Events

Join the Harvard Kennedy School City + Local Professional Interest Council, in partnership with the Joint Center for Housing Studies and the Rappaport Center for Greater Boston for a conversation with Sheila Dillon and Taylor Cain to discuss how Boston is focusing on housing.

What can local governments do to address the nation’s ongoing rental affordability crisis? While solutions to the problem ultimately must involve all levels of government, local governments are closest to the problem and, arguably, have many powers to address it.

Margaret Haltom and Hannah Hoyt will discuss the work they carried out as 2019 Gramlich Fellows in Community and Economic Development. The Gramlich Fellowship in Community and Economic Development gives Harvard graduate students the opportunity to identify, research, publish, and present promising approaches for addressing challenges related to affordable housing and community development

With the number of cost-burdened renters again on the rise, local governments are increasingly on the front lines of a rental affordability crisis. Earlier this year, Minneapolis became the first large American city to end single-family zoning, a bold and decisive move which has the potential to greatly expand the rental supply and improve affordability.

Over the last few decades, the share of older homeowners with mortgage debt has doubled, while the typical amount of outstanding debt relative to home values has tripled.

As neighborhoods across Boston face enormous development pressure, there is a risk that low-income residents will be forced out of the city. Social disruption due to gentrification, shifting government policies and programs, and the challenges of climate change make the future of affordable housing in Boston precarious.

Despite robust demand across the country for affordable starter homes and rental units, stringent land-use regulations, high construction costs, and an ongoing shortage of skilled laborers have made it difficult, if not impossible, to profitably produce middle-market housing. Innovative strategies to overcome these challenges will be the focus of this half-day symposium, which will feature the finalists from the inaugural Ivory Prize in Housing Affordability.

By the 1980s the Dudley Square neighborhood of Roxbury was facing significant challenges. Absentee landlords had allowed property to deteriorate, left units vacant, or had used arson to raze buildings and make insurance claims. Facing what many considered insurmountable obstacles, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative was formed to create a comprehensive plan for “development without displacement.”

Today, cities are no longer constrained by local time zones. For millions of people in the Philippines, the work day now happens at night, due to changing patterns of labor caused by globalization. What are the local implications of this nocturnalization of work?

Alloy Development is a real estate development company that has built residential buildings along the Highline, in Hudson Yards, and in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood. Its website states: “Our belief in making great architecture guides our practice,” and adds “we have a responsibility to make the experience and quality of our work meaningful.”