Insights · February 3rd, 2010
January was the hottest month on record (going back to 1880) in Seattle, some 7 degrees F above normal You can see the evidence in this photo of my Iris’s that I just took. Kind of messes up the notion that because it was cold on the East Coast this year that global warming must be wrong. Just depends on where you look – and yes we know local weather is not global climate. That is the point. Climate change is just one issue I will raise in a program tomorrow.
Thursday February 4 I appear on a panel on for the New Partners for Growth conference here in Seattle. The panel is called Smart Housing Choices in a Changing Environment. I’ll be discussing the longer term trends that will, and must, shape smarter housing choices. And to begin I think I’ll ask about the whole concept of growth – when might we let go of the concept that populations, and regions should grow forever? The factors that I’ll mention include:
- Income gap economics and the debtor society
- End of a century of cheap energy
- Climate change and impact on life style
- Demographic mismatches
We still have further to go, despite declining home prices, to match housing in the U.S. to actual incomes. The good news is that we know, pretty much, what needs to be done to get to smarter housing choices:
- Revise zoning and development law to account for the factors above – Duncan Black calls this making Philly legal
- Modify values toward modesty and frugality
- Downsize housing attractively
- Build green
- Build age friendly
