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There are times when the best way to learn something about urbanism is to embrace sheer ignorance. The more a planner knows about zoning, the more careful they become about zoning reform. The more an engineer knows about intersection design, the more timid they become about innovative intersection design. Its human nature to mentally codify something as you become more familiar with it: Its always been done this way, so it must be right. The Citizen Kane Case Study Applied ignorance has been a theme in my career, so Im always happy to hear about others who experienced some form of success by similar means. Im a sucker for behind-the-scenes stories about my favorite movies, screenwriters, and directors. Legendary film critic Roger Ebert used to say Citizen Kane was the greatest film of all time and there could be no competitor. Hundreds of polls and articles have been published over the years sharing Eberts opinion. The storytelling techniques, emotional soundtrack, and the morally complex characters transformed the way future writers and directors approached filmmaking. This was director Orson Welles debut film, and he was only 24 years old when he was crafting the masterpiece. He sat for an interview with the BBC Monitor when he was 44, and heres one of many insightful segments. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}} Welles: I didnt want money. I wanted authority. And after a year of negotiations, I got it. My love for films began only when we started work. BBC: What Id like to know is where did you get the confidence to Welles: Ignorance. Sheer ignorance. You know, theres no confidence to equal it. Its only when you know something about a profession, I think, that youre timid or careful. BBC: How does ignorance show itself? Welles: I thought you could do anything with a camera that the eye could do, or the imagination could do. And if you come up from the bottom in the film business, youre taught all the things that the cameraman doesnt want to attempt for fear he will be criticized for having failed. In this case I had a cameraman who didnt care if he was criticized if he failed, and I didnt know that there were things you couldnt do. So anything I could think up in my dreams I attempted to photograph. BBC: You got away with enormous technical advancements, didnt you. Welles: Simply by not knowing that they were impossible. Or theoretically impossible. Questioning the status quo Im no Orson Welles, but Im great at asking dumb questions about topics that I have no expertise in. Sometimes it leads to learning about an important reason the status quo does what it does, and sometimes the discovery is that the status quo is practicing pseudoscience. Asking big Why and What If questions is so unusual in professional planning and engineering, because these are industries with established processes and structure. Some things just arent supposed to be challenged. Heres a starter pack of sample questions you might bring up with your local decision-makers: Land planning: Residential lot size. What are the trade-offs when regulations require a minimum property size for homes? Single-stair code. Considering single-stair building has been almost universally outlawed in the U.S., why is there a push among architects to legalize them? Building setbacks. How is walkability impacted by forcing buildings to be a certain distance away from the street? Single-use zoning. How does banning mixed-use neighborhoods affect car dependency? Units per parcel. Are there economic benefits by allowing property owners to build multiple housing units on their land? Transportation engineering: Car lane width. Is there any research on the safety impacts of 10 vs. 12foot lanes? Signal timing. Is there any benefit to giving pedestrians a head start before the green light? Roundabout diameter. Are there case studies about smaller roundabouts being safer? Street light type. Are there case studies about highway-scale lighting vs. pedestrian-scale? Geometric design. What are the trade-offs when the design speed is higher than the operating speed? Practice some applied ignorance in your urbanism projects or advocacy. Humbly ask questions knowing you dont know what you dont know. The worst thing that happens is you learn something new about a topic. The best thing that happens is you spark a conversation that leads to a policy or infrastructure improvement. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
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A big increase in the tax on university endowments is adding to financial uncertainty for the wealthiest colleges in the U.S., leading several already to lay off staff or implement hiring freezes.Spending more endowment money on taxes could also lead colleges to reduce financial aid, cutting off access to elite institutions for lower-income students, colleges and industry experts have warned. President Donald Trump signed the tax increase into law last month as part of his signature spending bill.The new tax rates take effect in 2026, but colleges such as Harvard, Yale and Stanford already are citing the tax as one of many reasons for making cuts across their universities. Each will be on the hook to pay hundreds of millions more in taxes, while also navigating reductions in research grants and other threats to funding by the Trump administration.A tax on college endowments was introduced during Trump’s first administration, collecting 1.4% of wealthy universities’ investment earnings. The law signed by Trump last month creates a new tiered system that taxes the richest schools at the highest rates.The new tax will charge an 8% rate at schools with $2 million or more in assets for each enrolled student. Schools with $750,000 to $2 million will be charged 4%, and schools with $500,000 to $750,000 will continue to be charged the 1.4% rate.The tax applies only to private colleges and universities with at least 3,000 students, up from the previous cutoff of 500 students.“The tax now will really solely apply to private research universities,” said Steven Bloom, assistant vice president of government relations for the American Council on Education. “It’s going to mean that these schools are going to have to spend more money under the tax, taking it away from what they primarily use their endowment assets for financial aid.” This small group of wealthy colleges faces a tax increase The law will increase the endowment tax for about a dozen universities, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the National Association of College and University Business Officers.Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are expected to pay the 8% rate next year. The schools facing the 4% rate include Notre Dame, Dartmouth College, Rice University, University of Pennsylvania, Washington University in St. Louis and Vanderbilt University.Some universities are on the edge of the law’s parameters. Both Duke and Emory, for instance, were shy of the $750,000-per-student endowment threshold based on last fiscal year.Endowments are made up of donations to the college, which are invested to maintain the money over time. Colleges often spend about 5% of their investment earnings every year to put toward their budgets. Much of it goes toward scholarships for students, along with costs such as research or endowed faculty positions.Despite the colleges’ wealth, the tax will drastically impact their budgets, said Phillip Levine, an economist and professor at Wellesley College.“They’re looking for savings wherever possible,” Levine said, which could impact financial aid. “One of the most important things they do with their endowment is lower the cost of education for lower- and middle-income students. The institutions paying the highest tax are also the ones charging these students the least amount of money to attend.”For example, at Rice University in Houston, officials anticipate the college will need to pay $6.4 million more in taxes. That equates to more than 100 student financial aid packages, the university said, but Rice officials will explore all other options to avoid cutting that support. How colleges are adjusting to financial pressures In the meantime, some universities are going forward with staff cuts.Yale University says it will have to pay an estimated $280 million in total endowment taxes, citing the tax in a campus message implementing a hiring freeze. Stanford University announced plans to reduce its operating budget by $140 million this upcoming school year, which included 363 layoffs and an ongoing hiring freeze. The university spent months trying to determine where to reduce its budget, but said it would continue to support undergraduate financial aid and funding for Ph.D. students.Research universities are under increasing financial pressure from reductions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies.No university knows this pressure better than Harvard, the country’s wealthiest college. Its $53 billion endowment puts it at the top of the list for the new tax, but it’s also seeing massive portions of research funding under threat in its ongoing battle with the White House.The federal government has frozen $2.6 billion in Harvard’s research grants in connection with civil rights investigations focused on antisemitism and Harvard’s efforts to promote diversity on campus. But the impact of other administration policies on the university could approach $1 billion annually, Harvard said in a statement.“It’s not like Harvard is going to go from one of the best institutions in the world to just a mediocre institution. That’s probably not going to happen,” Levine said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a bad thing that there won’t be pain and that students won’t suffer.” Mumphrey reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writer Sharon Lurye in Philadelphia contributed to this report. The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Cheyanne Mumphrey, AP Education Writer
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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. During the Pandemic Housing Boom, from summer 2020 to spring 2022, the number of active homes for sale in most housing markets plummeted as homebuyer demand quickly absorbed almost everything that came up for sale and sellers had ultimate power. Fast-forward to the current housing market, and the places where active inventory has rebounded to 2019 levels (due to strained affordability suppressing buyer demand) are now the very places where homebuyers have gained the most power. At the end of July 2025, national active housing inventory for sale was still -11% below June 2019 levels. However, more and more regional markets are surpassing that threshold. This list is growing: January 2025: 41 of the 200 largest metro area housing markets were back above pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels. February 2025: 44 of the 200 largest metro area housing markets were back above pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels. March 2025: 58 of the 200 largest metro area housing markets were back above pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels. April 2025: 69 of the 200 largest metro area housing markets were back above pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels. May 2025: 75 of these 200 major markets were back above pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels. June: 78 of these 200 major markets were back above pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels. Now, at the latest reading for the end of July 2025, 80 of the 200 markets are above pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels and ResiClub expects that count will continue to rise this year. [Chart: ResiClub] Among these 80 markets, youll find lots in Sun Belt markets like Florida, Texas, Arizona, and Colorado. Many of the softest housing markets, where homebuyers have gained leverage, are located in Gulf Coast and Mountain West regions. Some of these areas were among the nations top pandemic boomtowns, having experienced significant home price growth during the pandemic housing boom, which stretched housing fundamentals far beyond local income levels. When pandemic-fueled domestic migration slowed and mortgage rates spiked, markets like Cape Coral, Florida, and San Antonio, Texas, faced challenges as they had to rely on local incomes to sustain frothy home prices. The housing market softening in these areas was further accelerated by the abundance of new home supply in the pipeline across the Sun Belt. Builders in these regions are often willing to reduce net effective prices or make other affordability adjustments to maintain sales. These adjustments in the new construction market also create a cooling effect on the resale market, as some buyers who might have opted for an existing home shift their focus to new homes where deals are still available. In contrast, many Northeast and Midwest markets were less reliant on pandemic migration and have less new home construction in progress. With lower exposure to that demand shock, active inventory in these Midwest and Northeast regions has remained relatively tight, keeping the advantage in the hands of home sellers. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}})}(); Generally speaking, housing markets where inventory (i.e., active listings) has returned to pre-pandemic levels have experienced softer/weaker home price growth (or outright declines) over the past 36 months. Conversely, housing markets where inventory remains far below pre-pandemic levels have, generally speaking, experienced more resilient home price growth over the past 36 months. ResiClub PRO members can find our latest inventory analysis for +800 metros, +3,000 counties, and +25,000 ZIP Codes here, and our latest analysis showing why the 2019 inventory comparison remains insightful here.
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