YIMBY News for 2/18

[Eric Budd]

Black Commercial Corridors Are Still Banking On Culture

Next City

---

KEYWORD SCORE: 48.92. construction, development, downtown, house, housing, mixed-use, parking, parking lot, preservation, project, real estate, rent, transit-oriented, urban, walk

Gathered on a cold December morning at the far western end of 7th Street in West Oakland, they sang. They reminisced and rejoiced. They poured out one for the ancestors. Then, with nothing but hammers and chisels, they carefully disassembled the stonework first-floor facade of the historic Esther’s Orbit Room. They removed around 300 stone pieces and put them safely into storage, to be reincorporated back into a redesigned facade after gut rehabbing the rest of the structure. Masons and architects didn’t see the value. “They told us, ‘it doesn’t matter, it’s ugly, get rid of it,’” said Christi

Share via:

What It Will Take To Build Our Way Out of Stagnation

Next City

---

KEYWORD SCORE: 31.34. affordable, affordable housing, apartment, construction, growth, housing, project, rent, urban

Construction workers work with rebar at a site on Tuesday June 6, 2023, in New York. On Friday, The U.S. government issues the June jobs report. (Photo by Bebeto Matthews / AP) A recent Federal Reserve report highlighted a “strange and awful” reality: Construction is the only major American industry to register negative average productivity growth since 1987. Real output per worker is nearly 30% lower today than it was in 1970. This is not merely a business problem; it is an epic failure of our regulatory and industrial systems to innovate. As these systems stagnate, our most vital civic goals

Share via:

Why voters hate Trump’s (pretty decent) economy

Vox - Politics

---

KEYWORD SCORE: 24.52. affordable, growth, house, housing, housing cost, income, rent, transportation

[image: A sign for the price of rib roast at a supermarket.] Grocery prices have a more immediate effect on American views of the economy than overall inflation does. | Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images President Donald Trump spent much of the past year engineering price increases, financial panics, and trade wars. Nonetheless, despite his best efforts, he is presiding over a pretty good economy. Or so the headline statistics would suggest. Last week, a pair of government reports showed robust job growth *and* slowing inflation. Employers added 130,000 jobs in Janua

Share via:

Washington’s Elevator Reform Bill Rises Again

The Urbanist

---

KEYWORD SCORE: 22.98. apartment, comprehensive plan, house, housing, income, urban, walk

A bill paving the way for smaller, less expensive elevators was approved by the Washington State Senate late last week in a refined form. The 41-7 vote brings renewed hope for a nation-leading proposal to jettison overly restrictive standards for elevators that increase building costs and oftentimes lead to fewer elevators being built in the first place. A similar, but more direct attempt at state building code reform died abruptly last year. SB 5156, sponsored by Senator Jesse Salomon (D-32, Shoreline), has been significantly revamped after running into opposition in the state House in 2025.

Share via:

Ikea unveils plans for Fort Collins store

Daily Camera Boulder News

---

KEYWORD SCORE: 18.63. construction, development, house, land-use, mixed-use, planning commission, project, rent, urban, walk

Just three weeks after Swedish retailer Ikea said it was abandoning plans to locate a store in Broomfield, it announced Tuesday that it has settled on a site farther north — in Fort Collins. In a news release, the retailer that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture and household goods said it would open a 64,000-square-foot store at 4250 Corbett Drive in the Front Range Village shopping center, a space that had been home to an Urban Air trampoline park. Ikea, meanwhile, sold the 110-acre site near Interstate 25 and Colo. 7 to UCHealth for a new hospital there. It had purchased the parc

Share via: