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Full-Text Articles in Urban Studies and Planning
Market Urbanism Blog Posts - First Half Of 2019, Michael Lewyn
Market Urbanism Blog Posts - First Half Of 2019, Michael Lewyn
Michael E Lewyn
Blog posts on urban issues, mostly related to housing costs.
Do You Believe In Ghost Apartments?, Michael Lewyn
Do You Believe In Ghost Apartments?, Michael Lewyn
Michael E Lewyn
According to the popular press, expensive cities are being overrun by "ghost apartments"- condominiums owned by wealthy foreigners, but used as investments rather than being rented out to local residents. This article points out that such apartments are in fact a very small percentage of housing supply, even in some cities that are supposedly overran with such condos.
More importantly, the existence of new “ghost apartments” does not justify exclusionary zoning policies. If a city popular with foreign investors discourages construction of new housing, investors are likely to purchase older housing units, outbidding local residents for those units. In this …