Research

California YIMBY is committed to advancing a policy agenda informed by the best available social scientific research.

Housing Production | Analysis

Housing Underproduction in California: 2023 Report

To better understand the scale and geography of California’s housing shortage, the California YIMBY Education Fund commissioned a study by MapCraft of relative housing underproduction rates across the state.

2023
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About the

Research Index

Our values extend to our YIMBY teams and partner organizations: we are committed to providing our grassroots activists with the resources they need to promote evidence-based policies at the state and local levels.

We have created this catalog of housing scholarship to better inform our advocacy agenda. We hope that YIMBYs will use this compendium to better  understand housing policy and advance their work as well.

This incomplete and  living index reflects our best effort to aggregate the research sent to us by allies,  activists, and academics. We do not endorse each paper listed in this catalog, and  we sometimes find it helpful to read studies that contradict our assumptions or  policy positions. If you would like to add to this research catalog or find errors, please contact us.

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Why is Housing Unaffordable? The Great Migration’s Effect on Exclusionary Zoning

Published: 2020 | Alexander Sahn Abstract High housing prices drive inequality, reduce growth, and increase racial segregation. Scholars have identified laws restricting the use of land, particularly for dense multi-family housing, as a primary cause of housing unaffordability. What explains…

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Does demand lead supply? Gentrifiers and developers in the sequence of gentrification

Published: 2020 | Kasey Zapatka, Brenden Beck | Urban Studies Abstract Consumption-side theorists of gentrification examine the flow of middle-class White people into previously working-class neighbourhoods and argue that their demand for housing stimulates gentrification. In contrast, production-side theorists emphasise…

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Parcel Tax in California: Findings from New Data Sources

Published: 2020 | Soomi Lee | CityScape Abstract This article examines parcel taxes in California counties, cities, and special districts. Unique to California, the parcel tax is commonly known as a lump-sum tax applied to parcels of real property to…

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The What, Where, and When of Place-Based Housing Policy’s Neighborhood Effects

Published: 2017 | Keri-Nicole Dillman, Ann Verrilli, Keren Horn Abstract Ever-scarce affordable housing production resources, in addition to their primary function of providing housing for those in need, are increasingly enlisted for the dual goals of strengthening distressed communities and…

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Consumer-Lending Discrimination in the FinTech Era

Published: 2019 | Robert Bartlett, Adair Morse, Richard Stanton, Nancy Wallace Abstract Under U.S. fair-lending law, lenders can discriminate against minorities only for creditworthiness. Using an identification under this rule, afforded by the GSEs’ pricing of mortgage credit risk, we…

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Racial Rent Differences in U.S. Housing Markets

Published: 2018 | Dirk W. Early, Paul E. Carrillo, Edgar O. Olsen Abstract This paper exploits an unusually rich data set to estimate racial differences in the rents paid for identical housing in the same neighborhood in U.S. housing markets…

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Warding Off Development: Local Control, Housing Supply, and NIMBYs

Published: 2020 | Evan Mast | The Center for Growth and Opportunity Abstract Local control of land-use regulation creates a not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) problem that can suppress housing construction, contributing to rising prices and potentially slowing economic growth. I study how…

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Building Black Homeownership Bridges: A Five-Point Framework for Reducing the Racial Homeownership Gap

Published: 2019 | Alanna McCargo, Jung Hyun Choi, and Edward Golding | Urban Institute Abstract Homeownership is an important wealth-building source and a foundation for economic stability. Owning a home can provide a stable place to live and remove significant…

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