Sign in

Noah Kazis

@noahkazis.bsky.social
1K followers 501 following 136 posts

Ass't professor at Michigan Law. Formerly NYU Furman Center, NYC Law Department, Streetsblog NYC. Cities, suburbs, housing and transportation.

PostsRepliesMedia
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I have mostly switched to lurking here but some words are so good they must be shared. “Surface the viscerality of parking and of religion”
1227
Reposted by Noah Kazis
JLRay @jlray.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
This guy's the man. He specifically requested they introduce him as a "faceless bureaucrat"
12349
Reposted by Noah Kazis
JLRay @jlray.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
The current 6-day Jeopardy champion works at a housing tax credit agency in New Jersey and for his banter with Ken he just looked directly at the camera and said "New York, California, shame on you, build more housing" and folks when I say heroes walk among us
121224178
Reposted by Noah Kazis
Alec Schierenbeck @aschierenbeck.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
3Ls: the NYC Department of City Planning is hiring a graduating law student! It’s a thrilling time to work at DCP. Under Mayor Mamdani and Chair Sherman, New York City is crafting ambitious plans for a more affordable and vibrant city. Learn more here: cityjobs.nyc.gov/job/agency-att…
cityjobs.nyc.gov
252
Reposted by Noah Kazis
M. Nolan Gray 🥑 @mnolangray.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
"Zoning reform alone will not save the Rust Belt or other depopulated places, but it is nevertheless imperative for encouraging nascent revitalization efforts." papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
0337
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
New paper with Brian Connolly, forthcoming @washulawreview.bsky.social: “Rezoning the Rust Belt.” Contemporary debates about zoning treat it as an issue for high-demand places. Reform is about making NYC and SF affordable, or keeping the Sun Belt affordable. But the Rust Belt needs reform too.
1102
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
New paper! Have you ever noticed a sign declaring "Zoned Community" as you drive into town? (No? Aren't you the weird one...) They're a pretty unusual way of communicating about law--and especially regulations governing real property, irrelevant to passersby. What are they *really* for? (1/2)
Sign reading "Damascus Twp. A Zoned Community Permits Required"
120
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
This stretched two full miles, ending at the Big House, game traffic honking support the entire time. Ann Arbor upon Ann Arbor. It was awesome.
242651
Reposted by Noah Kazis
Hallie Speight @halliespeight.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
I love #Boston #NoKings
330150
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
It goes without saying by now, but these are forms of discrimination that have been upheld as FHA violations since immediately after the passage of the Act and which have specific textual grounding. They simply oppose fair housing and don't want to enforce it. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
NYT text in which Trump admin describes long-established theories of discrimination as "tenuous"
02010
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
Another thought on the politics here too: This is from Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott. It's not "four moderates" bipartisanship, it's the real left and right. That tells us something important about "abundance" politics.
140
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
I finally had time to digest it, and the big bipartisan housing package looks impressive. A little of everything, from zoning and NEPA to mortgages and vouchers. Lots of smart sensible tweaks, but also a sea change getting the feds in the game on zoning reform www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/min...
banking.senate.gov
Scott, Warren Announce Markup of Landmark Bipartisan Housing Legislation from Banking Committee Members | United States Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
The Official website of The United States Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
253
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
My old local!
010
Reposted by Noah Kazis
Salomé Viljoen @salome.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
I get the focus on national politics now, but in Ann Arbor our city plan is facing anti-growth pushback and needs support. Growth is good! Families *want* to live here, and we should make that possible. Learn about this cause and get involved here! www.moreneighborsa2.org?utm_source=n...
moreneighborsa2.org
Home | Neighbors for More Neighbors A2
011
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
My NYC mayor take: The best accomplishments of the Bloomberg, deBlasio, and Adams admins each came on issues where they hired great staff and gave them room to execute. Andrew Cuomo has never done that in his life. He's uniquely unsuited for being mayor -- whether you're left, right or center.
1184
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
This was a very fun project to join. I got to think about how local gov will be transformed in a world of longer life spans. Think over-represented seniors at public meetings and property tax revolts over the schools. www.cambridge.org/core/books/l...
cambridge.org
Local Government Law for the 100-Year Life (Chapter 19) - Law and the 100-Year Life
Law and the 100-Year Life - May 2025
151
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
0143
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Very happy to see this in print--and thank you to the amazing editors at the Virginia L. Rev. for getting it here. virginialawreview.org/articles/the... I argue that the Fair Housing Act uses a distinctive conception of discrimination. It questions market structures and not just transactions.
virginialawreview.org
The Radical Fair Housing Act - Virginia Law Review
This Article uncovers the radical logic at the core of the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”). It is a law which can question and remake the underlying structure of housing markets, not just police individual t...
141
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
I really love this paragraph, which captures what's both valuable-to-necessary and annoying-to-dangerous about Abundance Politics (as opposed to various abundance policies)
"You can think of Abundance as aspirational in an almost theological way. All of us strive to transcend the dirty, fallen world of actual politics, with interest group haggling and identity-based conflicts, into the purer world of politics that serves the common good and prioritizes concrete issues over symbolic ones. But too often, “sin”, here the desire to prioritize subjective, narrow preferences, drags us back down."
010
Reposted by Noah Kazis
Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
This is a terrific and extremely important post by @salome.bsky.social lpeproject.org/blog/the-rig...
lpeproject.org
The Right Understands That All Governance Is Data Governance
The tech arm of Trump 2.0 isn't just reshaping government — it's consolidating control over the data infrastructure that makes modern governance possible. By centralizing data flows and gutting public...
13921
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
To be clear, this eliminates the market-based demand side and market-based supply side programs. As Russ Vought himself explained, the goal is nothing to do with efficiency and everything to do with segregation
082
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
A final, personal note. This rule is lawless and this administration is lawless. “Why bother” is a fair question—and one I asked myself a lot when working on this. It’s pretty clear HUD doesn’t care about comments here (even if a lot of folks at HUD really do). But we just can’t think that way.
173
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
In March, HUD declared it was “revising” (read: gutting) its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regs. That was illegal. I got mad and submitted a comment. www.regulations.gov/comment/HUD-... It’s not in the 100 worst things happening right now, but it’s still MY thing. So, thread:
regulations.gov
Regulations.gov
13915
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
The Trump proposal to cut and block-grant housing vouchers is as callous as you think--but also stupider. States have bad incentives on rental assistance--even the limited $ would be spent inefficiently, with less tenant choice. Conservatives should oppose this too. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/u...
nytimes.com
White House Eyes Overhaul of Federal Housing Aid to the Poor
The Trump administration has considered sharply curtailing vouchers as part of its budget for the 2026 fiscal year.
131
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
I can tell you what makes me feel unsafe, as a Jew, right now: secret police, deportations and prosecutions of political opponents, eugenics. Not in my name. Proud to have signed this letter.
1121
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
My own review of Abundance is up, at The Guardian: TLDR: It's a necessary policy intervention, right on the merits, and there's no one better at explaining this stuff. But for people quick to call others "tradeoff denialists," they are too guilty of the same. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...
theguardian.com
Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson review – make America build again
Over-regulation has rendered progressive change impossible, argue the authors of this clear and rigorous book. But what about the tradeoffs?
2153
Reposted by Noah Kazis
Margaret Hannon @mchannon.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
Really proud to have @profrrothschild.bsky.social as a colleague www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/c...
nytimes.com
She Inspired Laws to Hold the Fossil Fuel Industry Accountable. Now She’s a Target. (Gift Article)
A conservative group is suing for emails of a law professor who helped create legislation to force oil, gas and coal companies to pay for climate damage.
2329
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
Plainly true. See also: the (illegal) attempts to nullify the Fair Housing Act's AFFH provision, destroy the FHIP program, reject HUD referrals to DOJ over Texas cases...
010
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
OK, the actual reason to do this was to take some stock of the discourse -- so some themes: All of this deeply sharing the basic premise that we should build more housing, transportation, clean energy. We should increase state capacity. And a lot of that requires deregulation and less process.
