Christopher Serkin: Why Zoning Reform Alone Won't Fix Housing (Full)

Nashville approved every one of roughly 200 rezoning requests over two years, added about 75,000 housing units in a decade, and is still net less dense than it was 25 years ago. Christopher Serkin uses that to argue looser zoning alone won't deliver affordability, and that homeowners associations would fill the void if zoning vanished. Jerremy Alexander Newsome and Dave Conley press him on Wall Street, the 2008 crash and whether housing can be both affordable and a good investment. He says it can't. He also explains why the left and right agreeing on zoning makes him nervous, and why a state overriding local control feels different in Tennessee than in California. It ends with a lightning round and the hosts' own debrief.

Timestamps:

• (00:00) Forty-year-old first buyers – Home prices have outrun paychecks for a decade
• (05:09) The ski mountain buyout – A town of 900 blocks development permanently
• (10:06) Nashville said yes – Every request approved, yet the city got less dense
• (18:04) Wall Street's real role – He admits he can't prove how much
• (25:40) Not both – Affordable and a good investment can't coexist
• (46:53) The liberal-tarian consensus – Left and right agree, and it worries him
• (61:35) The hosts' debrief – Homeownership as a home, not an investment thesis

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