A possible shift in American policy: encouraging more housing overall, not just housing for those with limited resources

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One commentator notes that two possibilities for creating more housing in the United States could represent a shift in emphasis:

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How’s that going to happen? Tax incentives for builders, perhaps an expansion of the low-income housing tax credit, but mostly, a $40 billion fund that would “empower local governments to fund local solutions to build housing [and] support innovative methods of construction financing.”

It’s not clear exactly what an innovation fund entails. Maybe the closest antecedent is a new, $85 million HUD program called “Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing,” or PRO Housing, which this summer issued 17 grants of a few million dollars each. The projects that got money include buying land for affordable housing in Rhode Island, retooling a digital application process in New York City, and hiring staff to fast-track affordable housing proposals in Denver.

It was a super competitive process, with $13 in requests for every $1 in award. Which raises the question: What can an annual outlay of $100 million (the PRO budget for next year) do to solve a problem as big as a deficit of 3 million homes? “State and local governments look at each other all the time, so those little examples can bear a lot of fruit,” said Chris Herbert, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard and a fan of the program. “There’s not a lot of money out there, but these grants can become an example for other places.”

Note what those two programs share: A focus on more housing, period, even if it’s not necessarily restricted to low-income Americans. That’s a subtle, crucial shift in federal priorities that reflects the growing sense that Washington must intervene to create more housing at all price points, not just for the poorest households with the most urgent housing needs.

Focusing on more housing overall could have several benefits:

  1. It could be popular across residents who might be feeling the need for more and cheaper housing. Promoting such programs could garner more widespread public support.
  2. Could fit the theory that providing more housing overall will help moderate prices across the housing spectrum.
  3. As noted later in the article, the public may have a negative opinion of public housing based on prior efforts.

At the same time, it is not entirely clear that such an approach would lead to the outcomes politicians and residents want. Do people generally want more housing (or is this limited to particular places)? Will reduced prices in housing brought on by increasing the supply reach the people who need the most housing help? What large-scale programs can help increase housing and flexibility even as different jurisdictions and locales approach housing differently at the local level?

All of this might just need to be worked out. Perhaps the shift above reflects an ongoing frustration among at least a few that not enough is happening regarding promoting housing.

How do you describe one of the biggest houses in the United States in two paragraphs?

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The home of Tony and Jeanne Pritzker in Los Angeles is big and part of a still-under-negotiation divorce. Here is how one article describes the unique and large home:

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Completed in 2011, the Angelo Drive estate is accessed by a long, steep driveway flanked by landscaped hedges, according to documents filed with the city. Surrounding a central courtyard, the main house has a large, high-ceilinged atrium lighted by a skylight. Fronted by a fence up to 8 feet high in places, the estate also has a tennis court, guesthouse, staff quarters and a detached recreation room and home theater. 

The property has at least 12 to 15 bedrooms, said local real-estate agent Rayni Williams, who has attended events at the Pritzker estate. Its view is one of the best in Los Angeles. “You feel like you’re floating in the view,” she said. The vista is especially remarkable given the home’s massive size, she said. Most houses of comparable square footage are located in flatter areas rather than in the hills.

From this description, several traits of the home stand out:

  1. It has particular features, including a large atrium, additional buildings, and lots of bedrooms.
  2. It is large. It has at least 12 bedrooms and it is “massive.”
  3. It has a special setting, particularly compared to other big houses, with a long driveway and an impressive view.

These strike me as pretty standard descriptors of homes. What features does it have? How big is it (measured by some standard traits like square footage and number of bedrooms and bathrooms)? What is its location (because it is all about location, location, location)? Real estate listings tend to have a particular format and this description fits with those.

This description does give me some sense of what the home is like. But I wonder if a different approach is needed for such a uniquely large home. A few other possible options:

  1. What is it like to walk through a home and property this big? It has at least 12 bedrooms; what is it like to visit them all? What does it feel like to walk up to a house this size and walk around it? This helps fill out the experience of a home this size beyond certain measurements.
  2. What is the view comparable to? What can I see from the house that I cannot see elsewhere? Roughly how many other homes have a similar view? This helps describe the location of the home.
  3. Are these features found in other places or is this a unique combination or is there a particular sense of style with all of these features? What makes these features stand out from other large homes? This helps get at what helps the house stand apart from others.

All of these involve an experience of the home that goes beyond what can be ascertained by plans and pictures. Without this experiential information, it is just a big house and hard to imagine.

The Chicago suburbs soon to be home to the country’s biggest truck stop

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I would not expect the biggest truck stop in the United States to be in the Chicago suburbs. But it will soon open:

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Outpost, an Austin, Texas-based company, is transforming 30 acres at 70 Airport Road into a location where 1,000 semi trucks can park in a safe, secure setting, said Trent Cameron, the company’s co-founder and CEO…

When it opens Oct. 1, the number of parking spaces will exceed the 900 available at the Iowa 80 Truckstop in Walcott, Iowa, which bills itself as the world’s largest truck stop, in part because of the restaurants, stores, truck dealership, movie theater, repair shop and other service businesses spread out over its 220 acres, according to its website.

