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Shane Phillips

@shanedphillips.bsky.social
5.8K followers 329 following 971 posts

Housing guy. Researcher at UCLA Lewis Center, host of UCLA Housing Voice Podcast, author of The Affordable City, resident of Los Angeles.

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Reposted by Shane Phillips
Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 23h
Left-NIMBYs love to pit welfare state expansion against land use reform, but the latter can 1) can achieve significant poverty reductions 2) without means testing or administrative burdens, and 3) at a net gain for the public budget, which can then be used to expand the welfare state.
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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The GOP cut funding to the IRS because *audits work* and they fundamentally don't believe rich people should have to play by the rules.
Line chart titled "Revenue per audit," subtitled "In-person audits, 2010-2014." It plots average revenue and average cost per audit by taxpayer income percentile, poorer to richer, from the 0–5th percentile to the top 0.1%. Source: Boning et al. 2023, "A Welfare Analysis of Tax Audits Across the Income Distribution."

Across the bottom half of the income distribution, revenue and cost track closely, both around $3,000–$6,000 per audit. Above the median, revenue pulls ahead of cost: about $10,000 vs. $5,000 near the 90th percentile, and about $17,000 vs. $8,000 at the 95th–99th. At the top, revenue jumps to about $31,000 for the 99–99.9th percentile and about $90,000 for the top 0.1%.
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Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
NEW from me: Over the last 4 years, America has lost more than 200k jobs in creative fields like publishing, film, TV, or graphic design. It's the worst stretch for arts jobs outside of recessions. How much is AI to blame? And can the arts' business model survive?🧵 www.apricitas.io/p/ai-and-the...
apricitas.io
AI and the Fall? of the Creative Class
America is Losing Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs in Media, Film & the Arts. How Much is AI to Blame?
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Michael Andersen @andersem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
There are other things, like mandatory fire curtains that lack demonstrated safety benefits but add $7k/floor. The Coalition for Elevator Reform, launched this month by accessibility-forward housing developer The Kelsey, has model legislation. elevatorreform.org
elevatorreform.org
ElevatorReform.org
Where to take action on elevator reform.
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Reposted by Shane Phillips
Michael Andersen @andersem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I have a confession to make. The townhomes I & others spent most of a decade trying to legalize are popping up all over Oregon & elsewhere...and I love that...but they're a problem in one big way. (get ready for a twisty thread about the housing report @sightline.org just published)
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Maybe I'm just a partisan hack and this happens all the time with both parties, but it seems like putting the flag of a major geopolitical rival literally on top of the Oval Office is kind of insane???
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
So many problems, in so many states, are downstream of our unwillingness to tax real estate at its market value, and more generally of our unwillingness to acknowledge that housing wealth is, in fact, wealth.
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Urban Land Rent 🇸🇴🚰 @urbanlandrent.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
My new market rate apartment is affordable to households making ~80% AMI. It was built 5 years ago. I need every skeptic of “filtering” to spend five minutes looking at rentals on Zillow for Sacramento. Actually, let’s do it together: www.zillow.com/sacramento-c...
zillow.com
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
On this week's reading list we cover the supply and affordability impacts of suburban expansion, tight mortgage lending standards, tools for estimating housing development feasibility, growing the urban tree canopy, and more. uclahousingvoice.substack.com/p/ucla-housi...
uclahousingvoice.substack.com
UCLA Housing Voice Reading List (9/23/26)
The supply and affordability impacts of suburban expansion, tight mortgage lending standards, tools for estimating housing development feasibility, growing the urban tree canopy, and more.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
On this week's reading list we cover the supply and affordability impacts of suburban expansion, tight mortgage lending standards, tools for estimating housing development feasibility, growing the urban tree canopy, and more. uclahousingvoice.substack.com/p/ucla-housi...
uclahousingvoice.substack.com
UCLA Housing Voice Reading List (9/23/26)
The supply and affordability impacts of suburban expansion, tight mortgage lending standards, tools for estimating housing development feasibility, growing the urban tree canopy, and more.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This one was wild to me: Only 63% of people who voted for Bass in the primary know they're voting for her in the general, compared to 89% for Raman. Raman is also supported by likely voters who didn't vote in the primary by more than 2-to-1, though with lots still undecided.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Question for Michael and for anyone else out there: How much does street (car) noise simply correlate with road width (lanes) and vehicle speed? This is a cool project, but if road width and speed are what matter, we can do this for basically any street, not just ones where we install monitors.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Thread, with a question: I've been thinking about cost recovery for off-site infrastructure upgrades required of developers, particularly of infill housing where most of the benefit of the upgrade isn't captured by the developer themselves.
