Austin Contrarian

The dark side of social capital

2013-04-24T14:17:59-05:00

From the introduction to a refreshingly contrarian article by Stephanie Stern, a law professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law:

In 2007, accompanied by a firestorm of publicity, Robert Putnam announced that residential racial diversity causes declines in social capital. Social capital is a prominent theory, popularized by Putnam, of the aggregate value of citizen participation in associations and organizations, social ties and networks, civic engagement, trust, and norms of reciprocity. In a study of forty-one U.S. communities, Putnam found that people living in racially diverse communities were less likely to work on a community project or volunteer, less likely to expect others to cooperate to solve collective problems, reported lower trust in others, had fewer close friendship ties, expressed less confidence in local government, and registered to vote lessfrequently. Most provocatively, Putnam found a strong “hunker[ing] down” effect, contrary to both the constrict and contact hypotheses of integration, where racial diversity caused residents of diverse communities to withdraw from social and civic life and report lower trust in members of other races and their own race. Unsurprisingly (to all but Robert Putnam it seems), his research provoked a torrent of political commentary and academic response. Conservative commentators argued that the findings called into question the value of racial mixing, headlines trumpeted the conclusion that “greater diversity equals more misery,” and Putnam’s research featured in a recent amicus brief as evidence against the value of affirmative action in college admissions. Sociologists and economists reanalyzed Putnam’s data and conducted their own empirical studies to assess his findings (these studies indicate that the diversity decrement is statistically significant, but small). Legal scholars accepted, albeit unhappily, the conclusion that racial diversity diminishes local social capital.

Curiously, in the handwringing about the harms to social capital and the ensuing debate, no one questioned whether the problem was social capital. From a property scholar’s perspective, one plausible interpretation of the correlation between high social capital and low diversity is that high social capital reduces the costs of excluding minorities (i.e., the non-dominant race in a community) and maintaining racial homogeneity. Holding preferences for racial homogeneity constant and positive, there may be reverse causation: high social capital, in the form of close social networks and strong tastes for organizational participation and voluntary action, may facilitate community organizing to exclude by race or class through both informal and legal mechanisms. The motivation for exclusion may be preferences for homogeneity, increased property values from exclusionary land use policies, or in predominantly minority, lower-income areas, concerns that white gentrification will make housing unaffordable. Conversely, low social capital may make it difficult for residents to organize to exclude and may result in greater racial fractionalization.

More succinctly: social capital facilitates NIMBYism.

The whole point of social capital, after all, is to facilitate collective action. It's usually bandied as a cure for commons-type problems like littered parks or crime-infested streets, but there's no reason to assume a neighborhood will deploy its social capital only for wise and benevolent ends. A neighborhood that is adept at organizing litter patrols and crime watches will also likely be adept at organizing opposition to real estate developments that threaten to add economic or racial diversity. If this is the case, then we should expect, rather than be surprised, to see high social capital negatively correlated with diversity.

For the last forty or fifty years, American zoning law has drifted in the direction of increasing the voice of local neighborhoods and organizations in the land-use process. But if neighborhood organizations are where parochialism and outsider-paranoia go to breed, this has been a drift in the wrong direction. Too many projects become subject to too many local vetoes, and we end up with too little housing, too much parking, too few shops and businesses, and sterile, drab cityscapes. Perhaps land-use and zoning regulations should be more concerned with protecting cities from social capital rather than enhancing it.

Here is the full abstract:

Social capital has pervaded property law, with scholars and policymakers advocating laws and property arrangements to promote social capital and relying on social capital to devolve property governance from legal institutions to resident groups. This Article challenges the prevailing view of social capital’s salutary effects with a more skeptical account that examines the dark side of residential social capital—its capacity to effectuate local factions and promote restraints and inegalitarianism that close off property. I introduce a set of claims about social capital’s dark side in residential property and explore these points through the examples of local racial purging, land cartels, and residential self-governance. First, contrary to the assumption of a social capital deficit, residential racial segregation and land cartelization, perhaps the deepest imprints on the American property landscape today, suggest an abundance of local social capital and possible unintended consequences of interventions to build social capital. Second, “governing by social capital,” or relying on social capital for property self-governance, may empower factions, breed conflict, and increase the demand for residential homogeneity as a proxy for cooperation. In light of the mixed evidence for social capital’s benefits and its sizeable dark side, the more pressing and productive role for property law is not to promote social capital, but to address its negative spillovers and illiberal effects.

