Missing middle housing—a term referring to the building types between a single-family home and a mid-rise apartment building—is increasingly viewed by policymakers, housing advocates, architects, land use planners, and developers as one possible solution to the affordable housing crisis in Massachusetts and across the United States. Our new report, Unlocking the Missing Middle, will examine three aspects of middle housing. Part 1, "Surveying Missing Middle Housing—Trends in the United States and Massachusetts," provides an overview of this housing typology, along with major obstacles and opportunities to its greater production

The older population in the United States is growing rapidly, yet their residential mobility patterns are understudied. Using the confidential version of the American Community Survey, this study examines variations in residential mobility outcomes across population subgroups, focusing on racial/ethnic and educational groups.

There were temporary shifts in residential mobility during the pandemic, including an increase in moves in early 2020, heightened homeowner moves through 2021, and an increase in interstate migration through 2022, driven in part by remote workers. Other trends endured beyond the pandemic. Affordability barriers contributed to a further decrease in local mobility rates, which drove an overall decline in residential mobility both during and after the pandemic. Lower-density suburbs, smaller metro areas, and non-metro areas received heightened inflows both during and after the pandemic, buoying migration to low-density states. Conversely, large urban areas and many high-cost states had accelerated outflows during the pandemic, though these slowed after the pandemic. Sunbelt states continued to draw the most migrants overall during and after the pandemic, but post-pandemic flows point to an emerging shift in this regional paradigm.