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William Skudlarek @willskud.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
TIL For 25 yrs, HUD used urban renewal grant funding to effectively force 4k+ localities to adopt model building codes and drop expensive local req'ts in the process. It ended in 1974 after Congress revoked HUD's authority b/c Chicago refused to comply. babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ui...
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William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
A minimum population size for local government in general would solve literally hundreds of problems. Lots of cities should be annexed or disincorporated.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Our second episode on preapproved building plans is out today! It features Alkarim Devani and Eric Kronberg, two practitioners who are helping design and implement preapproved plans programs across North America. Tons of wisdom in this one. lewis.ucla.edu/2026/09/16/1...
lewis.ucla.edu
Episode 123: Implementing Preapproved Plan Programs with Alkarim Devani and Eric Kronberg
We talked with Alkarim Devani and Eric Kronberg, two practitioners who are designing and implementing preapproved plan programs across North America.
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Reposted by Shane Phillips
Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 13/09/2026
After @pipedreaming.bsky.social got done with his presentation on single-stair venting a few days ago, one of the committee members said, exasperatedly, “I didn’t realize I was signing up for this” – as in, he didn’t realize he’d be volunteering his time to review such a big proposal. I worry…
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
New analysis on my Substack showing that smaller lots are strongly associated with smaller, more affordable houses. The analysis centers on a place you've probably never heard talked about in the minimum lot size reform conversation: Dallas County, TX. domainexpansion.substack.com/p/smaller-lo...
domainexpansion.substack.com
Smaller lots lead to smaller, more affordable homes
An original analysis with new evidence from the Dallas County Appraisal District.
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Spokane Rising @spokanerising.com · 14/09/2026
Narrative buster!
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Amazing time capsule of a photo from Sept 11, 2001 in Los Angeles, from this @lamaterial.com article: lamaterial.com/p/alex-padil...
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Figure 4 is further evidence that land values are determining home sizes. On the y-axis, I replace lot size with land value, and I remove the tract-level income restriction—it's all Dallas County. The relationship is very clear, with higher land values consistently associated with larger new homes.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Very clearly, smaller lots are associated with smaller new homes. For example, for parcels 1,500-2,999 sf. in size, the most common new home size was 2,000-2,249 sf. For parcels 20,000 sf (about half an acre) and above, the typical new home is over 6,000 sf It's a smooth progression
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
New analysis on my Substack showing that smaller lots are strongly associated with smaller, more affordable houses. The analysis centers on a place you've probably never heard talked about in the minimum lot size reform conversation: Dallas County, TX. domainexpansion.substack.com/p/smaller-lo...
domainexpansion.substack.com
Smaller lots lead to smaller, more affordable homes
An original analysis with new evidence from the Dallas County Appraisal District.
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Reposted by Shane Phillips
Evan Roberts @evanrobertsnz.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Really interesting working paper reported in this week's UCLA Housing Voice newsletter (thx @shanedphillips.bsky.social) on a minimum lot size reform in an Adelaide suburb. What's striking is the absolute size: suburban lot min dropped from 3770' to 1610 uclahousingvoice.substack.com/p/ucla-housi...
uclahousingvoice.substack.com
UCLA Housing Voice Reading List (9/9/26)
Minimum lot sizes, returns on investment from homeownership, Japanese architecture, the transit version of “everything bagel liberalism,” and more.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
This week's UCLA Housing Voice reading list reviews an expansive new paper on the effects of lowering minimum lot sizes on housing supply, moving chains, market participation by new and existing firms, and potential disamenities relating to traffic, schools, and crime. And a bunch of other links!
uclahousingvoice.substack.com
UCLA Housing Voice Reading List (9/9/26)
Minimum lot sizes, returns on investment from homeownership, Japanese architecture, the transit version of “everything bagel liberalism,” and more.
