On Sept. 15, the California Legislature approved a package of 17 bills aimed at putting a dent in the state’s housing crisis. While the votes came down to the wire, in the end, the need for solutions won the day, and in the coming weeks the governor is expected to sign each piece of legislation, … Continue reading »
housing
How California’s housing shortage chases away the middle class
Next 10, a nonpartisan research entity (with whom I’ve worked on studies in the past), released a trio of reports that shows how California’s housing shortage and resulting high prices have chased middle class and low-wage residents out of the state: California experienced a negative net domestic migration of 625,000 from 2007 to 2014. … Continue reading »
How to stop displacement
At the Urban Displacement Project, we get calls every week from cities struggling with gentrification and displacement in their communities. What can we do, they ask us, to maintain our diverse community? The strategies are out there—rent control, impact fees, inclusionary housing, and the list goes on. But the policymakers and advocates calling us don’t have … Continue reading »
A multi-dimensional approach to affordable housing policy: Learning from climate change policy
A consensus is emerging that we have to do everything in our power to slow the course of global warming. The list of tools includes long-term measures such as greater energy efficiencies in buildings, industry, appliances; carbon cap-and-trade systems and taxes; new standards for fuel economy and the reduction of CO2 emissions from new passenger … Continue reading »
Mission accomplished? Revisiting the solutions
By Karen Chapple and Mitchell Crispell Last week, San Francisco voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have halted market-rate development in the Mission District. The proposed moratorium highlighted schisms in the community around the best way to slow the displacement that has made the Mission the gentrification poster child of the Bay Area. One side … Continue reading »
Redwood City: An improbable villain of the Bay Area displacement crisis
“Evicted Redwood City tenants rally to stay in complex as calls grow for renter protections” announces the headline, with a photo of 14-year-old Gabriel Banuelos holding the eviction notice for the 18-unit apartment complex. But why would this happen in “Deadwood” City (the long-standing local nickname for the moribund downtown area)? As findings from our Urban … Continue reading »
Rent control: The key to neighborhood stabilization?
Who ever thought rent control would be making a comeback after over 30 years? Especially in California, a state that essentially ended the ability of jurisdictions to apply strict rent controls with the passage of the Costa Hawkins Act in 1995. But lo and behold, the tides seem to be shifting, with Richmond passing rent … Continue reading »
Displacement: The misunderstood crisis
When we think of gentrification and displacement, we typically envision a hipster – young, professional, and probably white – in the Mission District or Brooklyn at the peak of the real estate boom. But this archetype, while not inaccurate, is just the tip of the iceberg. Displacement, which is distinct from gentrification, occurs in many … Continue reading »
The future of displacement
The year is 2030. Protesters gather around yet another apartment building where long-term residents are being evicted to accommodate newcomers. We must be in San Francisco. No, we’re in Oakland. Guess again. It’s Hayward. Or, Concord. Or perhaps, Santa Rosa. In 2030, these and many other Bay Area communities may realize that their neighborhood has … Continue reading »
On housing, good news for families and communities
President Obama’s announcement that the Federal Housing Administration will lower the cost of its home loans by one-half of a percentage point (.50 basis points) should be very welcome news. Home loans will now be within reach for many more hard working and responsible families who have been left on the sidelines of the economic … Continue reading »
The blocked market for density and affordable housing
Around the globe, many cities are experiencing a housing affordability crisis. There are few places this crisis is more pronounced than San Francisco and Los Angeles. California’s strict land use regulations hinder us from producing enough housing, particularly infill development, or new buildings on vacant or underutilized land in the urban core. Yet, with 200,000 units in the … Continue reading »
The public-housing experiment
Public housing in the United States has never sheltered a significant proportion of Americans, perhaps three percent at most — unlike in many western European countries, where 10 to 40 percent of households, at various income levels, live in state-constructed buildings. But public housing has been a significant part of the debate over American government safety-net programs, a significant … Continue reading »
Transportation policy is housing policy
Many years ago Haas Institute Executive Director john powell warned education advocates that “housing is education policy” — a refrain now regarded as common wisdom. The insight behind this assertion is a recognition that patterns of racial and economic isolation that manifest in schools and other educational environments are chiefly a function of residential housing … Continue reading »
$300 slum house? Worthy but worthless
The Economist published an article last month on the competition to build a $300 house intended to improve the lives of slum dwellers. The article came from a blog post in the Harvard Business Review by Vijay Govindarajan, of Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, and Christian Sarkar, a marketing consultant, who set out to explore the … Continue reading »
The housing index and the prison bubble
Just think of prisons as a kind of housing, the new public housing, and it may seem less crazy to wonder if the decline of the portion of Americans who are homeowners may coincide with a decline in the portion of Americans who make their home in a prison. As David Streitfeld reports in the New … Continue reading »