership transit for many neighborhoods.
  2. How useful the line is will hinge on transfer quality, train speed and frequency (including possible automation), and better connecting services like more frequent LIRR trains to avoid new congestion.
  3. The IBX could spark major neighborhood development and reshape regional travel patterns, but those broader benefits require zoning changes and additional complementary transit investments.

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 Land use
  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.
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My native intelligence considers AI data centers

The Crucial Years • 2700 implied HN points • 21 Feb 26
🌞 Climate & Environment Land use
  1. The fast rush to build AI data centers could massively raise electricity use and lead to lots of onsite gas plants, heavy water use, and local pollution unless projects are powered by new clean energy.
  2. There’s real uncertainty about how much useful, profitable demand AI will actually create, so many proposed data centers may be speculative and the industry could be in a bubble.
  3. Communities and advocates are calling for pauses and stronger rules because of climate and local harms, and there’s a growing need for transparency and clean-energy requirements if these projects move forward.

It's time to abolish Natural England

Odds and Ends of History • 1675 implied HN points • 25 Feb 26
🌞 Climate & Environment Land use
  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.

San Francisco should be profitable—instead property owners are

The Novelleist • 401 implied HN points • 24 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  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.

The Housing Crisis as a Land Crisis

Progress and Poverty • 2155 implied HN points • 05 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. The housing affordability problem is really a land crisis: scarce, desirable urban land near jobs and amenities is constrained, so prices rise even though there’s plenty of land elsewhere and building costs themselves haven’t driven the spike.
  2. A long run of policy and technological changes de-densified cities, and modern shifts (congestion, tighter credit, dual-career households, more single adults) have re-concentrated demand in a few job-rich places, making central land much more valuable and harder to expand.
  3. Solving the problem means loosening the land constraint — allow more housing where demand is highest and curb land speculation with tools like land value taxes or public land leasing so the location premium benefits the community.

Disney World has more autonomy than any US city

The Novelleist • 260 implied HN points • 26 Feb 26
🪑 Design Land use
  1. EPCOT was meant to be a real, master-planned city with affordable homes, monorail commutes, lots of green space, and pedestrian-first design—not just another theme park.
  2. Disney treated Disneyland as a live lab for advanced transit, robotics, crowd flows, and pristine urban design that planners and transit agencies studied and admired.
  3. By buying vast contiguous land and creating the Reedy Creek Improvement District, Disney gained near-sovereign powers to run roads, utilities, public safety, transit, waste, and even issue bonds—more autonomy than most U.S. cities.

The Housing Ladder's Broken Promise

Progress and Poverty • 2347 implied HN points • 29 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. Housing cannot be both widely affordable and treated as a perpetually appreciating investment; treating homes as investment vehicles pushes prices up and locks many people out.
  2. If the conflict is left unresolved the system can break in several bad ways—sudden crashes that wreck the economy, slow neo-feudal stagnation where landlords extract huge rents, or demographic decline as people leave or fail to form families.
  3. A practical off-ramp is to unlock supply and curb land speculation: make it easier to build (YIMBY reforms) and shift taxes onto land value (Georgist ideas) so housing becomes more affordable without unfairly wrecking current owners.

Another cool paper and more notes on a bad paper on housing supply

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 463 implied HN points • 02 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. Preapproved permits carry a large market premium: land and sites with ready-to-issue permits sell for much more and are far likelier to be developed, so permitting frictions explain a meaningful share of the gap between housing prices and construction costs.
  2. Common economic models and supply measures rest on assumptions like identical workers and costless mobility that don’t match how people actually behave, so those models can misread affordability, displacement, and migration dynamics.
  3. The 2008 mortgage crash and collapse in single-family construction shifted the supply picture nationwide, making many standard metro-level supply metrics uninformative; high prices in expensive cities often reflect broad demand vs. constrained supply, not unique local popularity.

Multiple Binding Constraints Make Housing Analysis Hard

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 295 implied HN points • 06 Mar 26
đź’Ľ Business Land use
  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 Land use
  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.

Is Undervalued Vacant Land just a Baltimore problem?

Progress and Poverty • 692 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  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.

Georgism through Land Leasing

Progress and Poverty • 2078 implied HN points • 06 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. Municipal land leasing is a practical, proven form of Georgist policy that can generate substantial, ongoing public revenue and fund local projects.
  2. Long-term ground leases with reassessment points, lump-sum payments, annual fees, and repossession clauses let cities monetize land while retaining ownership and capture rising land value in predictable ways.
  3. Leasehold monetization requires capable public development authorities and a more hands-on planning role, so it’s not a perfect substitute for land value taxation, but it is often more politically feasible and complementary to tax reforms.

Land should be a public good—not just private property

The Novelleist • 325 implied HN points • 11 Feb 26
đź’° Finance Land use
  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.

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 Land use
  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
đź’Ľ Business Land use
  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.