Trading Places

2013-04-04T00:27:44-05:00

From Wells Dunbar, writing at KUT News:

It’s no secret Interstate 35 congestion takes a toll on Austinites.

Out of a list of Texas’ 100 most congested roadways, the portion of I-35 running through central Austin is the fourth most congested in the state. Meanwhile, State Highway 130, out east of I-35, is open for business.

Officials have tried all manner of incentives to divert traffic from I-35 to SH 130, including the lure of an 85 mph speed limit.

But SH 130 is tolled and I-35 isn’t. That has some folks asking if we’re tolling the wrong road.

Like me. (I'm quoted.)

Some Legislators are inching closer to this. Representative Paul Workman recently proposed making SH 130 toll free, using the state's rainy day fund to make up the lost toll revenue.

I say "inching," but that's halfway there, right?

Eliminating tolls on lightly-traveled SH 130 in order to reduce congestion on badly-congested I-35 would make everyone who drives either route better off (or at least no worse off), but of course at a pretty steep loss of revenue to the state government. Eliminating tolls on SH 130 and imposing variable tolls on I-35 would maximize aggregate welfare (mainly by converting wasted time into useful money), but some drivers would be better off and some worse off. Not surprisingly, it's the "make SH 130 free" half of the plan that gets proposed first.

Routefacts.org

2013-04-03T23:37:03-05:00

Austinites for Urban Rail Action (AURA) has a new page up: Routefacts.org, a "one-stop repository of the key facts in the Austin urban rail sequencing debate." The idea is that there should be something approximating a public debate on the initial alignment of Austin's urban rail line, which in turn requires careful sifting of facts and data.

Of course, AURA's main point -- a point Routefacts.org makes quite effectively -- is that that the facts are mostly unknown and the data are mostly undisclosed. For example, we have ridership estimates for the proposed Mueller line, but not Guadalupe/Lamar. Advocates who want a robust public debate on alignment are left to fend for themselves using bus ridership numbers or estimates for the 2000 light rail route that are now over 13 years old.

Watson responds

2013-04-02T09:16:35-05:00

Senator Kirk Watson responded in the comments to my criticism of his bill to incorporate the Congress Avenue Overlay into state law. I don't get many comments from elected officials, much less state senators, so the comment rates its own post.

Thanks for opening this discussion about the bill I've filed with Rep. Howard to preserve the most famous view of one of our most famous and important buildings in Austin. A couple of points I think I need to make:

First of all, this legislation would preserve what the City of Austin has done - it reinforces what the city has passed and implemented, and it acknowledges the variances that the council has already passed. That's the opposite of Austin-bashing bills that seek to undo a city policy or program. This aligns state law with city policy, and it helps ensure that the legislature won't work to actually undermine that policy in the future to help projects that the city doesn't want.

Beyond that, let's face it: the Capitol View Corridor is a technical name for something that the people of Austin place enormous value in. The view of the Capitol, and this view from Congress in particular, is an iconic part of the Capitol City - you see that every time someone stops when crossing Congress (hopefully with the walk sign) to take a picture of the Capitol up the street. It's been a vital part of this city since Edwin Waller first laid out the streets for our downtown in 1839 and designated this part of the city for the Capitol.

I remember the complaints in the late-80s about how new high-rises were blocking the view of the Capitol, and the grim jokes about how developers were going to start building in the middle of the street. How would Austinites react if 21st Century high-rises encroached on their Capitol view even more? No other Texas city has this wonderful downtown resource; it can't be the first thing we sacrifice in the name of making things easier for certain developers and property owners.

Furthermore, keep in mind, this beautiful building is in Austin, but it belongs to all of Texas. Legislators from other places like that they and their constituents can see it. It's much, much better to get rules in place before there's a problem than to deal with repercussions after a problematic project goes up.

One other point that needs to be made: there's no question that there should be opportunities to enhance our 24-hour downtown. But the notion that a lively downtown requires huge new buildings that encroach on the Capitol view and violate longstanding city policy is simply wrong. The Warehouse District, Sixth Street, South Congress and the Second Street Retail District - to name just four - all speak to that.

