"Inside Baseball" on "Affordable" Housing: Some U.S. Resources

Ex. 1: Roberto Clemente (see postscript at the end of this entry)

I refer to this post as "inside baseball" because it's a little different from my other posts.  It's a convenient place to share a selection of resources about "affordable housing" with some colleagues.  Normally I do this sort of thing with Dropbox or Google Drive, but given the broad interest in the subject I'll post it here.  While the selection is a little idiosyncratic, anyone interested in the subject -- you are interested, aren't you? -- will probably find something useful.

Of course the first short reading I suggest to anyone interested in the subject is one of my own blog entries:

A first look at housing “affordability” in New Jersey and the United States

No false modesty here!

This post focuses (almost exclusively) on "domestic" housing affordability in the United States.  Some concepts will translate to other countries, but much of the data and programatic detail will not.  I'm also interested in "affordability" in other countries, as you'll see from a few of my posts and papers mentioned here.  A global look at "affordability" deserves a companion blog entry, coming soon.

Ex. 2: http://www.foxbyrd.com/auditing-work-in-progress/#prettyPhoto

Because this post is about several related "works in progress," the post will expand as we proceed.  The literature and other resources on this subject are huge, and growing every day, so as large as this might get, it will be selective and doubtless miss many important sources.  I'm posting selected resources that my partners in crime provide or recommend, as well as those I dig out myself.

You don't have to be one of my partners in crime to comment and suggest another resource, by the way!  Comments are always appreciated.

Some of My Current "Affordable Housing" Related Initiatives

In 2016 I drafted a report for the Wisconsin Realtors Association on affordable housing.  It is a draft, and unpolished; but it contains a fairly broad discussion of the topic and many useful references.  You can download the draft here.  An associated PowerPoint presentation is available here.

I created a small state-level database with some of the data used for the report.  If you are interested in some state-to-state comparisons, click here for an Excel spreadsheet.

Recently my colleagues Jaime Luque and Antonio Mello have agreed to join me in preparing a more general version that will cover similar ground but will take a global view.  We were able to begin our work when we came together in June for the ESCP Europe - Tel Aviv University - UCLA Conference on Low-Income Housing Supply and Housing Affordability held in Madrid.  Special thanks are due Jaime and our colleagues Danny Ben-Shahar and Stuart Gabriel for organizing the conference; the conference program, available here, lists some of the ongoing research in the field.

In September, I'll be speaking at a University College London conference: The Case of Affordable Housing: a global perspective on financing and institutional ownership. Stanimira Milcheva  of UCL's Bartlett School is organizing the event.  Details here.

In October, I'll participate in a panel on “Barriers to Affordable Rental Housing” at the University of North Carolina's Commercial Real Estate Data Alliance (CREDA) Conference, organized by Jacob Sagi.

Why Do I Often Use Quotations When I Write "Affordable Housing?"

It is useful to begin by reminding ourselves of two kinds of propositions.  In logic, positive statements are about “what is;” positive statements are about “facts.”  Positive statements are testable.  We can find out whether they are true or false, at least in principle.  Are houses of a given quality level more expensive in Madison, or Milwaukee?  That’s a positive proposition.

Normative statements, on the other hand, are about “what should be,” they are “opinions.”  Normative statements imply a value judgment.  Normative statements are not testable.  Is Green Bay a better place to live, or La Crosse?  This is not so readily tested, and depends largely on one’s preferences.  De gustibus non est disputandum; loosely, we can’t argue with tastes.  Is my value judgment about living in La Crosse true, or false?  Neither, it’s my value judgment.

Exhibit 3

If a household is observed to freely choose to pay some amount for a good, they have at least partially revealed their willingness to pay.  WTP is about a household’s demand for the good.  If I’m paying $1,000 per month in rent, and am freely making this choice in a market, I’ve revealed that I’m willing to pay at least that much.  WTP is, more or less, a positive concept.

Ability to pay is about whether the household has the resources necessary to pay for a good.  I might be willing to pay $5 for a good cup of coffee in the morning, but if I don’t have any money, it’s back to sleep.  Broadly, ATP is a positive concept, although some normative aspect can creep in. If my income is $1,000 per month, and my rent is $900, is that evidence of ability to pay?  Well, my income is greater than my rent, so strictly speaking I could “afford” it.  But can I live with only $100 to spend on food, clothing, transport, and so on?  The line between positive and normative can get a little slippery.

There’s more.  Sometimes, the term is applied to the unit itself.  For example, we might use “affordable” to denote housing units that rent or sell for moderate amounts.  Then we’d need to pick a threshold, for example rents less than 30 percent of income, or houses selling for less than $100,000.