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Reposted by Shane Phillips
Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 05/09/2026
TIL that in Israel, apartments are only required to have sprinklers in every room starting at 42 meters. Below that, just the unit entrance and the kitchen must be sprinklered. Not only are sprinkler requirements for new buildings rare outside of the US and Canada, but when they do require them…
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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
This “game” on the White House website, a version of Snake where you play as a white man in a suit and you run around picking up identifiably black, Asian, and Latino men and putting them in orange jumpsuits, might be the most openly white supremacist thing I’ve ever seen the US government produce
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Hail from WA, moved to CA. Checks out.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
In our latest UCLA Housing Voice episode, Seva Rodnyansky shares his research on preapproved building plan programs in the US. How much do they speed up permitting? How much are they lowering costs? Where are they working best, and what can those places teach us? lewis.ucla.edu/2026/09/02/1...
lewis.ucla.edu
Episode 122: An Overview of Preapproved Building Plan Programs with Seva Rodnyansky
Seva Rodnyansky shares findings about how preapproved plan programs promise to speed up permitting and lower the cost of building new homes.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
In our latest UCLA Housing Voice episode, Seva Rodnyansky shares his research on preapproved building plan programs in the US. How much do they speed up permitting? How much are they lowering costs? Where are they working best, and what can those places teach us? lewis.ucla.edu/2026/09/02/1...
lewis.ucla.edu
Episode 122: An Overview of Preapproved Building Plan Programs with Seva Rodnyansky
Seva Rodnyansky shares findings about how preapproved plan programs promise to speed up permitting and lower the cost of building new homes.
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 01/09/2026
New York’s congestion pricing program has resulted in a statistically significant reduction in travel times for EMS vehicles
nber.org
Urban Congestion Pricing and the Response Times of Emergency Medical Services
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
This week on the UCLA Housing Voice reading list, our research highlight is a big new inclusionary zoning study. It does two important things. One: finds big negative impacts on housing supply. Two: shows that stricter IZ reduces production more uclahousingvoice.substack.com/p/ucla-housi...
uclahousingvoice.substack.com
UCLA Housing Voice Reading List (8/26/26)
Great new empirical research on inclusionary zoning, practical recommendations for building code reform, NIMBYism and beauty, dead birds, and more.
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
"Her platform focuses on technocratic solutions like the theoretically best possible zoning policies rather than building power for the working-class by challenging capital." Good thing LA's zoning status quo is not devastating the city's working class or anything.
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Michael Andersen @andersem.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
The most remarkable thing about this isn’t that home values fell after upzoning (NZ’s weak job creation since 2020 contributed too), it’s that homebuilding *continued* at a much higher rate even after the price drop
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Tom Broderick @trumbullbrod.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
I’ve been doing some historical research on Connecticut’s zoning, and while exclusionary zoning started as early as 1924 in West Hartford, you see a flood of anti-apartment, targeted downzonings in the 60s and 70s. CT’s black population had grown in the previous decades—probably not a coincidence!
Many obstacles ahead for garden apartmentsProposed apartment law would require more landTighter control sought in apartment zoningZone board tightens apartment regulations
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Every one percentage point increase in Black population growth above expectations was associated with a one p.p. *decrease* in land zoned for multifamily housing — a huge effect in a nation where only about 13% of residentially zoned land allows for multifamily today lewis.ucla.edu/2026/08/19/1...
lewis.ucla.edu
Episode 121: Exclusionary Zoning and the Great Migration with Alexander Sahn - UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Why is exclusionary zoning so commonplace in the US? Alexander Sahn shares evidence that the migration of Southern Blacks played a big role.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
My wife and I are gonna be in Philadelphia Oct 2-5, just for fun. Neither of us have ever been. Where should we stay?