So it's a false choice to say that we have to choose between creating a vibrant section of downtown or preserving a famous, beloved view of the Capitol. Instead, what Rep. Howard's and my bill declares is that developers have to conform with Austin's figurative view of its downtown and our literal views within downtown. The bill rejects piecemeal development that's done on-the-cheap and variance-by-variance. And it ensures our community's face and its future aren't made subservient to private-sector profits.

I understand there are problematic properties on Congress that are difficult to develop under these long-standing rules and policies. But it's not the responsibility of the people of Austin and Texas to sacrifice something we hold dear and fundamental to our identity simply to solve the problems of the private sector. And don't forget, even if this bill passes, any indisputably good development can still come to the legislature and get exempted from this law.

So this bill doesn't end development on Congress. It simply limits bad development that encroaches on something Austinites hold dear, and it helps us preserve this thing that makes Austin special.

I appreciate the response and will put up something later responding to a few of these points.

Senator Watson has introduced a bill to strip Council of discretion to grant variances from the Congress Avenue Overlay

2013-03-28T17:29:53-05:00

Back in the 1980s, the Austin City Council adopted something called the Congress Avenue Overlay. The Overlay, which applies to both sides of Congress Avenue between Lady Bird Lake and the Capitol, requires any portion of a structure over 90' high to step back at least 60' from Congress Avenue. Its purpose, City code tells us, is to "protect the historic character and symbolic significance of Congress Avenue and to enhance the pedestrian environment of the area." Austin City Code Sec. 25-2-165(A).

The Congress Avenue Overlay, until now, has been purely a creature of City ordinance, unlike the Capitol View Corridors, which are established by both City ordinance and state statute.

Austin's own Senator Kirk Watson wants to fix this. He's introduced a bill (SB 1272) that would prohibit the construction of new structures over 90' tall within 40' of Congress Avenue's eastern boundary and within 60' of Congress Avenue's western boundary. This would eliminate Council's discretion to weigh various public interests and grant variances from the Overlay.

I could understand such a bill being pushed by an Austin-bashing legislator from, say, Dallas, but this seems like a very odd piece of legislation for a former Austin mayor to propose.

I don't say this merely because I believe the Congress Avenue Overlay to be a bad bit of regulation (although I do believe it to be a bad bit of regulation). Fettering Council discretion like this is automatically bad for the City.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that requiring deep stepbacks along Congress Avenue vindicates some sort of public interest in the street's historic character or pedestrian charm or views of the Capitol. There are other interests at stake as well. These include the City's interest in redeveloping stagnant sections of Congress, its interest in encouraging the elimination of surface parking lots along Congress, and its interest in providing more room for hotels and office space along Congress. As things stand now, Council has the discretion to weigh the individual pros and cons of a specific project and decide whether the City's residents will receive a net benefit from a variance. Council also enjoys a lot of discretion to impose conditions on a variance, including design criteria that make the building more pedestrian-friendly.

Council has granted such variances in the past for buildings on the east side of Congress Avenue -- most notably, the Frost Bank Tower, for which it reduced the setback from 60' to 40'. (I'm sure it's no coincidence that Senator Watson's bill adopts 40' for the eastern setback rather than the 60' provided by City ordinance.) On the other hand, Council recently rejected a variance for a proposed hotel on the west corner of 8th and Congress. In the case of the Frost Bank Tower, Council concluded the benefits from the project outweighed the costs of allowing the intrusion into the setback. In the case of the Austin Hotel, it concluded the opposite.

The point isn't that one decision was right and the other wrong. The point is that Council has a bunch of interests to weigh, and in a specific case, the benefits of allowing a building to intrude into the setback might outweigh the "cost" of the intrusion. A bill like Senator Watson's strips Council of its ability to weigh various interests, and elevates the interest served by the Congress Avenue Overlay (whatever that is) above everything else.

What's more, Senator Watson's bill has no variance process. Anyone who wants to build in the setback will have to start by finding a senator or representative willing to sponsor a piece of legislation. That's probably too high a hurdle for any development project to jump. Such projects simply will not be proposed. This will make it impossible to track the opportunity cost of the Overlay in the long run. How can you keep a tally of foresaken projects when the projects are never even proposed?

There is value in a city having the right to make its own land-use decisions without having to appeal to state officials. That was obvious enough to Senator Watson yesterday, when he was quoted in the Statesman making similar arguments. Representative Paul Workman has introduced several bills that would limit cities' authority to restrict impervious cover, among things. According to the Statesman:

State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, the bulwark for Austin against such proposals, said the Legislature shouldn’t step into what he considers a city matter.

