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Articles 1 - 16 of 16
Full-Text Articles in Law
Learning From Land Use Reforms: Housing Outcomes And Regulatory Change, Noah Kazis
Learning From Land Use Reforms: Housing Outcomes And Regulatory Change, Noah Kazis
Law & Economics Working Papers
This essay serves as the introduction for an edited, interdisciplinary symposium of articles studying recent land use reforms at the state and local level. These papers provide important descriptive analyses of a range of policy interventions, using quantitative and qualitative methods to provide new empirical insights into zoning reform strategies.
After situating and summarizing the collected articles, the Introduction draws out shared themes. For example, these essays demonstrate the efficacy of recent reforms, not only at facilitating housing production but at doing so in especially difficult contexts (like when producing affordable housing and redeveloping single-family neighborhoods). They point to the …
The Failed Federalism Of Affordable Housing: Why States Don't Use Housing Vouchers, Noah Kazis
The Failed Federalism Of Affordable Housing: Why States Don't Use Housing Vouchers, Noah Kazis
Articles
This Article uncovers a critical disjuncture in our system of providing affordable rental housing. At the federal level, the oldest, fiercest debate in low-income housing policy is between project-based and tenant-based subsidies: should the government help build new affordable housing projects or help renters afford homes on the private market? But at the state and local levels, it is as if this debate never took place. The federal government (following most experts) employs both strategies, embracing tenant-based assistance as more cost-effective and offering tenants greater choice and mobility. But this Article shows that state and local housing voucher programs are …
Tenant Rights For Employer-Provided Farmworker Housing, Margaret C. Hannon
Tenant Rights For Employer-Provided Farmworker Housing, Margaret C. Hannon
Articles
Farmworkers in Washington State play a crucial role in food production and distribution, and the success of Washington’s economy rests heavily on its agricultural industry. The agricultural sector employs the greatest amount of people in Washington, “generates more than $5.3 billion in direct revenue, and has a total estimated economic impact on the state of more than $28 billion each year.” In Washington State, there are about 36,000 farms, which encompass 15.3 million acres, “or 37 percent of the state’s land mass.”
Challenges And Opportunities For Hotel-To-Housing Conversions In Nyc, Noah Kazis, Elisabeth Appel, Matt Murphy
Challenges And Opportunities For Hotel-To-Housing Conversions In Nyc, Noah Kazis, Elisabeth Appel, Matt Murphy
Other Publications
As the country continues to grapple with the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath, policymakers in New York City and Albany have debated how to support the conversion of hotels into housing—and especially affordable housing—as part of a solution to the city’s ongoing housing crisis. The basic intuition is compelling. COVID has forced the shuttering of many commercial establishments, especially in hard-hit New York City. In certain sectors, the effect has been particularly large: these include hotels devastated by shutdowns in tourism, international travel, and business travel. At the same time as these spaces are sitting empty, though, Americans have faced …
Racism Didn't Stop At Jim Crow, Samuel R. Bagenstos
Racism Didn't Stop At Jim Crow, Samuel R. Bagenstos
Reviews
Nearly 50 years ago, the Kerner Commission famously declared that “[o]ur nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” The picture has changed distressingly little since then. In the 1950 Census, the average African American in a metropolitan area lived in a neighborhood that was 35 percent white—the same figure as in the 2010 Census. In 2010, the average white American still lived in a neighborhood that was more than 75 percent white. America’s largest metropolitan areas—particularly, but not exclusively, in the North—continue to score high on many common measures of racial segregation. And racial segregation …
The Past And Future Of Deinstitutionalization Litigation, Samuel R. Bagenstos
The Past And Future Of Deinstitutionalization Litigation, Samuel R. Bagenstos
Law & Economics Working Papers
Two conflicting stories have consumed the academic debate regarding the impact of deinstitutionalization litigation. The first, which has risen almost to the level of conventional wisdom, is that deinstitutionalization was a disaster. The second story does not deny that the results of deinstitutionalization have in many cases been disappointing. But it challenges the suggestion that deinstitutionalization has uniformly been unsuccessful, as well as the causal link critics seek to draw with the growth of the homeless population. This dispute is not simply a matter of historical interest. The Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which held that unjustified …
Exploring The Determinants Of High-Cost Mortgages To Homeowners In Low- And Moderate-Income Neighborhoods, Michael S. Barr, Jane K. Dokko, Benjamin J. Keys
Exploring The Determinants Of High-Cost Mortgages To Homeowners In Low- And Moderate-Income Neighborhoods, Michael S. Barr, Jane K. Dokko, Benjamin J. Keys
Book Chapters
In spite of the recent impetus to reform home mortgage markets, particularly as they affect low- and moderate-income (LMI) households, little systematic evidence is available about how potential abuses in mortgage lending manifest in the mortgages held by those households. While racial discrimination in mortgage markets has a long history in the United States, the role of mortgage brokers in lending has only recently increased and become controversial. In this chapter, we uncover two mechanisms through which differential mortgage pricing occurs among LMI homeowners: black borrowers and borrowers who use mortgage brokers pay more for mortgage loans than other borrowers, …
Issue Brief: Overcoming Legal Barriers To The Bulk Sale Of At-Risk Mortgages, Michael S. Barr, James A. Feldman
Issue Brief: Overcoming Legal Barriers To The Bulk Sale Of At-Risk Mortgages, Michael S. Barr, James A. Feldman
Other Publications
This memorandum argues that the sale of loans and loan pools to new owners would help to stabilize housing prices, and that such a modification to the REMIC rules would be desirable and well within Congress’ constitutional authority. Furthermore, it would not lead to successful legal claims by investors in securitized loan pools under the Just Compensation or Due Process clauses, which provide the primary constitutional protections for property interests.
