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I argue that wide residential streets in US cities are both a contributor to homelessness and a potential strategy to provide more affordable housing. In residential neighborhoods, subdivision ordinances typically set binding standards for street width, far in excess of what is economically optimal or what private developers and residents would likely prefer. These street width standards are one contributor to high housing costs and supply restrictions, which exacerbate the housing affordability crisis in high-cost cities. Planning for autonomous vehicles highlights the overprovision of streets in urban areas. Because they can evade municipal anti-camping restrictions that restrict the use of streets by unhoused people, autonomous camper vans have the ability to blur the distinction between land for housing and land for streets. I propose two strategies through which excess street space can accommodate housing in a formalized way. First, cities could permit camper van parking on the right-of-way, analogous to liveaboard canal boats that provide housing options in some UK cities. Second, extending private residential lots into the right-of-way would create space for front-yard accessory dwelling units.

Economists tend to favour price-based approaches, such as gasoline and carbon taxes, to address the negative impacts of car travel, while urban planners tend to emphasise land use planning such as compact development. In this paper, we argue that the two approaches are synergistic. We use precinct-level data from two California referenda to show that land use planning makes pricing more feasible: voters in dense, transit-oriented neighbourhoods are more willing to support a carbon price and increased gasoline taxes. Political ideology is a more important determinant of voting patterns, but in a closely divided election, land use patterns, public transportation, and other aspects of the built environment can determine the success of a referendum on driving taxes. Our results also imply that the voluminous research on land use and transportation underestimates the long-run impacts of compact development on driving, through ignoring the ways in which urban form shapes the politics of taxation.

Cities have emerged as important actors in climate change policy, implementing measures to reduce emissions from transportation, buildings, and waste. More recently, states such as California have implemented cap-and-trade programs to control greenhouse gases. However, a state-level cap handcuffs cities: by fixing emissions at the level of the cap, it precludes local governments from further reducing aggregate emissions. In this paper, we examine whether cities respond to the changed incentives presented by state-level programs. We find no evidence for crowding out: cities plan their emission reductions in similar ways regardless of state-level cap-and-trade programs. Our results suggest that cities likely have a range of motivations for their climate policy efforts- not simply a altruistic desire to improve the global environment.

California is one of the least greenhouse-gas intensive states in the United States, and one of the most energy efficient economies in the world. Its success is partly an accident of geography, due to a temperate climate, and its service-based economy with little emissions-intensive industry. But California's governors, state legislators, and local agencies have also shown a willingness to enact climate legislation and implement mitigation policies, far ahead of the federal government and most other states. In part, climate action in California is rooted in the legacy of the air quality and energy efficiency programs from the 1970s and 1980s, which bequeathed state agencies with a depth of technical, regulatory and legal expertise. However, California has also legitimized climate mitigation as a matter of state action, and demonstrates high public accountability and enlists powerful coalitions by providing substantial and enduring incentives. This article discusses the range of mitigation policies, from cap-and-trade to vehicle efficiency and green building standards, that California has implemented, and the political coalition that has enabled their introduction. It also highlights challenges, particularly the difficulty in passing down mandates and incentives for emissions reduction to local government agencies, which retain a monopoly in land-use planning.