It’s a nuanced look at the impact of both market-rate and subsidized housing production on affordability and displacement within the San Francisco Bay Area.
The report is essentially a response to the debate around whether increasing market-rate housing production alone can address affordability and displacement concerns, or whether the only way to do it is through subsidized housing. What they found was that both matter, but…
“What we find largely supports the argument that building more housing, both market-rate and subsidized, will reduce displacement. However, we find that subsidized housing will have a much greater impact on reducing displacement than market-rate housing. We agree that market-rate development is important for many reasons, including reducing housing pressures at the regional scale and housing large segments of the population. However, our analysis strongly suggests that subsidized housing production is even more important when it comes to reducing displacement of low-income households.”
If you’re interested in this topic, I recommend reading the
It’s a nuanced look at the impact of both market-rate and subsidized housing production on affordability and displacement within the San Francisco Bay Area.
The report is essentially a response to the debate around whether increasing market-rate housing production alone can address affordability and displacement concerns, or whether the only way to do it is through subsidized housing. What they found was that both matter, but…
“What we find largely supports the argument that building more housing, both market-rate and subsidized, will reduce displacement. However, we find that subsidized housing will have a much greater impact on reducing displacement than market-rate housing. We agree that market-rate development is important for many reasons, including reducing housing pressures at the regional scale and housing large segments of the population. However, our analysis strongly suggests that subsidized housing production is even more important when it comes to reducing displacement of low-income households.”
If you’re interested in this topic, I recommend reading the
full brief
. It’s only 12 pages. I particularly liked the information around filtering and how new housing steps down over time to ultimately serve lower-income households.
. It’s only 12 pages. I particularly liked the information around filtering and how new housing steps down over time to ultimately serve lower-income households.
talking about the need for an all-day two-way urban rail service between Toronto and Waterloo.
The argument is that along this corridor sits a technology ecosystem that is second in size only to San Francisco-Silicon Valley and that current connectivity levels represent a missed opportunity of epic proportions. Presently this rail service will feed you into Toronto during the morning rush hour and take you back out in the evening rush hour. But that’s it.
According to this report prepared by the City of Kitchener (which is beside Waterloo), efficient train service would stitch together an ecosystem of approximately 12,800 technology companies, 2,800 startups, and 205,000 technology employees. It would also connect 6 universities and 4 colleges, many of which are ranked top in the world.
There’s an argument here that this is exactly the sort of thing that governments should be doing to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. Rather than trying to be heavily involved in actual startups, they should be creating an environment that maximizes output and then getting out of the way.
Urbanists generally don’t like to talk about cities like Houston. It sprawls. It’s car oriented. It’s over air-conditioned. In other words, it’s the antithesis of the dense and walkable cities that urbanists today like to tout as being exemplary.
But despite all this, Houston is one of, if not the, fastest growing city in America. According to The Economist, the population of the Houston metro area grew faster than any other city in America between 2000 and 2010. And between 2009 and 2013, its real GDP grew by 22%.
So why is that? Here’s a snippet from that same Economist article (“Life in the sprawl”):
Paradoxically, perhaps the city’s biggest strength is its sprawl. Unlike most other big cities in America, Houston has no zoning code, so it is quick to respond to demand for housing and office space. Last year authorities in the Houston metropolitan area, with a population of 6.2m, issued permits to build 64,000 homes. The entire state of California, with a population of 39m, issued just 83,000. Houston’s reliance on the car and air-conditioning is environmentally destructive and unattractive to well-off singletons. But for families on moderate incomes, it is a place to live well cheaply.
So while Houston may not check off all of Jane Jacobs’ boxes, it does provide one important thing: cheap housing. And that’s clearly valuable for a huge number of people.
But the other interesting thing about the snippet above, is that it starts to illustrate how frequently supply constrained markets operate with housing deficits.
The fact that the entire state of California issued only about 30% more building permits than the Houston metro – which you could easily argue is closer to a “perfect market” – tells me that there’s probably a lot of people bidding for the same housing in California.
That’s less so the case in Houston.
talking about the need for an all-day two-way urban rail service between Toronto and Waterloo.
The argument is that along this corridor sits a technology ecosystem that is second in size only to San Francisco-Silicon Valley and that current connectivity levels represent a missed opportunity of epic proportions. Presently this rail service will feed you into Toronto during the morning rush hour and take you back out in the evening rush hour. But that’s it.
According to this report prepared by the City of Kitchener (which is beside Waterloo), efficient train service would stitch together an ecosystem of approximately 12,800 technology companies, 2,800 startups, and 205,000 technology employees. It would also connect 6 universities and 4 colleges, many of which are ranked top in the world.
There’s an argument here that this is exactly the sort of thing that governments should be doing to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. Rather than trying to be heavily involved in actual startups, they should be creating an environment that maximizes output and then getting out of the way.
Urbanists generally don’t like to talk about cities like Houston. It sprawls. It’s car oriented. It’s over air-conditioned. In other words, it’s the antithesis of the dense and walkable cities that urbanists today like to tout as being exemplary.
But despite all this, Houston is one of, if not the, fastest growing city in America. According to The Economist, the population of the Houston metro area grew faster than any other city in America between 2000 and 2010. And between 2009 and 2013, its real GDP grew by 22%.
So why is that? Here’s a snippet from that same Economist article (“Life in the sprawl”):
Paradoxically, perhaps the city’s biggest strength is its sprawl. Unlike most other big cities in America, Houston has no zoning code, so it is quick to respond to demand for housing and office space. Last year authorities in the Houston metropolitan area, with a population of 6.2m, issued permits to build 64,000 homes. The entire state of California, with a population of 39m, issued just 83,000. Houston’s reliance on the car and air-conditioning is environmentally destructive and unattractive to well-off singletons. But for families on moderate incomes, it is a place to live well cheaply.
So while Houston may not check off all of Jane Jacobs’ boxes, it does provide one important thing: cheap housing. And that’s clearly valuable for a huge number of people.
But the other interesting thing about the snippet above, is that it starts to illustrate how frequently supply constrained markets operate with housing deficits.
The fact that the entire state of California issued only about 30% more building permits than the Houston metro – which you could easily argue is closer to a “perfect market” – tells me that there’s probably a lot of people bidding for the same housing in California.
