Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies

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Mexico Conference 2025

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This student-led conference from the Harvard Kennedy School is dedicated to exploring Mexico’s vibrant and complex...

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Rental deserts, segregation, and zoning

Restrictive zoning and NIMBY attitudes have left nearly a third of neighborhoods across the United States with few options for renters. We examine the characteristics of these rental deserts, defined as neighborhoods where rental units make up less than 20% of the housing stock, and argue that uneven geographies of rental opportunities bolster patterns of socioeconomic and racial segregation because renters are disproportionately lower-income and people of color.

Household and New Housing Unit Demand Projections for 2025–2035 and 2035–2045

This paper presents detailed projections for household growth in years 2025–2035 and 2035–2045 along with the data and methodology used to create them. The primary finding is that growth in the number of households in the US is expected to slow in the coming decades. Under the Center’s main projection, the number of households in the US is projected to rise by 8.6 million households, or approximately 860,000 per year, between 2025 and 2035. This would be less household growth than in any of the past three decades.

Deteriorating Rental Affordability: An Update on America’s Rental Housing 2024

The number of cost-burdened renter households has reached a new record high, further deepening the affordability challenge that accelerated during the pandemic. Across all income groups, rental affordability has continued to worsen as a growing share of household income has been devoted to rent and cost burden rates have risen.

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