We could produce a lot of electricity on the land used for biofuels

Sustainability by numbers • 620 implied HN points • 27 Jan 26
🌞 Climate & Environment Land use
  1. Putting solar panels on the roughly 32 million hectares now used for biofuels could generate about 32,000 TWh, which is roughly the world’s current annual electricity demand.
  2. That same land could easily power an all-electric global car and truck fleet (around 7,000 TWh), showing solar plus electrification is far more land-efficient than growing biofuels.
  3. Biofuels cannot realistically decarbonize aviation: using all current biofuels for jets would at best cover about one-third of demand, and collecting all waste cooking oils would only supply roughly 4%.

One Thing Becomes A Million Things

Everything Is Amazing • 801 implied HN points • 17 Jan 26
🌞 Climate & Environment Land use
  1. Sleeping outdoors can turn a vague idea of "nature" into a million small details — learning to ID trees and routines makes the world feel more familiar and alive.
  2. Modern wild camping is often practical and gear-driven: people use tarps, ridgelines, cars or vans, gyms and laundrettes to make living outside feasible while trying to follow Leave No Trace.
  3. It comes with real trade-offs — legal and safety risks, a risk of feeling privileged or exploitative, and the danger of treating nature as a quick health cure — so be cautious, respectful and realistic.

SimParkingLot is no fun

Urben Field Notes • 448 implied HN points • 12 Jan 26
🪑 Design Land use
  1. American parking rules have produced an enormous supply of parking—about two billion spaces—and that land use eats up more area than entire states.
  2. Parking minimums are often arbitrary, copied from other places, or set for rare peak days, which leads cities to require far more parking than is actually needed and shapes what developments are possible.
  3. The net effect is a car‑centered, asphalt‑dominated built environment where buildings are surrounded by parking, making walkable, lively neighborhoods difficult to create.

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

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 126 implied HN points • 17 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  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.

What happened to global carbon emissions this year?

Sustainability by numbers • 563 implied HN points • 13 Nov 25
🌞 Climate & Environment Land use
  1. Fossil CO2 emissions went up by about 1% this year. This increase is concerning because we really need those numbers to start going down.
  2. On a positive note, emissions from land use changed and decreased, which helps balance out the rise in fossil emissions. Factors like lower deforestation rates have contributed to this decline.
  3. Despite some positive trends, it's clear we are not on track to meet the 1.5°C climate goal. We need much faster reductions in emissions to limit global warming effectively.

From Ice-Age Mammoths to Serengeti Wildebeest: The Cost of Human Intrusion

Adetokunbo Sees • 104 implied HN points • 06 Dec 25
🌞 Climate & Environment Land use
  1. Human expansion and exploitation have repeatedly broken huge animal migrations and driven species to extinction.
  2. The Serengeti-Mara migration is now shrinking because of farming, fences, rising human populations, and luxury tourism, causing major habitat loss and steep wildlife declines.
  3. Protecting migrations will require concrete actions like limiting high-impact developments, banning fences and dams, and cracking down on poaching and the illegal wildlife trade.

American water is too clean

The Works in Progress Newsletter • 28 implied HN points • 28 Jan 26
🌞 Climate & Environment Land use
  1. Since the 1970s the federal government centralized water regulation, removing local control and imposing stringent standards that have driven up utility costs and household water bills.
  2. Many recent EPA rules force expensive infrastructure projects and hookup moratoria while delivering little measurable health benefit, saddling cities with debt and limiting housing and growth.
  3. A smarter approach is to let local communities balance costs and benefits, use market tools like trading or better pricing, and target cheaper fixes (for example reducing agricultural runoff) rather than chasing near‑zero risk at any cost.

The Physiocratic Platform: Land Tax

Contemplations on the Tree of Woe • 1108 implied HN points • 27 Oct 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. A land value tax (LVT) is different from a property tax because it only taxes the value of the land itself, not any buildings on it. This means it encourages landowners to use their land efficiently.
  2. Implementing a 2% LVT could raise a lot of money for government services while avoiding economic issues that other taxes might cause. It's seen as a less harmful option for funding government needs.
  3. There are ways to protect homeowners from being forced out of their homes due to rising land taxes, like exemptions for primary residences or allowing tax deferrals until the property is sold.

No, everyone isn't going to move to New York City

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 252 implied HN points • 11 Jul 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. Fixing land use rules and mortgage financing could lead to a significant increase in housing construction. This could help reduce rising rents in major cities.
  2. There is a shortage of homes in popular cities like New York and San Francisco, but building more homes won’t necessarily mean a huge influx of new residents. Many displaced families would return instead.
  3. The claim that everyone wants to move to big cities is overstated. Many people who would prefer to live in those areas are already there or have been forced to leave due to affordability issues.

