Why Upzoning and Density will not get us Affordable Housing

Why SB50 et al will not get us Affordable Housing. The new trickle-down housing economics: Build for the richest 30% and cross your fingers for everyone else.

Presenter: Michael Storper, UCLA professor of economic geography, will discuss his new study on the issue, and the future of the Wiener/Yimby agenda.

Storper is one of the most important academics challenging the notion – which oddly has become accepted dogma in the mainstream media and even places like The Nation– that more private-sector development will solve the urban housing crisis.

He suggests that: Policies such as blanket upzoning, which will principally unleash market forces that serve high income earners, are therefore likely to reinforce the effects of income inequality rather than tempering them … There is virtually no evidence that substantially lower costs would trickle down to the lower two-thirds of households or provide quality upgrading of their neighbourhoods, but it undoubtedly would enhance displacement in neighbourhoods currently at the boundary of higher-income inner metropolitan areas.

Live broadcast on 48Hills.org.