Sometimes, the term “affordable” refers to housing units in particular housing programs (e.g. public housing, or Section 42 Low Income Housing Tax Credit units).

Sometimes, we mean housing units utilized by particular kinds of households (e.g. very low income; as it happens, the standard threshold for VLI is less than 50% of an area’s median income).

However measured, “affordable” is not just about housing costs, it’s also about incomes and purchasing power, so we will examine incomes as well as rents and prices briefly in this note, below.

We have already noted that measuring housing affordability, like measuring poverty, will sometimes require a threshold value, similar to the way we say someone is poor if their income is below some threshold value.

The most common threshold value for housing affordability is 30 percent of income devoted to expenditure on rent and core utilities.   Households spending more than 30 percent are said to be “cost burdened” by HUD and other agencies.  Sometimes the 30 percent threshold is referred to as “Moderate Cost Burdened,” which is in contrast to “Severe Cost Burdened,” which indicates the household is spending more than half their income on housing.

Any threshold used to categorize people or households has an immediately obvious shortcoming, an unavoidable arbitrariness. Consider two households, A and B. A pays 29% of their income on rent, and B pays 31%. Using the common 30% threshold, B is “cost burdened” or paying an “unaffordable” amount. A is not. Using unaffordable in this situation, when a household has, in fact, shown they can and will pay 31%, makes economists grind our teeth. But again, we’ve lost the lexicographic wars.

Now consider two more households, C and D. Household C pays 10% of income, D pays 50%. Using the 30% threshold, B and D are in the same “affordable” category, and A and C are paying “unaffordable” rents; while, in some sense, B and D are more different than B and C; just as A and C are more different than B and C.

Using more than two categories (for example, “Severely Cost Burdened,” with rent-to-income greater than 50%, and “Moderate Cost Burdened,” with rent-to-income between 30% and 50%, and “Not Cost Burdened,” with rent-to-income less than 30%) mitigates but does not eliminate the problem. The problem is inherent in any such categorization e.g. classifying people as “poor” or “not poor.”

Economists point out some other issues with such a single fixed threshold.  Consider Exhibit 4.

Exhibit 4

Exhibit 4, taken from Green and Malpezzi (2003), uses American Housing Survey data to illustrate how housing’s budget share actually changes with income within the United States. 

To prepare Exhibit 4 Green and Malpezzi began with about 60,000 individual survey households, renters and owners. We sorted that data into 10 income deciles, where decile 1 is the lowest income group, and decile 10 is the highest.  We then focused on renters, and calculated the rent-to-income ratio for about 20,000 individual survey households.  Within each income decile, we then calculated the median of the individual rent-to-income ratios. The thick red line in the middle presents the median rent-to-income within each of the 10 deciles. The blue lines above and below the median line are similar calculation for the first and third quartiles of rent-to-income within each group.

The key patterns are strong and obvious. Budget shares fall as incomes rise, consistent with what economists call inelastic demand; in plain English, housing, like food, is a necessity. Further, the variance within deciles falls dramatically as income rises. This general pattern holds up even if we control for other household characteristics. Homeowner demand, not shown, is similarly inelastic.   Malpezzi and Wachter (2012) review some of the large academic literature that repeatedly confirms the patterns in Exhibit 4.

The key result for our purposes is that the constant rent-to-income ratio threshold used in most affordability calculations runs counter to the empirical evidence of how households actually spend their money.  If we adopt the willingness-to-pay or ability-to-pay perspectives, we’d have this threshold rising as incomes fall.  Making such a change is unrealistic, however, partly because it’s complicated, and partly because it would be politically untenable.  We will later use the standard affordability thresholds, but aware that as long as we use such a simple approach, “unaffordability will always be with us.”

"Affordable Housing" in the Media

Ex. 5: The News is Not So Good

Affordable housing is much on everyone's mind today.  Here are a few examples, with varying points of view.  By the way, inclusion in this blog post, especially in this section, is not an endorsement!


Meghna Chakrabarti,  The Affordable Housing Crisis Across The U.S." on WBUR, March 24, 2019.

Marco della Cava, "Will Google, Amazon and Facebook fix the affordable housing crisis?  USA Today, February 24, 2019.

City of Newark (n.d.): Mayor Baraka Hails Passage of Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance; Groundbreaking Measuring will Promote Development of Affordable Housing

New York Times Editorial, A New Approach on Housing Affordability: Some Democratic presidential candidates are emphasizing the need to build more housing. That could make a big difference. July 7, 2019.

New York Times Editorial,  Americans Need More Neighbors: A big idea in Minneapolis  points the way for other cities desperately in need of housing.  June 15, 2019.

