Filtering
The idea of filtering is key to pro-housing-development arguments of the benefits of market-rate housing to the affordability of housing. New research finds that filtering is highly variable depending on location.
Social Science Research Network (SSRN)
Blog post
To increase affordability communities should support moderate-priced housing development. This increases housing options for middle-income households, and for lower-income through filtering, as households move from low- to moderate-priced units.
A new working paper adds another perspective to the debate about easing zoning regulations to address the affordable housing crisis.
CityLab
Blog post
Inclusivity requirements should be used with caution. Increasing the portion of below-market housing units tends to reduce total housing production, particularly moderate-priced homes.
Blog post
Good research indicates that building middle-priced housing increases affordability through "filtering," as some lower-priced housing occupants move into more expensive units, and over time as the new houses depreciate and become cheaper.
Australia's housing market has built steadily at market rates but housing affordability has remained steady. What if building waves of new supply isn't enough to improve affordable housing options for those in need?
The Conversation
There are two fundamental flaws with the emergent "YIMBY" approach to planning and development politics, according to this article in an influential magazine of the American left.
Jacobin
Housing advocates tend to agree that we need to supplement market-rate luxury development with subsidized affordable housing, but rarely do we ask the market to provide housing for people further down the income ladder. That's bad policy.
Shelterforce/Rooflines
Two new reports, and one older one, assign unequal significance of the ability of new market rate housing to filter older housing into affordability.
East Bay Express
A new report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies adds to what seems, at this point, like a tsunami of bad news for rental housing affordability.
The Washington Post