“People who oppose development rules that Austin has lived under for more than 20 years have every right to try to change them through traditional democratic means at City Hall,” Watson said. “But when they start to turn legislators — most of whom live a long way from Austin — into a city of Austin appeals court, it starts to look a little undemocratic. That’s why the Legislature has been so skeptical of Austin-bashing bills in recent years. And it’s why I think legislators will be skeptical of these, as well.”

If a city should have the right to regulate impervious cover limits in its boondocks, then shouldn't it have the right to regulate its own main street? I don't understand how Senator Watson can oppose Workman's bills under a "cities' rights" theory while proposing to micromanage his own hometown's main street. Representative Workman's bills would apply to every city in the state, so they at least have the appearance of being evenhanded; Senator Watson's bill targets a specific street in Austin.

Austin City Council is more than capable of weighing the various public interests at play on Congress Avenue. The City should be left alone.

Austinites for Urban Rail Action

2013-03-11T14:08:01-05:00

Jace Deloney and Julio Gonzalez Altamirano have formed Austinites for Urban Rail Action (AURA) to advocate for a "successful, open and transparent urban rail process." Follow AURA on Facebook. Or twitter. (Or both.)

The impetus for AURA is the route selection for Austin's initial urban rail line. Should the initial line go up Guadalupe and Lamar, the route proposed in 2000, or instead run out to Mueller?

I'm no transit expert, but I vote Guadalupe/Lamar. Guadalupe/Lamar has more existing, proven demand (i.e., much higher bus ridership). The Guadalupe/Lamar corridor is basically at capacity right now, so light rail in reserved guideway could increase the corridor's throughput. And Guadalupe/Lamar has better geometry -- a long, straight line criss-crossed by most of the important east-west corridors north of UT. A Guadalupe/Lamar line could serve as the backbone for north Austin's mass transit system. A line to the Mueller Town Center couldn't.

I gather that AURA has not been created to advocate a specific route, though, but to advocate a public, data-driven route-selection process. We haven't had a public, data-driven discussion of the alternatives yet, and it's not clear that we're going to get one. AURA aims to fix that.

Along these lines, here is Julio's excellent post on the need for more data.

Will Austin's forthcoming bag ban make (some of us) sick?

2013-01-10T17:24:46-06:00

Maybe. According to this paper (pdf) by Jonathan Klick and Joshua Wright, San Francisco experienced a spike in ER visits from food-borne illness when it adopted its ban in 2007. From the paper's introduction:

In an effort to reduce litter and protect marine animals, jurisdictions across the globe are considering banning plastic grocery bags. In the US, California leads the way. San Francisco enacted a county-wide ban covering large grocery stores and drug stores in 2007. It extended this ban to all retail establishments in early 2012. Los Angeles followed suit in 2012, as did a number of smaller cities throughout the state. Some municipalities have imposed taxes on the bags rather than implement direct bans.

These bans are designed to induce individuals to use reusable grocery bags, in the hope that a reduction in the use of plastic bags will lead to less litter. Recent studies, however, suggest that reusable grocery bags harbor harmful bacteria, the most important of which is E. coli. If individuals fail to clean their reusable bags, these bacteria may lead to contamination of the food transported in the bags. Such contamination has the potential to lead to health problems and even death.

We examine the pattern of emergency room admissions related to bacterial intestinal infections, especially those related to E. coli around the implementation of the San Francisco County ban in October 2007. We find that ER admissions increase by at least one fourth relative to other California counties. Subsequent bans in other California municipalities resulted in similar increases. An examination of deaths related to intestinal infections shows a comparable increase.

Using standard estimates of the statistical value of life, we show that the health costs associated with the San Francisco ban swamp any budgetary savings from reduced litter. This assessment is unlikely to be reversed even if fairly liberal estimates of the other environmental benefits are included.

This is a small sample, obviously, so I take it as only weak evidence for a causal effect. But one reason the result is at least plausible is that reusable grocery bags can be nasty things:

Williams et al (2011) randomly selected reusable grocery bags from consumers in grocery stores in Arizona and California. They examined the bags, finding coliform bacteria in 51 percent of the bags tested. Coliform bacteria were more prevalent in the California bags, especially those collected in the Los Angeles area. E. coli was found in 8 percent of the bags examined. The study also found that most people did not use separate bags for meats and vegetables. Further, 97 percent of individuals indicated they never washed their reusable grocery bags. Bacteria appeared to grow at a faster rate if the bags were stored in car trunks. This study suggests there may be large risks associated with using reusable grocery bags, though it does imply that fastidiously washing bags can virtually eliminate the risks. However, the survey results suggest that virtually no one washes these bags.

