Too Many Vacant Lots, Not Enough Housing: The U.S. Real-Estate Puzzle

DaJuan Robinson was remodeling a house on the South Side, not far from the University of Chicago, when he spotted a vacant lot two doors away. He thought it might be worth developing.

Then he learned about the back taxes, unpaid water bills and other hurdles that would take too much time and money to clear. That was seven years ago. In March, he sold a triplex he had built on an empty lot nearby for $815,000, benefiting from county initiatives intended to encourage new housing on miles of blocks pocked with vacant lots.

Despite a national housing shortage, tens of thousands of empty residential lots in Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh and elsewhere are beyond the reach of developers or kept vacant by owners because of legal and government obstacles that cities are now trying to knock down.