More than a third of California cities and counties, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and fast-growing suburbs like Dublin and Irvine, require private home builders to set aside a portion of the homes they build at below-market rents…
Austin Added 120,000 Homes, and You Won’t Believe What Happened Next
Austin’s median rent is 4% below the national median today, down from a 15% premium above the national median in 2021. The shift follows a decade of zoning and permitting reforms that enabled the city to add 120,000 homes, even…
Pay More, Get Less: When Rising Home Prices Mean Declining Living Standards
Rising home prices appear to be a boon to many, but the same mechanism that leads to higher property values – severe constraints on home building – reduces real living standards by forcing families to pay more for worse housing…
How Blocking New Homes Hurts Poor Renters the Most
Building more homes — even expensive luxury apartments — cuts rents most in older, affordable buildings where low-income families live. Between 2017 and 2024, poor neighborhoods experienced rent spikes 10 percent higher than those in affluent areas. However, cities that…
This One Weird Trick Could Could Cut NYC Rent by 18%
New York City could add 71% more residential floorspace by 2060, and reduce rents by 18% over the next 40 years, if it removed certain restrictions on home building. In “Can We Rebuild a City? The Dynamics of Urban Redevelopment,”…
How California’s Sky-High Rents Cancelled Out $11 Billion in Food Stamp Benefits
California’s 17.7 percent poverty rate—more than double Minnesota’s 7.4 percent—stems almost entirely from housing costs that have spiraled beyond what typical families can afford. In San Jose, a family of four needs $57,673 just to meet basic needs, compared to…
Why is Building Slowing Down in America’s Boomtowns?
Texas has long been America’s poster child for more affordable housing, thanks to its minimal regulations and abundant land. However, this hasn’t prevented Texas cities like Austin from developing the same cost pressures as California’s metro areas, which built far…
So Many Forms, So Few Homes: How L.A. Made Housing a Waiting Game
Los Angeles suffers from severe housing unaffordability, with one-third of renters spending over half their income on housing and over 47,000 residents experiencing homelessness. New research suggests that lengthy approval processes may be a key factor limiting housing production. Streamlining…
Think Vertically, Act Horizontally: Affordable Homeownership in Tennessee
While supply-focused housing policy reforms in coastal states usually focus on expanding the stock of multifamily rental housing, cities in the south have pursued a different strategy: making it easier to build and sell small-lot single family homes for ownership. …
Inclusionary Zoning: Are Goals and Outcomes Aligned?
Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) is a policy that requires developers to set aside some of the new homes they build as income-restricted housing, affordable to renters or buyers who make less than a defined amount (typically determined as a percentage of…