Tom Cui

@tom-cui.com

112 Followers 56 Following

I study how policies and institutions shape housing markets at the NYU Furman Center! All opinions, for better or for worse, are my own

Text passage: "Our results also have implications for the implementation of the "pro-housing" and "abundance" agendas in the United States. To understand the mechanisms behind the persistent supply effects of 701 assistance, we demonstrated that a historic planning intervention that would have changed interest groups' perceptions of growth has had long-run effects on local innovation in regulatory practices. Piecemeal changes in local regulatory authority do not directly target underlying growth-skeptical attitudes that motivate the adoption of new regula-tions. Policy alternatives could explicitly seek to change the incentives of growth skeptics, such as issuing federal development grants or having federal authorities amortize the infrastructure costs of density (Ozimek and Lettieri, 2024)"
Text passage: "There is no consistency among the states in the administration of the 701 Program. The types of administrative organization range from independent agencies in some states (Alabama) to agencies which are buried in traditional state departments (the Health Department in one state). State activities range from the provision of professional planning assistance on a broad scale to the processing of applications. The differences in agencies are reflected in a wide variety of staffing patterns, levels of professional expertise, and state funding support."
Primary event study from Bressler and Cui (2025). The effect of the "701" Planning Assistance Program is a 13% reduction in new housing supply per decade .
Heat map of building heights, mapped for London
Discussion around complicated building codes, which makes it hard to scale parts in a building for prefabrication. One reply remarks "Plus states love to fuss with the rules on handrails. I think TX modifies for a larger handrail to wall gap. MA has longer extension requirements, etc."