Affordable Housing Essentials: How to Design, Develop, & Finance Properties Growing Cities Need

Harvard GSD Executive Education
Date:
Thursday October 9, 2025
Location: Cambridge, MA
Website


Not only is affordable housing a challenge to deliver around the world, but it is also an escalating challenge in the United States.  All growing economies or urbanizing metropolitan areas create increased effective demand for housing, pushing up prices and rents.  This makes shortages of affordable housing a chronic problem that can be addressed only by continuous policy and program innovation.  

Meanwhile, supply restrictions such as NIMBY zoning and the complexities of urban development have opened new fissures revealing the need for workforce housing, campus-based housing, and housing plus care services.  These new pressures overtax existing resources, whether these are infrastructure, buildable land, current zoning, or available subsidies.  

This program, designed for developers, financiers, investors, urban planners, architects, government officials (national, state/ provincial, or municipal/local), and real estate professionals offers a unique look into how we can overcome persistent housing affordability challenges in the US and worldwide.

Hear about the recent experience a planner had in the program here: https://execed.gsd.harvard.edu/participant-stories/bhavna-sivasubramanian/ 

Posted March 10, 2025



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