Building new suburban housing does little to lower housing costs for the urban households most vulnerable to rising urban housing costs, according new research examining vacancy chains.
Annual expenditures for improvements and repairs to owner-occupied homes are projected to decrease this year and into the first quarter of 2025, but at a moderating rate, according to our latest Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA).
Joint Center for Housing Studies
of Harvard University
Our Center strives to improve equitable access to decent, affordable homes in thriving communities and conducts rigorous research to advance policy and practice.
This paper shows how different housing submarkets are linked by residential vacancy chains – the series of moves across housing units initiated by the construction of new housing. Using administrative data on the residential histories of the U.S. population, we compare the characteristics of vacancies created by new suburban single-family homes to those created by new urban multifamily housing. Our results imply that new suburban housing supply has little effect on urban housing affordability or on the welfare of low-income urban households.
Manufactured housing holds promise as an affordable form of housing that could expand homeownership opportunities for low- and moderate-income households at a time when house value growth is outpacing income gains in markets across the country. This study features case studies of five organizations from the for-profit, nonprofit and public sectors that are leading efforts to expand the use of manufactured housing in markets where these homes have not been widely used.
Around 1970, an unprecedented movement emerged across major American cities calling for returning control of urban government to the neighborhood level. Using New York City as a case study, this white paper shows how this new “neighborhood liberalism” reordered the priorities that urban liberals expected of their elected officials and, in so doing, remade American cities to a degree that scholars are only beginning to understand.
