What Mayors Have to Say About the Housing Shortage
A new report from the Menino Survey of Mayors, based at Boston University’s Initiative on Cities, finds that a large and growing majority of U.S. mayors say increasing housing supply would reduce housing costs. Yet mayors’ support varies (often by political party) across the range of policy tools commonly proposed to expand housing production, with inconsistent backing for many of them.
Build, baby, build
The YIMBYs have something to celebrate: Data from March provides new evidence that building housing reduces costs. Last month, the Pew Charitable Trusts published a detailed analysis of Austin’s housing boom and its impact on rents. Between 2015 and 2024, Austin added roughly 120,000 homes.
How North Carolina beat Mass. on jobs — and what taxes have to do with it | Bay State Briefing
Okay, so it’s not exactly Red Sox-Yankees, but one of the hottest debates on Beacon Hill these days centers on a proposed fall ballot question that would trim the state’s income tax from its current 5% down to 4%. Business groups that support the question have positioned it as a vitally needed tool to compete against states (far and wide) that have friendlier tax climates.
BU’s Initiative on Cities Latest Menino Survey of Mayors Focuses on Housing Affordability Crisis
A growing majority of mayors in America’s cities recognize the need to build more housing to solve the affordability crisis, but there are still obstacles to change, according to the latest Menino Survey of Mayors conducted by Boston University’s Initiative on Cities.
Living in Historically Redlined Neighborhoods May Reduce One’s Ability to Conceive
Living in a historically redlined neighborhood may reduce a person’s ability to become pregnant, according to two new studies led by researchers at the School of Public Health. Published in the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE) and Epidemiology, the studies found that people residing in redlined neighborhoods—neighborhoods that were subjected to the historic practice of mortgage lending discrimination by the federal government—were less likely to conceive than those who lived in neighborhoods the government deemed favorable for mortgage lending.
In Arizona, an Electric Utility Holds an Election, Open Only to Property Owners
In one of America’s least democratic elections, the rule is not one person, one vote. It’s one acre, one vote. Only property owners in metropolitan Phoenix can cast ballots in the April 7 race for control of the Salt River Project, one of the nation’s largest public power utilities. Early voting began this week for the landowning select, and the more land they own, the more votes they get. A farmer with 200 acres gets 200 votes; a suburban homeowner on a quarter of an acre gets a quarter of a vote. Renters are locked out entirely.
The YIMBY movement could be on its way out
The YIMBY, or Yes in My Backyard movement, has been steadily growing based on a simple principle: To solve the housing crisis, simply build more affordable houses. But while the YIMBY train of thought has been making waves in many areas, particularly in cities with high levels of homelessness like San Francisco, some economists think the movement has outgrown its lifespan. Others think it has more to give.
Safe and Sheltered: How Tenant Organizers Protect Their Neighbors in Minneapolis
Taylor Kohn lives in the same Minneapolis neighborhood where ICU nurse Alex Pretti was murdered by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents in January. But even aside from this high-profile killing, Kohn says that since CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began occupying the city last December, every block has been written with one traumatic memory or another. On the route she takes to walk her dog every day “is where I hid when [the] feds were tear gassing us.” Farther down the street “is where I [think I] saw a teenager sobbing while they were put in an ICE vehicle,” she adds.
Is the YIMBY movement doomed?
For more than a decade now, a “YIMBY” movement has been working to bulldoze the rules and regulations that have been holding back new housing development. A central goal of this movement — which declares Yes In My Backyard to more development — is to make housing more plentiful and affordable for Americans who are often priced out of owning or even living in the communities they want to.
Letter: Need town shelter available 24/7
What a winter this is! With frigid temperatures refusing to budge, I can’t imagine what it would be like not to have a warm home to retreat to, can you? Recalling MATS director Susan Howard’s Ledger-Transcript article of Sept. 5, we cannot look away from the homelessness in our region, especially this winter.