1121
Reposted by Noah Kazis
Nicholas Handler @nicholashandler.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Everyone means the exact same thing when they say “neoliberalism,” which is, “the bad policies that the elites made.”
141
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Because Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's "Abundance" is less a book than a discourse-generating machine (by design), I'm going to review the *reviews* (I also have a review of the actual book coming, I'm not a total weirdo). Roughly from worst to best:
59019
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
This point by @alexandersahn.bsky.social is so important that I'm bringing it over here for him. Because both the left and right of the abundance movement are mostly interested in where the left went wrong, it tells an incomplete story. (1/2)
120
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
More seriously, the USDOT action here is (you guessed it) illegal, dishonest, etc Duffy claims that the statute doesn't cover "cordon pricing" but didn't even have the sense to take down the USDOT page, described as the "VPPP FAQs," discussing... cordon pricing. ops.fhwa.dot.gov/congestionpr...
USDOT page describing "cordon pricing"
000
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
I was reading the MTA's complaint when this landed, and I had been thinking "strong legal arguments, but notably silent on Trump's divine right to rule."
021
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
There's a lot I like in this proposal to leverage LIHTC for zoning reform, and a lot I dislike (I think they miss major downsides of singling out cities, on politics and policy). But what's most interesting is its relevance to the Everything Bagel debate. www.niskanencenter.org/leveraging-l...
niskanencenter.org
Leveraging LIHTC for housing abundance - Niskanen Center
Presidential candidates and members of Congress have floated various ideas for increasing the supply of housing, but to date, none of their proposals have addressed the local political barriers that s...
231
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
The DOJ memo attacking sanctuary cities is hostile to the Constitution. This is a complex area but the idea that states and cities simply must hop to and enforce the President's favored policies--even absent a statute--manages to trample both federalism and separation of powers. aboutblaw.com/bgXX
aboutblaw.com
1142
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Nosferatu was terrific. Really captured the importance of real estate transactions.
050
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
The combo of these passages from the antitrust anti-YIMBY guys is the housing policy equivalent of “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, but also we don’t believe hammers work on nails.”
182
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
Really enjoyed this piece, which I mostly agree with. There's one missing piece that I'd love @gregshill.bsky.social's thoughts on. Prior to demoting enforcement, and sometimes still, the safe streets movement made a related, opposite move. (1/2)
100
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
The judge I clerked for once told me: “you know the most important skill for a judge? It’s judgement. It’s right there in the name”. I think about that a lot these days.
140
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
In what universe is a "blanket housing discrimination lawsuit shield" (here, sovereign immunity) consistent with FL's obligation to "affirmatively further fair housing"? news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/...
news.bloomberglaw.com
Florida Cities Win Blanket Housing Discrimination Lawsuit Shield
Florida municipalities can’t be sued for local land use decisions that discriminate based on race, sex, disability, or fair housing requirements, according to a landmark ruling issued by a state appea...
100
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
I’ve seen a *lot* of opposition to this intervenor trust fund idea—and I’d be opposed in the housing context. But I also vaguely understand (some?) PUC proceedings to be highly technical. Can energy folks let me know how to think about these? The analogy to local community mtgs seems non-obvious
011
Reposted by Noah Kazis
Suzanne Kahn @suzmkahn.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Over on my side project (book rec newsletter) @ericarstern.bsky.social and I interviewed the person with the coolest job I know, Molly Wasser. She's got books for you on everything from astronomical scales to historical romance to doggies! books4endofworld.substack.com/p/relocating...
books4endofworld.substack.com
Relocating to Mars or Canada: Post-Election Recommendations
Molly Wasser's Books for the End of the World
022
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 27/12/2023
The PEZ museum gift shop has some very strange ideas about which presidents people want
Pez dispensers of John Tyler and James BuchananPez dispensers of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Pierce
010
Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 09/10/2023
When I was presenting "Fair Housing for a Non-Sexist City," arguing that housing patterns shaped the gender wage gap, and that law could intervene, the #1 question I got was how work-from-home would reshape things. Who could say? So glad that (at least in NL) we're getting the good outcome.
165