Why housing is so expensive

Slate has a nice summary of work by Ed Glaeser (Harvard) and Joe Gyourko (of U-Penn) on an alternative reason why housing prices are high, growing, and so variable from city to city.

The great mystery is on the supply side. Instead of the traditional formula "housing price equals land price + construction costs + reasonable profit," we seem to be seeing something more like "housing price equals land price + constructions costs plus reasonable profit + mystery component." And, most interestingly, the mystery component varies a lot from city to city.

The answer is zoning regulations, as measured by time it takes to get a permit for all those environmental impact and fire safety and other red tape necessary for new construction projects.

Glaeser & Gyorko's paper includes some of the data behind their analysis and just eye-balling it I see that Seattle appears to be tightening up and coming to resemble cities like San Francisco more than more affordable places like Dallas. Between 1989 and 1999, Seattle went from 72 to 90 by one measure, where Dallas went from 58 to 52. Anaheim (96 to 96), Boston (87 to 86), and San Francisco (98 to 97) were more stable.

[via Marginal Revolution]

TV in bedrooms linked to lower test scores

TV in bedrooms linked to lower test scores

a study from the Stanford Report proves that you shouldn't let kids have a TV in their room, but giving them access to a PC is good.

Getting Things Done

Omar Shahine is a Microsoft blogger who posts a summary of how he improved his personal productivity. Of course personal attempts to organize yourself usually work for a few days or weeks and then peter out, but it's interesting to read his results of shahine.com/omar/ - Getting Things Done 2 months later

He uses the David Allen techniques that were reviewed in Atlantic Monthly last year.

Microsoft is more popular than Sony in Japan

Microsoft tops Sony in survey according to Nihon Keizai.

Microsoft is #1 in the business survey, #3 in the consumer survey.
Toyota is #2, Canon #3.
Sony fell to #4 from it's top position last year.

I wonder how Google does in Japan?

Cell phone towers

Cell Phone Tower Search is a site that uses Google Maps to show you the nearest cell phone towers around a given location.

Unfortunately it appears that Mercer Island has only two main towers, near Pioneer Park, which may explain the terrible reception I seem to get near my house.

Bill Clinton agrees with Bush on Iraq

Speaking at the Aspen Institute's Ideas Festival Bill Clinton says: "'This is not Vietnam. I wouldn�t set a deadline [for the withdrawal of troops]. I agree with the president.'"

[from New York Metro], which adds: If anyone but him had said the same thing about Iraq, there would have been boos and hisses.

MercuryNews.com | 07/24/2005 | In the '80s, Japan was the new big threat, like China now

MercuryNews.com | 07/24/2005 | In the '80s, Japan was the new big threat, like China now

This is not an especially enlightening article, but I'm glad somebody agrees with me about today's situation with China and how it resembles the scare talk fifteen years ago with Japan. When Japanese investors were buying the major American movie studios, the Rockefeller Center, and other important icons, many people at the time talked like it was proof of the short-sightedness of Americans. Ultimately it turned out that most of these assets were obscenely overpriced, and it was really just a big rip-off for the Japanese.

Why is the recent talk about IBM/Lenovo or Unocal any different? If these companies are so strategic and so valuable to American interests that their sale should be blocked, why are American investors being outbid? Do the Americans know something that the Chinese (or the Japanese before them) don't?