Executive Order Establishing a White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing  June 25, 2019.

Brandon Fuller: To lower the cost, cities must build more housing.  Salt Lake Tribune, August 13, 2019.

Judge Mary C. Jacobson, How ‘Filtering’ Affects Housing Affordability in New Jersey  Walkable Princeton, July 17, 2019.

 Laura Kusisto and Peter Grant Affordable Housing Crisis Spreads Throughout World.  Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2019.

Emily Badger and Quoctrung Bui, In 83 Million Eviction Records, a Sweeping and Intimate New Look at Housing in America New York Times, April 7, 2017.

Lizabeth Cohen, Only Washington Can Solve the Nation’s Housing Crisis.  July 10, 2019.

Tanza Loudenback The US has more million-dollar real estate markets than ever  Business Insider, November 18, 2018.

Matthew Speakman, List of $1M (Home Value) Cities Could Grow by 23 in the Next Year.  Zillow, August 9, 2019.

Farhad Manjoo, America’s Cities Are Unlivable. Blame Wealthy Liberals.  New York Times, May 22, 2019.

Glenn Thrush, As Affordable Housing Crisis Grows, HUD Sits on the Sidelines.  New York Times, July 27, 2019.

Wall Street Journal Editorial,   New York’s Public Housing Misery  July 26, 2019.

Jenny Schuetz, Democrats Hear the ‘Yes in My Backyard’ Message.  The Atlantic, July 30, 2019.


Kriston Capps, Will Housing Swing the 2020 Election?  Citylab, June 18, 2018.

Dan Reed, Here’s why new homes are so expensive — and how we can fix that.  Greater Greater Washington, December 21, 2017.

James P. Sutton, How Not to Solve the Homelessness Crisis.  National Review, August 2, 2019


Sara Bronin, The Golden Girls Would Violate Zoning Laws  New York Times, July 28, 2019.

Charles Bagli, New York Secures the Most Affordable Housing Units in 27 Years  New York Times, January 11, 2017.

Ben Eisen, More First-Time Home Buyers Are Turning to the Bank of Mom and Dad.  Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2019.

David Goodman: What the City Didn’t Want the Public to Know: Its Policy Deepens Segregation.  New York Times, July 17, 2019.

Laura Kusisto Private-Sector Solution to Affordable Housing Gets Off the Ground.  Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2018.

Laura Bliss, California’s New Governor Would Punish Cities Over Affordable Housing Citylab, January 11, 2019.


Emily Badger, Why Technology Hasn’t Fixed the Housing Crisis  New York Times, January 29, 2019.

Paul Kupiec and Edward Pinto The High Cost of ‘Affordable Housing’ Mandates.  Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2019.

Caroline Engelmayer, As homelessness crisis grows, the Trump administration has made few new efforts.  Los Angeles Times, July 26, 2019.


Laura Kusisto, The Next Housing Crisis: A Historic Shortage of New Homes. Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2018

Laura Kusisto, Millennials Want to Buy Homes but Aren’t Saving for Down Payments.  Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2017

Ben Eisen and Laura Kusisto, Home Buyers Get Government Help With Down Payments.  Wall Street Journal, June 16, 209

My Housing Blog Posts

The first batch are mostly domestic, although over time I'll post more about my international work.

Housing supply and demand: some basics

A first look at housing “affordability” in New Jersey and the United States

Digging deeper on rent controls

Will inclusionary zoning (IZ) help solve our affordability problems?

Exhibit 6: See the next six blog entries, immediately below:

Low-income housing programs that work: 3 posts on vouchers

Part I: Are vouchers the answer?

Part II: Vouchers, a win for the housing market and the economy?

Part III: Can we change the game in affordable housing?

Low-income housing programs that work: 3 posts on land use and development regulation, NIMBYs and YIMBYs:

Part I: The opportunities of regulatory reform

Part II: Housing market regulation costs and benefits

Part III: A closer look at supply-side reform

Housing in the Great Financial Crisis, the Great Recession, and their aftermath
Housing, interest rates and capital flows: impacts and interrelationships
Housing prices: Growth, stagnation or decline?

Housing starts
Stocks, flows and the impact of housing prices on CPI and inflation

What's the latest angle on metropolitan housing prices?

"It's A Wonderful Mortgage:" U.S. mortgage market history
International comparison of mortgage markets: part 1
International comparison of mortgage markets: part 2

International comparison of mortgage markets: part 3

Hurricanes, housing and climate change: Risks and responses

Getting Housing Incentives Right: A classic case study from Malaysia

It's True.  I'm a PowerPoint Freak.

