Ep 78: Building Height and Construction Costs with Anthony Orlando

Building taller lets us fit more homes on valuable urban land, but more homes doesn’t necessarily mean more affordable. Anthony Orlando joins to share his research on why taller isn’t always better — and the circumstances where it definitely is.

Show notes:

• Eriksen, M. D., & Orlando, A. W. (2022). Returns to scale in residential construction: The marginal impact of building height. Real Estate Economics, 50(2), 534-564.
• Episode 69 of UCLA Housing Voice, with Mike Eriksen discussing the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and “Crowd Out”
• Giuliano, G., Redfearn, C., Agarwal, A., & He, S. (2012). Network Accessibility and Employment Centres. Urban Studies, 49(1), 77-95.
• An, B., Orlando, A. W., & Rodnyansky, S. (2019). The Physical Legacy of Racism: how redlining cemented the modern built environment. Available at SSRN 3500612.
• Eriksen, M. D., & Orlando, A. W. (2024). A Cost Decomposition of Break-Even Rents for New Multifamily Housing Development. Journal of Housing Economics, 102012.