Cities need more entry-level homes, but efforts to increase supply are often met with resistance. Iowa is considering a way around that issue: legalizing backyard cottages to increase housing supply without radically changing neighborhoods.
Read MoreNorth Carolina lawmakers have joined forces across party lines to make housing easier to build—here’s what they’re proposing.
Read MoreSoaring home prices and tight housing supply are pushing local leaders to find creative solutions. Seattle’s embrace of backyard cottages has quietly delivered thousands of new homes right where they’re needed most.
Read MoreOutdated zoning laws are holding cities back, restricting housing options and stalling economic growth. That’s why Cincinnati is trying something different.
Read MoreAttendees of last week’s National Housing Supply Summit hoped it would provide insights for how Washington can tackle America’s housing crisis. But expecting Washington to fix problems it helped create isn’t optimism; it’s a paradox.
Read MoreRecent publications from The New York Times and the Civitas Institute prove that years of work by the growing Strong Towns movement — by people like you — is successfully spreading a forward-thinking approach to building towns.
Read MoreThe Suburban Experiment killed the starter home. Here's how cities can bring it back to life.
Read MoreJust as a fragile ecosystem can wither without the right conditions, our housing system is struggling under the weight of imbalance. But small, intentional shifts can restore stability. The seeds of change are already planted. It’s time to cultivate them.
Read MoreWith office vacancies and housing needs at record highs, converting one into the other seems like an obvious fix. However, office conversions are very difficult and expensive. Cities would get better results by enabling incremental development.
Read MoreChuck is joined by Seth Zeren, a neighborhood real estate developer, to discuss the six code reforms recommended in “The Housing-Ready City: A Toolkit for Local Code Reform.” (Transcript included.)
Read MoreSmall, adaptable homes create opportunities for individuals and families to build stable, connected lives. Here’s how this style of development is creating housing opportunities in Florida.
Read MoreTulsa, Oklahoma, is joining a growing list of cities that have integrated preapproved plans into their housing toolkits. This approach makes it easier for small-scale developers to complete projects quickly and cheaply.
Read MoreFor decades, we've been living under an unspoken grand bargain when it comes to housing. Most people don’t think about explicitly, but it shapes nearly every conversation we have about growth, change and affordability in our cities and towns. It’s time to change the conversation.
Read MoreIn this episode, Chuck discusses the common misbelief that an incremental approach to housing development is inherently slow, what that means for major cities, and how to make incremental housing more appealing to people who don’t want their neighborhoods to change.
Read MoreChuck was recently invited onto The Building Culture Podcast to debate the housing crisis with California YIMBY’s Nolan Gray. It was a great conversation that explores how these movements align and differ in their approaches to housing.
Read MoreI want to draw two insights relating human development to the way cities evolve. These insights are critical to understanding America’s housing crisis and our response to it — and why building housing in major cities can't meaningfully address the housing crisis.
Read MoreTo escape the housing crisis, we need a lot of housing to be built quickly. The key isn't large, ponderous projects; it's fast, widespread incremental development. We know the types of units that can be scaled and we know how to build them. The only thing we need now is for cities to devote themselves to doing it.
Read MoreOn this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck continues answering housing questions submitted by Ohio State University students, covering topics from building codes to local action.
Read MoreAllowing housing units to be built on small or irregular lots is a gamechanger for cities that are fighting the housing crisis. Here’s why that allowance is so important and how three developers are using small units and creativity to bring more housing options to their communities.
Read MoreThe U.S. is in a massive housing bubble fueled by widespread fraud. With banks incentivized to look away and Wall Street and Washington incentivized to keep housing prices artificially high, a bottom-up approach is the only hope for bringing sanity back to the housing market.
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