Distinguishing the Housing Shortage from Gentrification

Gentrification "mutates particular neighborhoods" while scarce housing "squeezes entire regions," Devin Michelle Bunten writes. Conflating the two can lead to inaccuracies in understanding.

1 minute read

November 1, 2019, 7:00 AM PDT

By Philip Rojc @PhilipRojc


Affordable Rental Housing

National Low-Income Housing Coalition / The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Rental Homes

Gentrification and the housing shortage are "related but different," Devin Michelle Bunten begins. "Both crises raise prices, strain families, and reallocate wealth to the already privileged. But the problems are distinct. Solving both crises at once requires us to get the details right."

Bunten goes on to discuss the causal distinctions between the two problems. "Occasionally, physically attractive locations come to be occupied by low-income communities, immigrant communities, black communities. Neighborhoods like these are ripe for gentrification." Meanwhile, the housing shortage "is a region-wide round of musical chairs, in which the winners sat down before the music even stopped."

While Bunten gestures toward the need for distinct strategies to tackle gentrification and scarce housing, she does point to how eliminating "wealth sieve" land use policies like minimum lot sizes could galvanize progress on both. "Housing policies are designed to ensure that new neighborhood entrants are as rich or richer than those who arrived before them," she writes. 

In the end, "policies introduced to fight gentrification—rent control and tenant protections—may ameliorate the effects of neighborhood change, but they won't build new homes." 

Wednesday, October 23, 2019 in CityLab

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

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