Downtown Miami's Lack of Height Limits Credited with Affordability Improvements

An article by Scott Beyer examines Downtown Miami as a case study in support of Edward Glaeser's theories about relaxing building limits to spur the growth of needed housing supply.

"Glaeser’s theory has mostly gone untested as the nation’s most gentrifying cities -- such as New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. -- still heavily control building heights," weites Beyer. "But an area around downtown Miami might finally offer some support to Glaeser’s premise."

That is:

"Instead of controlling density by regulating building heights, Miami has let developers build up: 53 of the city’s 64 buildings over 400 feet tall have been completed since 2000. Many of these skyscrapers are in Brickell, built to accommodate a well-heeled residential population that has doubled to 28,000 over the past 15 years."

According to Beyer, the evidence of the success of the effort is visible in the surrounding working-class neighborhoods like Little Havana and Overtown, where statistics from the real estate site Zillow show median home values hovering around half that of the figures achieved by the rest of the city.