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Blockers and Pillars come from Up for Growth’s housing framework.

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October 1, 2026 SPEAKING | KEYNOTE

Permission is not production

Remarks at the Natural State Housing Summit in Little Rock on the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, where the chain between a federal law and a built home breaks down in Arkansas, and why capital is part of supply.
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May 28, 2026 FOOTNOTES | NOTE

Building near transit pencils out for cities

Where a home is built changes what it costs a city to serve it. The fiscal math on infill and the housing math point in the same direction.
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May 28, 2026 FOOTNOTES | NOTE

Wisconsin shows the ROAD Act's affordability case

Three provisions, three different theories of what makes housing expensive: who buys existing homes, how long review takes, and whether local governments can plan past one appropriations cycle.
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May 25, 2026 FOOTNOTES | NOTE

The road to more housing still runs through permitting

Transportation money is one of the few levers Washington can pull on local land use. The design problem is calibration: incentives too soft change nothing, too blunt and the politics collapse.
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May 24, 2026 FOOTNOTES | NOTE

A bipartisan housing bill clears the House, but the Senate test still matters

A 396–13 vote signals unusual agreement on housing. Whether that consensus survives the Senate, and whether the manufactured-housing provisions change what gets built, are separate questions.
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May 24, 2026 FOOTNOTES | NOTE

Washington’s scissor stair reform shows how code fixes can unlock more homes

Building codes decide floor plates and capital stacks as surely as zoning decides density. Washington’s single-stair change is a test of how much housing a technical code fix can unlock.
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December 12, 2025 SPEAKING | KEYNOTE

Housing needs a system that can deliver

Remarks on why America's housing shortage is a systems problem, how fragmented governance produces underbuilding, and why a modern housing framework is needed to align local action, state capacity, federal investment, and accountability.
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October 15, 2021 WRITING | ESSAY

Courage at all levels

I examine why local housing reform needs support from state and federal institutions, especially when capacity, incentives, mandates, and political risk shape implementation.
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January 17, 2020 WRITING | ESSAY

New Rochelle, New York: A case study in how focusing on transit can increase housing options

I recount how New Rochelle rezoned its downtown around its train station, and why the Build More Housing Near Transit Act aimed to encourage that approach.
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October 18, 2019 WRITING | ESSAY

Part One of our Series on the Broken Housing Ecosystem: Impact Fees

I introduce a series on the broken housing ecosystem by showing how impact fees that rise as growth slows can undercut the development cities need.
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April 25, 2019 WRITING | ESSAY

The Cautionary Tale of Portland’s Inclusionary Housing Policy

Noel Johnson and I examine Portland's permit data after inclusionary housing took effect and argue the policy was reducing housing production at most income levels.
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March 15, 2019 WRITING | ESSAY

Housing is the environmental issue of our time

I connect housing, transportation, land use, and environmental outcomes, asking how where we build homes changes travel, land consumption, and emissions.
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January 18, 2019 WRITING | ESSAY

A Housing Agenda for Rural America

I use a visit to Mason County, Washington, to show that rural communities face their own housing shortage, and what local, state, and federal policy could do.
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