What the Rest of the Country Can Learn from Houston’s Damn-Low Rents

Matt Yglesias's new book, "The Rent is Too Damn High" has been getting a lot of buzz on the Streetsblog Network recently. It seems the problem Yglesias describes -- zoning restrictions that make new urban housing development onerous or near impossible -- exists in every city, much to the frustration of those seeking affordable rents, not to mention those who favor walkable urban neighborhoods.

But if there's one urban place where new housing can be built freely, one city we might look to as a model, that place is -- surprise -- Houston, says Chris Bradford at the Austin Contrarian. While it might be known for sprawl, Houston's relative lack of land-use regulations actually makes it a good place in terms of facilitating infill development, Bradford says:

Elsewhere on the Network today: Transit Miami shares the grim details of an especially bloody weekend on the city's streets (and even sometimes near the roads). Second Avenue Sagas uses street shots in New York City's DUMBO neighborhood to illustrate how traffic problems are caused by private cars and delivery vehicles -- not buses, as some residents claim. And This Big City looks at the failure-fraught history of the monorail.