In the US, it's common for local governments to focus on tax revenue produced by a property, without considering the costs it adds to the city's budget. This is like measuring how far a car can drive without considering how much gas it uses to get there. Different properties create different long-term cost burdens for the city. One of the biggest contributors to that variance is the amount of infrastructure they require, which correlates with...

I recently spent a day at Sea Ranch, a strange and beautiful place. Sea Ranch is a planned community with a distinctive architectural style: simple timber-frame structures clad in wooden siding, and gardens all planted with native flora. The Sea Ranch Design Committee enforces strict design rules on all 1,800 homes along that 10-mile stretch of the Northern California coast. The result is a cohesive, calming aesthetic unlike anywhere else I've...