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Zak Yudhishthu

@zyudhishthu.bsky.social

3.7K followers 1.1K following 1.3K posts

Sidewalk enthusiast and former St. Paulite. I like to write about housing policy, especially in the Twin Cities. Nowadays I’m an economics research assistant in Chicago https://pencillingout.substack.com/

pencillingout.substack.com

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · Jan 15

From 2010-2020, North Center was the Chicago neighborhood with the fastest growth in children. But surprisingly, its housing stock actually declined over that period!

In my new post, I take a look at Chicago's hottest neighborhood for families and think about some important housing dynamics.

Family growth, deconversions and housing supply in North Center

What we can learn from Chicago's hottest neighborhood for families

pencillingout.substack.com

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 2h

www.understandingai.org/p/human-driv...

Waymo has had dozens of crashes—almost all were a human driver's fault

Human drivers keep crashing into Waymos that aren't even moving.

www.understandingai.org

Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 2h

Haha, this is the only positive response I’ve seen so far. I definitely think this is a waaaay under recognized point.

Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 3h

Agree with that!

I feel like they’d start with a Lyft scooter-style seasonal approach, taking the fleet off the road once it snows

Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 4h

Plus, co-chairs of the House transportation committee have signaled openness to the idea

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 4h

Well, here it comes: @toreyvanoot.bsky.social reports that Waymo has hired lobbyists in Minnesota and been talking to state lawmakers, looking for legislative approval to operate in MN

www.axios.com/local/twin-c...

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Reposted by Zak Yudhishthu

Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 15h

I can't stop thinking about this. We're pursuing zero fire risk in multifam, while tolerating much more in single-fam. People respond by building and living in single-fam, where they're exposed to not only one of the highest fire death risks in the developed world, but also TONS more car crash risk

Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 15h

Love this new report on buildings' relative fire safety from @alexhrwtz.bsky.social and Pew colleagues.

www.pew.org/en/research-...

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 2d

I always called it “the Brooklyn of Saint Paul”

Reposted by Zak Yudhishthu

Michael Andersen @andersem.bsky.social · 3d

IMO @zyudhishthu.bsky.social nails it on mandatory minimum densities: you CAN do them right, but the benefits are so minimal & the risks so inevitable that they're not worth the trouble pencillingout.substack.com/p/can-we-boo...

In Minneapolis’s downtown, development must be 10 stories tall with a 4.0 FAR, while different transit-adjacent areas have minimum heights ranging from 2 to 10 stories.

This policy has come into play a couple of times in the past few years. For example, in 2023, a developer wanted to build a seven-story, 135-unit building next to Minneapolis’s Prospect Park Green Line stop. However, the lot was zoned for a 10-story height minimum and city staff refused to grant a variance for a seven-story building. The development was rejected, and no new construction has occurred on the lot.

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 4d

Imagine waking up from a coma, out cold since 2016, to learn that “the governor of California is giving a non-response about statewide upzoning on a Fortnite stream”

Metamodernism @metamodernism.bsky.social · 4d

It’s funny how after several days of people nervously posting about whether or not Newsom will sign SB 79, the best insight we’ve gotten is from Gavin himself on a Fortnite stream

Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 4d

Well I absolutely agree with that!

It sucks that SFHs can outbid a three flat, but the deck is stacked. And honestly, those SFH purchasers should be forced to compete not just with 3-flats but with far denser development (ie should upzone much more)

Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 4d

I was gonna post about that but I think that instance is the best counterexample to my argument! That’s really crazy and I get why it angers people. It’s also an extreme case in a pretty particular neighborhood.

But ultimately I think that zoning broadly for more density is a lot more important

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 4d

At the end of the day, housing markets are complex things, and I’m hesitant about the role of prescriptive regulatory policy in successfully tackling our problems. Reasonable urbanists could disagree, but beware the pitfalls of using zoning to restrict less-dense development.

Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 4d

Even w/o harming development, someone is worse off with these policies. Eg. deconversions in Chicago’s North side seem to supporting strong growth in the number of families.

Affected households are likely richer, so the tradeoff might be worth it. But the tradeoff does exist.

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 4d

But I’m not sure how easy it is to pull off this strategy without accidentally hurting development. In Minneapolis, a 10-story height minimum led to no development at all after rejecting 7 stories. Store owners rebuilding after 2020 are struggling to meet 2-story minimums!

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 4d

What does this strategy accomplish? In some places, people with a lot of willingness (and ability) to pay for certain housing, like a SFH, can outbid a denser development that is otherwise feasible. Zoning for minimum density can box these people out, getting to more density.

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 4d

Or see Portland’s 2020 zoning reforms: the city implemented a FAR limit where none had been before, seeking to zone out “McMansions”. In exchange, the FAR gets larger with more units, so 4plexes can be larger than a SFH.

The explicit goal is to (dis)favor certain housing types

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 4d

As another example of this policy, Minneapolis’ 2040 Plan also implemented minimum FAR and buildings heights in various districts of the city, explicitly zoning out development that they don’t thing is dense enough.

Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 4d

In recent years, Chicago and other cities have tried to use zoning to discourage lower-density development, favoring the types of housing urbanists often support. I get where the idea comes from, but we need to be careful about unintended consequences.
pencillingout.substack.com/p/can-we-boo...

Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 4d

Last fall, a developer proposed to destroy a Logan Square church for three single-family homes. New minimum density requirements in Chicago’s NW Side made this illegal, and 16 units will be built instead.

Are these types of zoning laws good? I’m not so sure, and I blogged about why.

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 8d

Also interesting: noise externalities mean that electric vehicles are also socially beneficial because they're quieter.

Based on estimates of how much quieter EVs are from the engineering literature, they estimate 100% EV adoption would cut noise externalities by about 3/4

Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 8d

The benefit of noise barriers is mostly within 100 meters of the road and fades out pretty quickly — in other words, there are very concentrated costs for those who live right by traffic

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 8d

You probably won't be surprised to see that there's a lot of inequality in exposure to traffic noise: people dealing with high traffic noise are poorer, less educated, and more likely to be black.
www.nber.org/papers/w34298

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 8d

This is a nice working paper showing that traffic noise creates a pretty large externality. Near major roads, people are willing to pay ~6-10% more for homes after a sound barrier is built.

They estimate that traffic noise has an aggregate externality of $110 billion!

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Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 10d

We used to make some incredibly great lobbies for our office buildings

Zak Yudhishthu @zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 11d

Indeed it was!

This reminds me of how they slice up college rankings where you can be like “#6 school in student faculty community service opportunities” and everyone gets something to advertise

www.timeout.com/chicago/news...

Logan Square is one of the coolest neighborhoods in the world

The Northwest Side community area has it all.