The Community Reinvestment Act: Its Impact On Lending In Low-Income Communities In The United States, Michael S. Barr, Lynda Y. De La Vina, Valerie A. Personick, Melissa A. Schroder
The Community Reinvestment Act: Its Impact On Lending In Low-Income Communities In The United States, Michael S. Barr, Lynda Y. De La Vina, Valerie A. Personick, Melissa A. Schroder
Book Chapters
This paper reviews data and research studies that demonstrate that CRA has helped to increase lending to low-income borrowers and in low-income neighborhoods, and that expanded CRA lending has been accomplished while maintaining sound lending practices and bank profitability. The paper also discusses literature that draws alternative conclusions, as well as studies that find, despite increases in lending and banking services to low- and moderate-income areas and to minority borrowers, that disparities still exist between the services afforded to these communities and those offered to the market as a whole.
Cultural Differences And Discrimination: Samoans Before A Public Housing Eviction Board, Richard O. Lempert, Karl Monsma
Cultural Differences And Discrimination: Samoans Before A Public Housing Eviction Board, Richard O. Lempert, Karl Monsma
Book Chapters
In the 1971 case, Griggs v. Duke Power (401 U.S. 424), the United States Supreme Court held that if an employment test (or other mechanism for screening job applicants) had a disparate impact on a group protected by Title VII of The Civil Rights Act of 1964, discrimination in violation of the Act would be presumed unless the employer could prove the "job-relatedness" of the test. (For details on the Griggs case, see England 1992 chap. 5.) The Griggs case represents a high-water mark in the Supreme Court's jurisprudence of discrimination, for it establishes proof rules that can catch both …
The Tragedy Of The Anticommons: Property In The Transition From Marx To Markets, Michael A. Heller
The Tragedy Of The Anticommons: Property In The Transition From Marx To Markets, Michael A. Heller
Articles
Why are many storefronts in Moscow empty, while street kiosks in front are full of goods? In this Article, Professor Heller develops a theory of anticommons property to help explain the puzzle of empty storefronts and full kiosks. Anticommons property can be understood as the mirror image of commons property. By definition, in a commons, multiple owners are each endowed with the privilege to use a given resource, and no one has the right to exclude another When too many owners hold such privileges of use, the resource is prone to overuse - a tragedy of the commons. Depleted fisheries …
Cultural Differences And Discrimination: Samoans Before A Public Housing Eviction Board, Richard O. Lempert, Karl Monsma
Cultural Differences And Discrimination: Samoans Before A Public Housing Eviction Board, Richard O. Lempert, Karl Monsma
Articles
In Hawaii Samoans are a stigmatized ethnic group. We examine how this group is treated by a public housing eviction board. Statistical analysis suggests Samoans are discriminated against in financial cases. Interviews indicate, however, that Samoans are disadvantaged largely because their excuses are not persuasive and would not be regardless of the ethnicity of the tenants making them. In this sense Samoans are treated "like any other tenant," and illegal discrimination, as defined by the Four- teenth Amendment, has not occurred. But Samoans make unpersuasive excuses more often than other tenants because excuses that are reasonable in the context of …
Lawyers And Informal Justice: The Case Of A Public Housing Eviction Board, Richard O. Lempert, Karl Monsma
Lawyers And Informal Justice: The Case Of A Public Housing Eviction Board, Richard O. Lempert, Karl Monsma
Articles
When lawyers think of civil procedure they almost invariably think of the rules of civil procedure and the formality they entail. A course in civil procedure focusing almost exclusively on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is in most law schools part of the traditional first-year curriculum. Indeed some would argue that it is at the core of that curriculum, for more than any other first-year course it takes students away from familiar moral anchors and instructs them in a set of distinctively legal practices and values. The ability to manipulate the legal system's rules of procedure is the most …
Trial-Type Ceremonies And Defendant Behavior: 'Moralizing' And 'Cooling In' In An Eviction Setting, Richard O. Lempert
Trial-Type Ceremonies And Defendant Behavior: 'Moralizing' And 'Cooling In' In An Eviction Setting, Richard O. Lempert
Articles
This study uses hearing transcripts to examine judge-defendant interaction in a trial-type setting. The setting is a public housing eviction hearing; judges are eviction board members and defendants are tenants facing eviction for non-payment of rent. All tenants in the sample were formally evicted, but in each case the execution of the eviction order was stayed on the condition that the tenant pay his rent. Two forms of verbal interaction are identified. The first, “moralizing” is deemed present when one or more board members directs a degrading remark toward the tenant. The second, “cooling in” is deemed present when one …
Breach Of Landlord's Covenant As Defense To Action For Rent, Ralph W. Aigler
Breach Of Landlord's Covenant As Defense To Action For Rent, Ralph W. Aigler
Articles
It is undoubtedly well settled that if the agreement to pay rent is dependent upon the performance by the landlord of some undertaking on his part, the failure by the landlord so to perform is a good defense to an action for the rent. It is equally well settled that if the agreements are independent such failure by the landlord is no defense. The difficulty arises in determining whether the agreements are dependent or independent. That question is one of construction, and it cannot be expected that all the cases may be satisfactorily reconciled. Two very late cases involving this …
The Right Of A Bona Fide Occupant Of Land To Compensation For His Improvements, Henry W. Rogers
The Right Of A Bona Fide Occupant Of Land To Compensation For His Improvements, Henry W. Rogers
Articles
It may be observed, in the first place, that the civil law afforded protection to the bona fide occupant of land, who had made useful or permanent improvements on the land, believing himself to be the true owner. The civil law never permitted one who was in the possession of land in good faith, to be turned out of his possession by the rightful owner, without any compensation for the additional value he has given to the soil by the improvements he had made; but it allowed him to offset the value of his improvements to the extent, at least, …