Ex. 7: My Stock in Trade

I already provided a link to one set of slides above, that accompany my draft for the Wisconsin Realtors.  Here are some additional PowerPoint decks that have related material.  (There will be overlap!)

A lecture on U.S. housing policy. "The Relative Roles of People and Place in Housing Markets and Policy" can be found here.

Interested in international housing policy?  "Housing Policy 'Recipes:' International Lessons for China? China's Lessons for Other Countries?" can be found here.

Others' Blog Posts, Short Online Pieces

Jenny Schuetz and Cecile Murray, California needs to build more apartments

Numerous articles at Richard Green's Real Estate and Urban Economics Blog

The Economist, As safe as houses: For now, residential-property prices are likely to keep rising

https://priceschool.usc.edu/affordable-housing-is-a-problem-faced-almost-everywhere-prof-richard-green-at-brookings-india-seminar/

https://www.brookings.edu/research/is-californias-apartment-market-broken/

Housing Policy and Politics

White House: Executive Order Establishing a White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing (6/25/2019)

President Donald J. Trump is Tearing Down Red Tape in Order to Build More Affordable Housing

James Brasuell, Planetzin, Trump Creates Council to Study 'Eliminating Barriers to Affordable Housing Development' June 25, 2019

James Brasuell, Planetzin, More Details on the Trump Administration's Sudden Pro-Development Moves.  June 26, 2019

James Brasuell, Planetzin, 'Yes in My Back Yard Act' Introduced in the U.S. Senate.  June 25, 2019

Emily Badger, Trump Wants to Cut Regulations That Block New Housing: Progressives and conservatives share common goals on this issue, but the details may be harder to agree on.

Elizabeth Warren's Housing Policy

Julian Castro, People First Housing Platform

Kriston Capps, Will Housing Swing the 2020 Election?  Citylab, June 18, 2019

Sarah Holder, Don’t Call Trump’s Housing Order a YIMBY Plan. Citylab, June 26, 2019

Pam Fessler, Bipartisan Disapproval Over Trump Administration's Housing Program Cuts.  NPR, April 3, 2019

Trump Administration Proposes to Eliminate Most Rural Housing Programs.  Housing Assistance Council

National Mortgage Professional Magazine, Trump's Push to Address Unnecessary Regs and Cut Closing Costs.  JUne 25, 2019

Laura Kusisto, Trump Administration to Take on Local Housing Barriers.  Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2019

Salim Furth, The New Conservative Housing Push.  National Review, July 29, 2019

Marissa Evans, U.S. Housing Secretary Ben Carson: More should follow Minneapolis and phase out single-family zoning.  Minneapolis Star-Tribune, June 18, 2019

Some Policy and Background Resources

The National Multi Housing Council has posted a Housing Affordability Toolkit (thanks to Bob Connolly for the link!)

White House: Housing Development Toolkit (2016)

Urban Institute: Trends in Housing Problems and Federal Housing Assistance

Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies: State of the Nation's Housing 2019

Manufactured Housing Institute presents their industry view and some useful data here.

Brookings, Cecile Murray and Jenny Schuetz, Is California’s Apartment Market Broken? The Relationship Between Zoning, Rents, and Multifamily Development

Selected Academic Papers

Ex. 8: Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff, Horse Feathers

Been, Vicki. "Impact Fees and Housing Affordability." Cityscape  (2005): 139-85.

Been, Vicki, Ingrid Gould Ellen, and Katherine O’Regan. "Supply Skepticism: Housing Supply and Affordability." Housing Policy Debate 29, no. 1 (2019): 25-40.

Blumenthal, Pamela M, John R McGinty, and Rolf Pendall. "Strategies for Increasing Housing Supply in High-Cost Cities." Urban Institute  (2016): 6-9.

Crone, Theodore M, Leonard I Nakamura, and Richard Voith. "Rents Have Been Rising, Not Falling, in the Postwar Period." The Review of Economics and Statistics 92, no. 3 (2010): 628-42.

Davis, Morris A, Jesse Gregory, and Daniel A Hartley. "The Long Run Effects of Low Income Housing on Neighborhood Composition."  (2018).

Desmond, Matthew. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. Crown, 2016.

Dokko, Jane. "Housing Affordability: Recommendations for New Research to Guide Policy." Economic Policy Review 24, no. 3 (2018).

Ellen, Ingrid Gould. "What Do We Know About Housing Choice Vouchers?". Regional Science and Urban Economics  (2018).

Emrath, Paul. "Government Regulation in the Price of a New Home." National Association of Home Builders, 2016.

