Public land could unlock 85K new homes in Greater Boston, report says
In some Massachusetts communities, the local government is one of the biggest property owners. That land could be key to reducing strain on the region’s housing supply.
Public land could unlock 85K new homes in Greater Boston, report says
In some Massachusetts communities, the local government is one of the biggest property owners. That land could be key to reducing strain on the region’s housing supply, according to a new report from the Boston Foundation.
The Power of One Vote: An Examination of Close Federal, State, and Local U.S. Elections and How Just a Few Votes Can Shape Policy
There is a common belief that voting does not matter because one vote cannot really make a difference. After all, more than 158 million people voted in the 2020 presidential election. In the face of such astronomical numbers, it may not feel that a single vote matters; but the truth is it does. Center for American Progress analysis of election data for U.S. Senate elections from 1976 to January 5, 2021, U.S. House elections from 1976 to 2022, and state office-level returns in 2016 compiled by the MIT Election Lab reveals that while large margins decide many elections, key elections often come down to just a handful of votes.
Pennsylvanians want to make it easier to build housing, but the politics are complicated, new polls show
The poll showed a strong majority of the respondents in favor of building more homes quickly over preserving local government control over development.
The YIMBYs are coming, to the suburbs
Fed up with the hostile reception to new development in Franklin, Frongillo and a group of other residents formed what was once a rare breed of advocacy organization in Boston-area suburbs: a pro-housing group, whose members go to public meetings to say yes to more housing development, instead of no. Katherine Einstein, a Boston University researcher who has studied housing politics in Massachusetts, said the new advocacy groups can wield a lot of influence. Even showing up at public meeting to speak in favor of projects is helping to offset longstanding dynamics that have shaped decisions about local housing policy.
A BU Class Tackles the Massachusetts Housing Crisis
Not-so-fun fact: if you plan to stay in Boston after BU, it could take you nine years to save enough to buy a starter home. That’s if you’re coupled. Stay single, and you can quadruple that wait. The depressing numbers, from a study by real estate news and research site Point2, testifies to Massachusetts’ affordable housing crisis—one of the topics of this spring’s College of Arts & Sciences political science class Urban Politics and Policy. Several students taking the course, taught by Katherine Levine Einstein, a CAS associate professor of political science, focused their final project on ground zero in the state’s housing wars, Milton.
The Homevoter Hypothesis: A New Generation Gap?
We know that older people vote more than younger people and that homeowners vote more than renters; but are older homeowners, as a class, overrepresented in local elections? Katherine Levine Einstein, Maxwell Palmer, Ellis Hamilton, and Ethan Singer analyzed the intersections of age, race, home tenure, and election scheduling to find out, publishing their findings as The Gray Vote: How Older Home-Owning Voters Dominate Local Elections.
What the Supreme Court case on tent encampments could mean for homeless people
Associate Professor and IOC Faculty Affiliate Katherine Levine Einstein was featured in Vox, speaking on the Supreme Court case Grants Pass v. Johnson. According to Professor Einstein, “Using this very reactive and criminalizing approach for homelessness may actually be more expensive than engaging in long-term preventative planning.”
What mayors really think about the Inflation Reduction Act
About a year after President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, a group of Boston University researchers set out in the summer of 2023 to better understand mayors’ experiences with the landmark climate legislation.
Mayors express uncertainty about inflation bill’s climate change efforts in national survey
When the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law on Aug. 16, 2022, the White House referred to it as “the most significant action Congress has taken on clean energy and climate change in the nation’s history.” But the majority of mayors said its impact has been marginal in a report conducted by the Boston University Initiative on Cities.