As Cameron noted, there’s a need for more truck parking. A report done by the American Trucking Association found there is one parking space for every 11 trucks on the road and many drivers spend nearly an hour every day trying to find a place where they can stop, resulting in about 12% lost pay annually.

Beyond that, truck drivers waste a lot of fuel searching for parking and often are forced to park in unsafe and unauthorized locations, the association report said.

Suburbs are not often home to truck stops as these tend to be located further outside of big cities. Developers may see land as more profitable for other uses. Companies may want cheaper land and more of it. As noted later in the article, suburban residents often do not like lots of trucks on local streets and as neighbors.

However, local and long-term trucking is essential to everyday life. Suburbanites may not like trucks on their roads but they would not like it if their local grocery store or big box store did not have what they want. For people to receive their deliveries from Internet orders, the goods have to get to warehouses first and then have to make it to their addresses.

Additionally, Chicago is an important trucking and transportation hub, serving both the large metropolitan area and a lot of traffic passing through to other places. Many trucks make their way into and out of the region with many warehouses, retail facilities, and communities.

Will large suburban truck stops become more and more common? Will this push residents and communities to make certain choices about land and locations?

American minivan sales peaked in 2000

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As the era of the McMansion and SUV emerged in the early 2000s, the minivan went into decline:

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Even so, minivan sales have been falling steadily since their peak in 2000, when about 1.3 million were sold in the United States. As of last year, that figure is down by about 80 percent.

What caused this decline? The same article suggests this:

However it evolves, the minivan will still be trammeled by its fundamental purpose. It is useful because it offers benefits for families, and it is uncool because family life is thought to be imprisoning. That logic cannot be overcome by mere design. In the end, the minivan dilemma has more to do with how Americans think than what we drive. Families, or at least vehicles expressly designed for them, turned out to be lamentable. We’d prefer to daydream about fording Yukon streams instead.

I am interested in some of the bigger connections that might be made around this same time (early 2000s). So family life in the suburbs – embodied by the minivan – became uncool? The 2000 Census was the first time 50% of Americans lived in suburbia. By this point, several generations of Americans had experienced or grew up in suburban settings. Is a choice of vehicles really pushing back against family life in the suburbs (even as plenty of Americans continue in these settings)?

Or another way to take the argument above is that individualism wins out over any symbols of family life. The iPhone and SUV somehow broadcast a consistent message of a cool or unique individual – regardless of how many people own the same model – while the minivan is saddled with family life. Did the long-term American yearning to be an individual doom the minivan (despite its peak in 2000)?

A third consideration: is this just a branding question? If so, other products have been revived so why not the minivan? Imagine a famous celebrity endorses the minivan and drives one around. Or a new brand emerges. Or problems arise with SUVs and the minivan is dependable. Or families become cool again. There may be limited interest in trying to revive the minivan but this could provide someone a marketing challenge.

The Wild West of parking lots with no traffic signs

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Parking lots may appear to be safe and controlled traffic environments. Drivers are usually not traveling very fast. Drivers need to be attentive to carts, curbs, and people walking around. New drivers go to parking lots to build their skills.

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Yet parking lots can be the Wild West of driving situations. This is particularly true of lots where there are few or no traffic signs and markings. You have rows and arteries through the parking lot that have no stop signs or signs of where to go.

Last year, we had an incident in such a lot. Driving around the outside of the lot on a roadway separated by curbs from the parking rows, someone pulled out and into the side of the front of our vehicle. There was no stop sign at the end of the row or marking on a pavement. Anyone could be turning in and out of the rows. Presumably they should look to see if vehicles are coming toward them? Presumably everyone is supposed to yield (though there are no yield signs)?

I feel this in parking garages as well where there may be signs and markings but they can be hard to see in the lighting and a cramped environment. Vehicles come quickly around turns. Drivers are looking to back out and pull in.

Since parking is essential in American places due to the heavy reliance on driving, are there better solutions to lots with few signs? Is the primary goal of a parking lot to move vehicles quickly through the space? Is it to help customers or residents or visitors to safely make it to their destination? Is it to fit as many vehicles as possible in/

Trying to cut through a street grid on a diagonal to save time and distance

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Street grids have benefits, including offering multiple routes should congestion arise at one intersection or certain routes are off-limits. But what if a driver or pedestrian wants to move quickly through the grid at a diagonal?

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Different communities may offer options for this. Perhaps there are alleys one can cut through. These back ways offer even more alternatives through the grid if the main streets are congested. Or there might be an occasional diagonal roadway that crosses at an angle to other roads. Depending on the way one is traveling, the diagonal route might be more direct.