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M. Nolan Gray 🥑 @mnolangray.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Racial segregation wasn't an accidental or purely historical side effect of modern zoning—it was core to the story, and the resulting codes are still in effect in most US cities. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...
tandfonline.com
The racial origins of zoning: Southern cities from 1910–40
This article argues that the desire to regulate black residential patterns constituted a major objective of the early zoning and planning movement in the United States, particularly in the South be...
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
This week we talk with Alexander Sahn of UNC Chapel Hill about the connection between the movement of Southern Blacks during the Great Migration and the rise of exclusionary zoning in the cities where they ended up. The association is *very* strong. lewis.ucla.edu/2026/08/19/1...
lewis.ucla.edu
Episode 121: Exclusionary Zoning and the Great Migration with Alexander Sahn - UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Why is exclusionary zoning so commonplace in the US? Alexander Sahn shares evidence that the migration of Southern Blacks played a big role.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I'm reading this great article by @scp-hughes.bsky.social and something occurred to me: Could increasing life expectancy throughout the 1900s have contributed to the rise of NIMBYism, or of historical preservation in particular? worksinprogress.co/issue/beauty...
worksinprogress.co
Beauty In My Backyard - Works in Progress Magazine
Ugly architecture stops homes getting built – but not in the way you think.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Anyone know what's going on with LIHTC development in Colorado? This report got a lot of attention for high costs in CA and high LIHTC costs relative to market-rate in CA and TX, but I don't recall anyone talking about how CO is building LIHTC cheaper than market-rate. www.rand.org/pubs/researc...
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 17/08/2026
14 hours later and my mentions are still full of angry treatises about badly behaved cyclists. Bike lanes are not a reward for good cyclist behavior! They are infrastructure proven to make cities safer for ALL ROAD USERS. Whatever way cyclists have wronged you is irrelevant to the discussion!
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Profit Greenly @profitgreenly.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
The death estimate is very uncertain but the lower bound is over 8 million and the upper bound is over 19 million. All while US spending has increased overall. Just a monstrous policy choice by monstrous people.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
This week's Housing Voice reading list covers research on embodied emissions in new housing, the impacts Garden City neighborhood design, high unemployment insurance taxes for construction firms, and the young adult home ownership rate. uclahousingvoice.substack.com/p/ucla-housi...
uclahousingvoice.substack.com
UCLA Housing Voice Reading List (8/12/2026)
Embodied GHG emissions in new buildings, the social and environmental costs of 'Garden City' design, taxing construction workers, overstating the young adult homeownership rate, and more.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
I'm not saying cities should do this or that it would even be a good idea, but theoretically, could a US city ban internal combustion engine vehicles from operating on its streets? Just the local streets, not state-owned or interstate, and ignoring that it would probably be preempted if attempted.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
I look at this map of bike paths and lanes in LA County and I want to say something like "thanks, fragmented governance among 88 different cities," but a huge share of this is the city of LA and it doesn't look any better. If your trip is more than a few blocks then you're probably dodging cars.
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Michael Andersen @andersem.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
I was so honored that the host of my favorite housing podcast wanted to excerpt a couple episodes of my own lil show!
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
If you haven't been listening to the great YIMBY Country podcast created by @andersem.bsky.social, here's your nudge: in lieu of our usual interviews, we're featuring a few clips from YIMBY Country on our feed lewis.ucla.edu/2026/08/05/y...
lewis.ucla.edu
YIMBY Country with Michael Andersen - UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
This episode features clips from Michael Andersen's one-shot podcast series, YIMBY Country: "A podcast mini-series about what happens after you legalize housing. In this case, in New Zealand."
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scha·den·freu·de @blisterpearl.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Top panel is tiny planet Mercury in relation to the HUGE Sun.
Bottom panel is a similar image, a tiny "close ad" button in relation to the fingertip labeled "my finger" which fills nearly the entire panel.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I'm playing around looking at median family income data and noticed that Washington DC has a way higher median than other large metros (chart 1) but a pretty run-of-the-mill 80% MFI (chart 2). Also, note how 80% MFI increased a lot faster than MFI in LA and NYC (chart 3 + 1). What's the deal?
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