Again, this may be a mere coincidence rather than a real phenomenon. It will be interesting to see whether Brackenridge and Dell see a spike in food-poisoning cases after our bag ban goes into effect in March. If a real phenomenon, will Austin see more or less illness than San Francisco? On one hand, Austin's ordinance is actually a good bit more stringent than San Francisco's 2007 ordinance, which permitted the distribution of recyclable paper bags and compostable plastic bans, and which did not even apply to all grocery stores in the city. Our Council really, really wants Austinites to use reusable bags. On the other hand, a lot of Austinites shop at suburban grocery stores that aren't subject to the ban.

Frequently discarding used bags and buying "fresh" reusable bags may be a wise precaution, regardless. It's true that will wipe out the alleged environmental benefit of using reusable bags, but that benefit is minimal anyway if you're not a litterer.

Texas Attorney General concludes Austin's project duration ordinance conflicts with state law

2012-12-11T16:08:38-06:00

I wrote about Austin's project duration ordinance in August. The prompt was a state representative's request for a formal opinion from the Texas Attorney General that Austin is expiring real estate development projects in violation of the state vested rights statute.

The Attorney General yesterday concluded that, yes, the City's project duration ordinance conflicts with state law.

You can read my original post for more background, but the basic question is, When can a city force a development project to start over under current regulations? The City has a "project duration ordinance" that imposes either a hard three-year or five-year deadline on projects (depending on where they're located) before they must start over under current regulations. The City also has a sort of "dynamic" deadline that purports to require projects to start over under current regulations if a building permit expires.

The AG concluded that this ordinance conflicts with Chapter 245 of the Local Government Code, the state statute that creates vested rights. Chapter 245 allows cities to expire those rights after five years if the developer has made no "progress towards completion of the project." But the statute lists a fairly specific set of things that constitute "progress towards completion." The City ordinance purports to expire projects regardless of whether the developer has met any of those benchmarks. The AG essentially determined (correctly, I think) that the City's ordinance conflicts with Chapter 245 for this reason.

It is important to bear in mind the distinction between a "permit" and "project rights." This opinion does not address what sort of expiration dates a city can put on a building permit or site plan. But it does mean that if, say, a site plan expires, the city should evaluate a new site plan application under the original regulations unless the project has become dormant, the project has changed, or a Chapter 245 exception applies. Vested rights do not expire merely because a permit or site plan expires.

The AG opinion is merely advisory, of course, but it should still carry some intellectual and moral weight. It will be interesting to see whether the City continues to enforce its project duration ordinance.

Why does Austin have so many zoning fights over dense, multi-family development?

2012-11-29T12:07:00-06:00

A lot of people have the default view that developers are a congenitally greedy breed who can't be content with their base zoning entitlements. If you are one of these people, you should take a look at the chart below.

This is from a "zoning capacity" study prepared by the City's planning staff during the Imagine Austin process. The table shows how much land lies in each of Austin's residential zoning districts. It further classifies land as "developed" or "undeveloped" and "buildable" or "unbuildable." ("Unbuildable" here means roughly "unbuildable due to environmental features"; it has nothing to do with zoning-type setbacks. To calculate the "buildable" area, staff took the gross site area and subtracted the acreage burdened by steep slopes, flood planes, and creek buffer setbacks.) It provides a very precise total of the amount of land in the city available for development or redevelopment in each residential zoning district.

It's very weird that a majority-renter city like Austin reserves so little land for multi-family. Out of nearly 7,900 acres of buildable, undeveloped land in residential districts, less than 10% has been set aside for multi-family. Less than 1% of the undeveloped, buildable land has been reserved for the densest multi-famiy (MF-4, MF-5 and MF-6). Just 1.5 acres -- 0.0189% of the total -- has been reserved for the second-densest district (MF-5), and none at all for the densest (MF-6).

