Rezoning commercial and residential parcels to permit mixed-use and higher density development in cities is a potentially important policy response to a variety of pressing urban planning issues, including housing affordability and transit congestion. Yet, comparatively little is known about the...

The purpose of this chapter is to survey recent research on housing markets and policy in what used to be called the “second” and “third” worlds. We adopt the labels “transition” economies to refer to countries as disparate as Russia and Vietnam, and “developing” to refer to...

This paper studies how limitations on land suitable for development affect within-city variation in urban density and its three components: crowding, residential coverage, and building height. We use the high variation in geographical obstacles − such as steep land slopes and the presence of...

This paper examines the effects of a generous, spatially-targeted economic development policy (the federal Empowerment Zone program) on local neighborhood characteristics and on the neighborhood quality of life, taking into account the interactions amongst the policy, changes in neighborhood...