Getting Taller

I often walk around town frustrated by how short all the buildings are. Letting people build taller and thereby increase density would be good in a whole number of ways. But even a hardened development advocate such as myself would have to concede that it's not reasonable to ask people all across the city to accept having huge swathes of their neighborhood suddenly bulldozed and rebuilt as something wildly different. Ryan Avent has a more practical proposal:

I believe the District should designate a few safe viewsheds, where heights cannot be raised. Then, it should auction off a set number of height allowances each year. Auctions should boost the revenue take, and a set number of annual allowances would prevent wholesale redevelopment of areas with tight supply.

It might even be a good idea to set it up so that a healthy share of the revenue would accrue directly to the local Advisory Neighborhood Councils so as to give them some incentive to encourage development rather than adopting their usual posture of obstructionism.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/03/getting-taller/45529/