S.F.’s Marina District towers are bad, actually

Urben Field Notes • 27 implied HN points • 19 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. A developer used the State Density Bonus and a zoning loophole to propose a 25‑story tower on a site zoned for four stories, effectively letting builders waive height and bulk limits and defeating the point of zoning.
  2. Density bonuses should be tied to clear, objective height rules — for example a percentage above the zoned height or an absolute cap like double the allowed height — so bonuses increase homes without obliterating predictable zoning.
  3. Cities do need more housing, but growth should be guided by context: protect iconic waterfronts and steer taller buildings to transit-rich corridors so planning and public shape of the city still matter.

70% Renewable Energy By 2035? Physics Vs. Politics

Japan Economy Watch • 219 implied HN points • 21 Jul 23
🌞 Climate & Environment Land use
  1. Achieving 70% renewable energy in Japan by 2035 is technically and economically feasible.
  2. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) has a more pessimistic view on renewable energy due to geographical and physical challenges, suggesting the need for more modest goals and continued reliance on nuclear and fossil fuels.
  3. Regulations, business practices, and government policies are the main hurdles to faster adoption of renewable energy in Japan, not geographical limitations or costs.

Expensive Cities Aren't Attractive Cities: Follow Up

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 273 implied HN points • 16 Dec 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. Expensive cities are usually not as desirable as people think. They often have high rents and limited growth due to strict building rules.
  2. Increasing the number of homes over time can help lower housing costs, but this process takes years and won't cause quick drops in prices.
  3. Arguments against the YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) movement often rely on unproven claims. In reality, cities that allow more development can remain affordable and vibrant.

The Need to Prioritize | YIMBYtown 2024

Cornerstone • 59 implied HN points • 08 Mar 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. Not everything can be the best use of time and energy, prioritizing tasks is necessary to achieve goals efficiently.
  2. When advocating for housing reform, it's important to consider the trade-offs between policies with political power and those that directly impact housing production and affordability.
  3. In the realm of housing policies, prioritizing ADUs, mid-rise housing, and transit-oriented development can lead to significant positive impacts on housing availability and affordability.

Can Jeremy Corbyn save HS3?

Odds and Ends of History • 67 implied HN points • 28 Jul 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana are starting a new political party focused on housing and energy issues. They want to address the concerns of the populist left.
  2. The podcast discusses two housing projects in Peckham and Edgware, showing how affordable housing influences community decisions.
  3. Former nuclear minister Philip Hunt shares insights on energy projects like Sizewell C and the need for Britain's energy future.

Zhou Tianyong on the colossal waste from China's land planning

Pekingnology • 52 implied HN points • 20 Jun 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. China's strict land management system is causing job losses and lowering consumer demand. This is because it makes it hard for people to use land effectively.
  2. The gap between urban and rural incomes is huge. Urban households earn much more, leading to inequality and less spending power for rural families.
  3. To boost the economy, China needs to reform its land system. Making it easier to buy, sell, and lease land could create jobs and increase household incomes.

Biofuels: the US could switch to electric cars and solar power on just a fraction of the land

Sustainability by numbers • 296 implied HN points • 05 Sep 23
🌞 Climate & Environment Land use
  1. Growing biofuels in the US is a poor use of land, especially when solar energy needs much less land and could power the country three times over.
  2. Biofuels may not have as positive an impact on the environment as initially assumed, with some studies suggesting they could increase emissions.
  3. Switching from biofuels to solar power for electric cars in the US could significantly reduce land use and still meet transportation needs.

How to redraw a city

The Works in Progress Newsletter • 17 implied HN points • 18 Jun 25
🪑 Design Land use
  1. Japan's cities transformed rapidly thanks to a planning method called land readjustment. This approach helps organize land into larger areas for better infrastructure while ensuring fairness for landowners.
  2. Infrastructure is crucial for city development, but it can be tricky because it often doesn't generate direct revenue. Japan managed to tackle this by sharing the benefits of new developments with everyone involved.
  3. Land readjustment isn't just useful in Japan; it has been applied successfully in other countries too. When communities feel included and can benefit from changes, it leads to better urban planning outcomes.

Dallas vs. Austin: Brief Clarification

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 21 implied HN points • 24 Jan 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. Dallas and Austin are two different cities with their own unique characteristics. It's good to know what sets them apart when considering living or investing there.
  2. Understanding the housing market in both cities can help you make better decisions. Each area has different trends and demands.
  3. Comparing these cities can provide insights into job opportunities and lifestyle options. It’s important to think about what matters most to you.

Why Is The US Media Ignoring America's Greatest Diamond Discovery?

C.O.P. Central Organizing Principle. • 18 implied HN points • 06 Dec 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Land use
  1. A person found several valuable diamonds on their land in Martha's Vineyard, but the media hasn't shown much interest in the discovery. This diamond discovery could lead to a significant economic boom for the area.
  2. There are concerns that wealthy property owners don't want a diamond rush because it might disrupt their luxury lifestyle and increase competition for land. This creates tension between working-class property owners and the wealthy elite.
  3. The potential for a diamond boom could benefit many local landowners and stimulate job growth, but it faces resistance from local councils focused on maintaining their image rather than addressing community needs.