Things are just slightly better when we look at developed land. The city has just shy of 40,000 acres of buildable, developed land in residential districts. 11.8% of this land is zoned multi-family. But, again, just 1.5% of the total has been zoned for high-density multi-family , and just 87 acres (a little over 0.2%) for the highest density MF-5 and MF-6.

These totals do not include mixed-use. If you look at an Austin zoning map, you will see a lot of "MU" districts. But plain, vanilla mixed-use districts do not allow much density. The protypical mixed-use development is a "live-work" development with offices on the first floor and residences above. They are rarely multi-family projects. Dense multi-family projects are really possible only in vertical mixed-use districts, and then only if the developer provides the community benefits in order to obtain exemptions from the density restrictions.

Thus, if you want to build a dense, multi-family development by right in Austin, you've got slim pickings. Somewhere out there is an undeveloped 60,000 sf tract zoned MF-5. If you don't happen to own that tract, your options are to: (1) build something in a downtown CBD or DMU district; (2) build a VMU project (but only if you're willing to provide affordable housing); or (3) tear down apartments on some of the meager land already zoned for high density. Otherwise, you're filing for a zoning change or a PUD.

New York City is much cheaper than such a dense place ought to be

2012-11-26T11:53:23-06:00

Charlie Gardner finds an association between metropolitan area weighted density and housing affordability:

Income is more strongly correlated with weighted density than total population, although not dramatically so. However, median home values were even more strongly correlated with weighted density. The result is that, for cities of equivalent size, the city with the higher weighted density will generally be less affordable in relative terms, even if incomes are higher (for instance, Sacramento is almost twice as dense as similarly-sized and lower-income Kansas City, but is only two-thirds as affordable).

I believe high home prices are generally caused by housing being too scarce rather than housing being built too close together, so I didn't expect weighted density to have much bearing on home affordability. In fact, it doesn't: the association between weighted density and affordability is weak, with weighted density explaining only about 17% of the variation in affordability (the ratio of median home price to median income*) among metropolitan areas. Whatever the culprits for unaffordability, they're mostly something other than density. (Being located in California is a better predictor of high relative housing cost, for example, than having high density. The variation in affordability explained by weighted density drops to 10.5% when California cities are excluded.)

Below is a scatterplot pairing the weighted density of each MSA with the ratio of its median home price to median income. The trend line slopes upward, which means that housing tends to get less affordable as the metropolitan area gets denser. As the scatterplot should make clear, though, weighted density doesn't really have much predictive value, particularly for MSAs with weighted densities less than 5,000-6,000 pssm. (Contrast this with having "San" or "Santa" in the city name; this seems to be a very good predictor of high unaffordability.)

(click to enlarge).

One thing that jumps out from the chart is just how much of an outlier the New York City metropolitan area is. It's an outlier in density, of course - it's almost three times as dense as LA and San Francisco. But it's also an outlier in its distance below the trend line. The New York City metropolitan area is much, much more affordable than the trend line predicts. The trend line predicts that the median home in the New York MSA should cost a bit more than 15 times the median income; in reality, the ratio is under 11. Moreover, the slope of the trend line is itself skewed downward by New York City: if you fitted a trend line to the data ignoring NYC, it would predict a home value-to-income ratio of arond 20 for a city with 31,000 ppsm.

New York City has horrible land-use regulations. Ed Glaeser et al. estimated a few years ago that regulatory constraints are responsible for at least 50% of the overall unit value in the average owned apartment in Manhattan. Vast swaths of the City have been mummified by historic preservation districts. The City has casually downzoned large chunks of Brooklyn. Many of New York's suburbs are notoriously NIMBY.

Still, it ain't California.

As California's coastal cities prove, a city (with sufficient amenities) can make itself completely unaffordable at any given weighted density. While California has many natural amenities, they're no greater than, say, Honolulu's. Honolulu, of course, is squeezed into a small sliver of land on an island between volcanos and the ocean. (Note that roughly half of New York's metropolitan population is also situated on three islands.) Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo don't have Honolulu's (or New York's) geographic constraints. What they do have is a nasty set of land-use regulations that are, evidently, just as effective as volacanos, rivers and oceans in depressing the supply of new housing below the market-clearing level.

*Charlie uses the reciprocal; i.e., median income divided by median home value. That yields a slightly stronger correlation with weighted density, but the resulting trend line is not as steep.

(NB. Corvalis, another outlier, is not particularly expensive; it just has a very low median income. I assume this means that college students are an unusually high percentage of the population.)