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Feb 4 10 tweets 4 min read
The U.S. housing market shifted into overdrive during the pandemic, with more than 6 million homes selling in 2021 despite skyrocketing prices in many cities.

In early 2022, there's no sign that cutthroat bidding and rising prices won't continue trib.al/nS39ovW
"It's uniquely challenging for first-time buyers, since they're not benefitting from the increase in home prices," said Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale, who predicts more record-high home prices this year trib.al/91fVwCS
"If you're the type of person who falls in love with a house, this is not your market," says Candace Evans, a Redfin team manager in New York.

"Buyers should anticipate that they may not win a house until their sixth or seventh bid." trib.al/GlEuiul
The struggles of the entry-level homeowner represent just one facet of the nation's interconnected housing challenges.

U.S. cities are also seeing "absolutely wild increases in rents right now," said Whitney Airgood-Obrycki of Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS)
This bonkers boost in rents, home prices and monthly mortgage payments will add pressure in a trickle-down effect that's continued to define the decade's housing challenges, stressing programs that the housing insecure count on to provide support
Some states are exploring policy solutions to curb rent spikes.

In New York, lawmakers and housing advocates are asking Governor Kathy Hochul to support a bill that would prevent landlords from evicting paying tenants in order to raise rents trib.al/VNXspnl
Fueled by a desire for space and liberated by remote work, homebuyers are also pushing development ever deeper into the suburban outskirts of U.S. cities trib.al/3XvdF6u
New construction, which has been booming, could offer relief over the longer term.

But homebuilding is facing challenges of its own: Rising costs — for land, labor and lumber — are making new single-family homes and multifamily units more expensive to build
Shut out of homeownership, many higher-income households have turned to amenitized, upscale apartments.

Research from RentCafe finds that high-earning Millennials are behind a boom in "lifestyle renting" in cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Indianapolis
Despite the abundant talk of a pandemic-era move to the suburbs, mobility rates for renters are also at an all-time low, according to JCHS data.

It suggests people can't move for jobs and opportunities as much as they did in the past.

Read more: trib.al/nS39ovW

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More from @CityLab

Feb 1
Homes are taxed as a function of their market value across much of the nation, but New York City's process is more complicated and problematic than most.

Hundreds of residents last year implored a special city commission to change the law: trib.al/ilH8H40
The 40-year-old state law that created the system was built to favor single-family homeowners over renters or commercial buildings.

It often hurts the low- and moderate-income owners of condos and co-ops
Spiraling home prices have magnified inequities as residents face shocking property tax bills.

It's a reality forcing some longtime city residents into debt or to consider moving away.

Eric Adams, the new mayor, has vowed to prioritize the issue trib.al/6n6t8mH
Read 12 tweets
Jul 28, 2021
Take any major U.S. city and you're likely to find a historically Black neighborhood demolished or cut off from the rest of the city by a highway.

The legacy of this racist transportation policy continues to define urban landscapes. [THREAD] bloom.bg/3zJrbo2
This map shows the Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In the first half of the 20th century it was home to most of the city's African American residents.

It was a key area to do business, meet, shop and socialize during segregation and the Jim Crow era.
Construction of I-94 through Rondo began in the mid-1950s.

"As someone who was there ... it was a surreal experience to see it street by street. It's something I've never forgotten," said Marvin Anderson, a Rondo resident and co-founder of ReConnect Rondo.
Read 18 tweets
Jul 27, 2021
The massive Art Deco "Guardians of Traffic" sculptures are the inspiration for Cleveland's new baseball team name.

What's the backstory? [THREAD] bloom.bg/2WgGIx5
Why name a sports team after sculptures on a bridge?

It's not completely unprecedented for a ballclub to look to transportation infrastructure for inspiration — see, most famously, the Brooklyn "Trolley Dodgers." bloom.bg/376ELFE
The late 19th century dawn of professional baseball, and Cleveland was an emerging U.S. transportation and industrial hub.
Read 8 tweets
Apr 30, 2021
1/ When people moved out of expensive cities, where did they go?

A year of migration data reveals trends and interesting surprises: bloom.bg/3xCC4YB
2/ After much speculation about emptied downtowns and the prospect of remote work, a year of @USPS data gives the clearest picture yet of how people moved.
3/ There is no urban exodus — perhaps it's more of an urban shuffle.

Despite talk of mass moves to Florida and Texas, data shows most people who did move stayed close to where they came from.
Read 13 tweets
Mar 15, 2021
1/ Flooding is a rising threat across the United States, with homeowners facing as much as $19 billion in damages every year.

What puts a neighborhood at high risk? Geography is key, but new data reveal another factor, too: race.

Read the report: bloom.bg/38HXubN
2/ When appraisers mapped cities for the federal Homeowners' Loan Corporation in the 1930s, they assigned grades to neighborhoods based on several factors, race high among them.

Black and immigrant neighborhoods were deemed undesirable, marked by yellow or red lines.
3/ These historically redlined neighborhoods suffer a far higher risk of flooding today, according to new research from @Redfin, the Seattle-based real-estate brokerage.
Read 12 tweets
Feb 2, 2021
1/ Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has unveiled legislation that offers billions in federal dollars for cities willing to demolish urban highways that razed or divided neighborhoods decades ago. bloom.bg/3pMf9pl
2/ The Economic Justice Act, a spending package worth over $435 billion, includes a $10 billion pilot program that would provide funds for communities to examine transit infrastructure that has divided them along racial and economic lines and potentially alter or remove them.
3/ The backstory:

In 1956, the U.S. Congress passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, the $25 billion program that launched the Interstate Highway System. This nationwide frenzy of freeway building left behind a "horrific legacy" in scores of cities.
Read 12 tweets

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