Chicago is a good example of having both options in numerous neighborhoods. The flat Midwestern city primarily has a road grid that stretches for miles. East-west and north-south streets can go a long way from one end of the city to the other (and beyond). At the same time, alleys and diagonal streets provide other travel options. The diagonal roadways can create some interesting intersections – these present travelers with different visuals and traffic patterns than they might be used to – but offer more direct routes at an angle to the grid. Numerous alleys take some pressure off the roads for garages, garbage, and other uses.

I imagine other places might offer different options. Any city offer an underground grid at a 45 degree angle to the ground-level grid? Or pedestrian skyways or tunnels that offer paths that cross the grid in different ways?

City residents and suburban residents going back and forth between those places

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Hints regarding new driving patterns in metropolitan areas could be found in a Chicago Tribune editorial about downtown traffic during Mexican Independence Day weekend:

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And they didn’t help you get from one neighborhood to another or back home from a night out to the suburbs…

Many businesses rely on suburbanites coming downtown for the weekend to eat or watch an artistic offering as the fall season kicks off.

Chicago is a big city so there are plenty of trips taking place solely within the city. Additionally, many big cities and people within are used to the idea that people from the suburbs travel into the city.

But these two short passages highlight a back and forth between both city and suburb. There are some traveling from city to suburbs, perhaps even for a night out (some suburbs are cool?). Others are traveling into the city to take advantage of particular opportunities offered in the city (or for work).

These newer patterns complicate efforts to address traffic. The predictable rush hours into the city in the morning and out of the city in the afternoon and evening have morphed into more traffic headed in all directions at more times. Traffic can be present around the clock, even without special events or celebrations.

Counting the hours spent talking about the possibility of merging Chicago area transit agencies

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As conversations take place regarding possibly merging transit agencies in Chicagoland, I wondered if it would be possible to count all the hours of talking, making deals, and working out details. What would the number be? I imagine someone working to provide an accurate count or estimate might run into a few methodological issues:

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-Which conversations to count? Is this primarily about formal debate in the legislature or public hearings about the possibilities? Can media reports (whether TV, print, radio, others) count as time? Do digital conversations (texting, emails, in particular apps) count?

-How to count less formal conversations. If conversations take place behind the scenes as opposed to in public settings, can they be found or discovered? What kind of work is needed to track these down?

-Are people willing to talk about their talking? Some might be more willing, some less so. Or perhaps people would be more willing to talk after some major decision is made.

-Do we have some ballpark numbers of how many hours go into major decisions in governments or organizations? What is a “typical” range?

Given the scope of possible changes and the implications whether change occurs or not, the process and the time devoted to it could be worthy of study.

Suburban sounds near the start of fall

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During the pandemic, some who were at home described the noises they heard from their residences that they may have missed in going to work regularly or being out more.

As summer winds down on the calendar and fall approaches, I noticed some different sounds in the suburbs. I described some of the suburban noises of summer back in 2018. Here are a few of the notable changes heading into a new season:

-Geese flying overhead regularly and standing around in fields and near water. The picture above includes geese honking and milling around in the early morning suburban mist on a soccer field set up for the fall season.

-Fewer lawnmowers at work and less yard work noise. It also has not rained much recently. The spring and summer hum of outdoor machines has lessened.

-The occasional sound of marching band practices and performances. We are more than a mile from a high school but we can hear the band at work (cannot hear cheering).

-No cicadas at this point of the year, particularly compared to earlier this summer in our area.

-Less noise from kids in the neighborhood during the day with school in session. Of course, people living near schools likely hear a lot more noise now during the middle of the day compared to the summer.

This is a particular suburban soundscape soon to change with leaves blowing around and crunching underfoot and later snow dampening outdoor noise.

Aiming for zero road deaths in Chicago

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Bicycle fatalities are down in the last year in Chicago. Could this help lead to zero road deaths in the city?

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It was the only bicyclist death so far this year, suggesting what some hope signals the beginning of a decline in such fatalities.

Some even contend the number of all traffic deaths in Chicago — cyclists, motorists and pedestrians — could be reduced to zero with the right improvements.

Others are more guardedly optimistic.

Before that August crash on the West Side, Chicago had gone 10 months without a cycling death. That was the longest such duration dating back to at least the beginning of 2019, the earliest year available from the city’s daily traffic crash data.

“Statistically, this drop appears too large just to be entirely good luck,” said Joseph Schwieterman, a transportation professor at DePaul University. “It’s not likely the fatalities will stay at this level, unfortunately, but this is encouraging.”

The rest of the article talks about methods that could be implemented to make roads in Chicago safer.

As I have read about similar efforts in recent years, reducing traffic deaths seems to go well with multiple other efforts:

  1. More sustainable cities with fewer cars on the road and other viable non-driving transit options.
  2. More inviting and lively streetscapes with less emphasis on motorized vehicles.
  3. Encouraging walking and biking, which are healthier options.

Safety alone may or may not be a compelling reason to change conditions but combine safety with other interests people have and perhaps there will be a steady shift away from only emphasizing driving.