Affordable housing has never been easy to finance. Now, with rising insurance, debt, and operating costs outpacing rents and subsidies, developers say it’s getting harder to make the math work.
Affordable housing providers across the U.S. are facing mounting financial strain as rising insurance premiums, higher interest rates, and increasing operating costs outpace rents and subsidies. Drawing on interviews with developers and industry leaders, this article examines how these overlapping pressures are destabilizing a system already built on tight margins. While the sector remains resilient overall, the growing mismatch between costs and revenue is forcing difficult decisions about preservation, investment, and long-term affordability.
Read the full story: Breaking Point: Why the Affordable Housing Business Model Is Unraveling
Does Historic Preservation Really Define a “Successful” City?
One common argument against new housing is that a successful city is an historic city. The data says otherwise.
Historic Preservation of LGBTQ Spaces
New research seeks to provide a better understanding of the relationship between historic preservation and neighborhood change in the LGBTQ community.
The Race to Preserve America's Black Cemeteries
America's historic Black cemeteries, which have long fallen victim to displacement, relocation, and outright destruction, could have a new ally in the fight for preservation and recognition.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
California plans to bury El Niño’s downpour
If the state plays its cards right, it may be able to store a billion acre-feet of El Niño’s water in aquifers.
Desperate measures: Advocates weigh draining Lake Powell to fill Colorado River
Draining the reservoir could reduce evaporation losses by a couple hundred thousand acre-feet.
US buildings threatened, destroyed by fires set to triple by 2060
Researchers found a high fire risk for socioeconomically vulnerable neighborhoods in the American West.
LA residents may be allowed to paint their own crosswalks
Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky put out a motion instructing the Los Angeles Department of Public Transportation to study the feasibility of allowing volunteers to paint crosswalks.
Dallas moves to overhaul its zoning code
The city's zoning reform will allow more multi-family and mixed-use developments.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority