Full Citation
Title: Constraints on City and Neighborhood Growth: The Central Role of Housing Supply
Citation Type: Journal Article
Publication Year: 2023
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Abstract: Two distinct patterns have emerged among groups of metropolitan areas and neighborhoods in the United States since 1980. While some have experienced rapid growth in population and new housing units, others have experienced rapid growth in housing prices instead. Between 1980 and 2018, the number of occupied housing units in US metropolitan areas grew from 80 million to 122 million. The location of this growth in housing stock is disproportionately oriented toward smaller, less-dense cities and neighborhoods rather than highpopulation metropolitan areas. Low-density suburbs have grown much faster than all other types of neighborhoods, accounting for 78 percent of the growth in housing units in the set of neighborhoods observed in 1980. However, home price growth has been fastest in high-density suburbs and the most prosperous and high-density areas of central cities. Moreover, the rate of new housing construction has been low or falling in all types of locations since 2000, but particularly so in the low-density suburbs and rural areas where most of the recent quantity growth has occurred. Altogether, the US housing stock has been getting older, more crowded, and less affordable in recent years.
Url: https://www.aeaweb.org/full_issue.php?doi=10.1257/jep.37.2#page=55
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Authors: Baum-Snow, Nathaniel
Periodical (Full): Journal of Economic Perspectives
Issue: 2
Volume: 37
Pages: 53-74
Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS
Topics: Housing and Segregation, Land Use/Urban Organization
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