Boston Housing Crisis: New law prioritizes converting city property into affordable homes
It’s been more than a year since The Pryde opened its doors in Boston’s Hyde Park neighborhood. And in that time, the former school building has become more than just an affordable housing option for older LGBTQ+ adults.
District 7 needs a new city councilor. Who can take on its challenges?
With just days to go until the 2025 General Municipal Election, Boston’s District 7 is once again ready to pick a new City Councilor. Eleven candidates competed in September’s preliminary election to replace former Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson. Now, finalists Said Ahmed and Rev. Miniard Culpepper are looking to represent the historically Black and politically active district.
Why the path to the mayor’s office runs through southwest Minneapolis
In Minneapolis’ odd-year city elections, a small set of deeply engaged voters can play kingmaker. Turnout data from the last three mayoral races indicate that as residents of Ward 13 vote, so goes the city’s highest office.
The cities where buying a house is most and least affordable as mortgage rates change
When mortgage rates dropped to historic lows in 2021, below 3 percent, Britt Vaughan met with a real estate agent and tried to buy a home in Altadena, California, where he and his wife have lived for more than a decade. Vaughan, who works for a Los Angeles city agency, and his wife, a marriage and family therapist, had a budget and knew what they could afford. Month after month, he scrolled through real estate sites and fell into the gloomy habit of looking up the price of every house he passed with a “for sale” sign. But with student loans, and such unexpected events as a car crash and wildfire damage eating into their savings, they never felt ready to buy. All the while, home prices and mortgage rates kept climbing.
Kaine, Schiff, & Peters Introduce Bill to Protect Veterans and Low-Income Families from Housing Discrimination
Today, U.S. Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), a former fair housing attorney, and Adam Schiff (D-CA), alongside U.S. Representative Scott Peters (D-CA-50), introduced the bicameral Fair Housing Improvement Act of 2025 to protect veterans and low-income families from housing discrimination. This legislation would expand protections to all veterans and low-income individuals by adding source of income (SOI) and veteran and military status to the list of protected classes under the Fair Housing Act of 1968, giving more people access to affordable housing.
Healey wants to speed up state review to encourage housing. Will it work?
Gov. Maura Healey unveiled plans last week to slash environmental review requirements for certain developments, a move aimed at accelerating housing construction across Massachusetts. Experts say the proposal is unlikely to immediately ease the state’s deepening housing crisis. But it’s a step in the right direction.
Home Prices Are Now Higher Than The Peak Of The 2000s Housing Bubble. What Gives?
Even before the pandemic pushed the U.S. housing market into overdrive, the price of the average American home was on a rocket ride, climbing more than 50% between 2012 and 2019. It was the third biggest housing boom in American history. Then came the pandemic, marked by a buying frenzy and a selling freeze, which created a supply-demand mismatch that made the price boom go into warp speed. The average price of American homes, in real terms, is now the highest it’s ever been — even higher than the peak of the housing bubble in 2006 before it crashed 60% and bottomed out in 2012.
Amid housing crisis, Boston’s building boom has gone cold. How much of that is due to Mayor Wu?
Just a few years ago, Boston’s skyline was dotted with cranes, the visual manifestation of a building boom reshaping the city. Today, those cranes are all but gone. And construction has fallen sharply. Amid a shortage that has driven rents skyward and pushed some residents from the city, 2023 and 2024 were the slowest years for housing construction since 2011, city data show. Nationally, Boston is building fewer homes than many other peer cities, including Seattle and Washington, D.C.
Boston faces its biggest economic threat since the industrial collapse
James O’Connell’s new book may not be everyone’s idea of a beach read. But if you’re interested in how cities rise and fall, and how global forces impact a region’s economy, it could be the perfect page-turner for your lakeside lounging this summer.
How tax incentives are exacerbating the housing market crisis
House prices in Luxembourg rose ninefold between 1975 and 2022, adjusted for inflation, as demand outstrips supply in the country, but government tax incentives to encourage construction have largely helped developers and investors instead of easing the crisis, says a team of researchers.