Housing

There is widespread understanding about the vast differences in life outcomes that statistically come with different neighborhoods.

Being priced out of appreciating neighborhoods is not the housing affordability problem most Americans face. But they are facing one.

The relationship between pro-building “Yes in My Back Yard” activists, longtime housing advocates, and anti-displacement organizers varies across the country, but has often been fraught with difficulties. Is there a way forward?

A common narrative being promoted about why there is a housing crisis ignores history and serves to assuage new residents’ guilty feelings. But we can craft a new narrative together.

It’s not because they’re stupid. If we want to convince people, we need to stop yelling and start listening.

Two organizations are quietly furthering income integration in higher-income Chicago neighborhoods without new development.

There isn’t a tax credit program available to spur investment in single-family residential neighborhoods, but an alliance of national real estate, housing, community development, lending, and construction organizations is working to change that.

As tenant struggles become a bigger focus of activist recruitment, Randy Shaw’s new book, Generation Priced Out, is an essential organizing guide.

And how do we get more of the good and less of the bad?

We have a limited number of dense core neighborhoods where getting around without a car and without a lengthy daily commute are possible.

The data on the relationship between new development, affordability, and displacement is not nearly as clear-cut as advocates (of all persuasions) often imply.

The wealth gap is probably best illustrated in the way our country has, and has not, provided access to the single most important determinant of wealth for the majority of people in the United States—home and land ownership.