Eriksen, Michael D, and Bree J Lang. "Overview and Proposed Reforms of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program." University of Cincinnati Lindner College of Business Research Paper  (2018).

Fischel, William A. "An Economic History of Zoning and a Cure for Its Exclusionary Effects." Urban Studies 41, no. 2 (2004): 317.

Fischel, William A. "Zoning Rules! The Economics of Land Use Regulation." Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy  (2015).

Freeman, Lance, and Jenny Schuetz. "Producing Affordable Housing in Rising Markets: What Works?". Cityscape 19, no. 1 (2017): 217-36.

Furman, Jason. "Barriers to Shared Growth: The Case of Land Use Regulation and Economic Rents." Remarks of the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors to the Urban Institute, 2015.

Gabriel, Stuart, and Gary Painter. "Why Affordability Matters." Regional Science and Urban Economics  (2018).

Galvez, Martha, Maya Brennan, Brady Meixell, and Rolf Pendall. "Housing as a Safety Net."  (2017).

Ghent, Andra C, Rubén Hernández-Murillo, and Michael Owyang. "Did Affordable Housing Legislation Contribute to the Subprime Securities Boom?". Real Estate Economics 43, no. 4 (Winter 2015 2015): 820-54.

Glaeser, Edward L., and Joseph Gyourko. "The Impact of Building Restrictions on Housing Affordability." Economic Policy Review 9, no. 2 (2003): 329–33.

Green, Richard K. "Thoughts on Rental Housing and Rental Housing Assistance." Cityscape  (2011): 39-55.

Green, Richard K., and Stephen Malpezzi. A Primer on U.S. Housing Markets and Housing Policy. American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association Monograph Series. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 2003.

Green, Richard K., Stephen Malpezzi, and Stephen K. Mayo. "Metropolitan-Specific Estimates of the Price Elasticity of Supply of Housing, and Their Sources." American Economic Review 95, no. 2 (May 2005): 334-39.

Hickey, Robert, Lisa Sturtevant, and Emily Thaden. "Achieving Lasting Affordability through Inclusionary Housing." Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2014.

Jewkes, Melanie D, and Lucy M Delgadillo. "Weaknesses of Housing Affordability Indices Used by Practitioners." Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning 21, no. 1 (2010).

Kean, Thomas (Commission Chair). "Not in My Backyard: Removing Barriers to Affordable Housing." Washington, D.C.: Report to President George H.W. Bush and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp by the Advisory Commission on Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing, 1991.

Kok, Nils, Paavo Monkkonen, and John M Quigley. "Land Use Regulations and the Value of Land and Housing: An Intra-Metropolitan Analysis." Journal of Urban Economics 81 (2014): 136-48.

Landis, John D. "Land Regulation and the Price of New Housing: Lessons from 3 California Cities." Journal of the American Planning Association 52, no. 1 (Win 1986): 9-21.

Lens, Michael C, and Paavo Monkkonen. "Do Strict Land Use Regulations Make Metropolitan Areas More Segregated by Income?". Journal of the American Planning Association 82, no. 1 (2016): 6-21.

MacArthur Foundation. "Pessimism About Prolonged Housing Affordability Crisis Is on the Rise, 2016 How Housing Matters Survey Finds." 2016.

Malpezzi, Stephen. "Housing "Affordability" in the U.S., and in Wisconsin." 2016.

———. "Housing Prices, Externalities, and Regulation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas." Journal of Housing Research 7, no. 2 (1996): 209-41.

Malpezzi, Stephen, Gregory H. Chun, and Richard K. Green. "New Place-to-Place Housing Price Indexes for U.S. Metropolitan Areas, and Their Determinants." Real Estate Economics 26, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 235-74.

Malpezzi, Stephen, and Richard K. Green. "What Has Happened to the Bottom of the U.S. Housing Market?" Urban Studies 33, no. 10 (December 1996): 1807-20.

Malpezzi, Stephen, and Susan M. Wachter. "Housing Demand." In International Encylopedia of Housing and Home, edited by Susan J Smith: Elsevier, 2012.

McDonald, John F. "Affordable Housing: An Economic Perspective." Architecture_MPS 7, no. 3 (2015): 1-16.

McElroy, Erin, and Andrew Szeto. "The Racial Contours of Yimby/Nimby Bay Area Gentrification." Berkeley Planning Journal 29, no. 1 (2017).

Molloy, Raven. "The Effect of Housing Supply Regulation on Housing Affordability: A Review." Regional Science and Urban Economics  (2018).

Monkkonen, Paavo. "The Elephant in the Zoning Code: Single Family Zoning in the Housing Supply Discussion." Housing Policy Debate 29, no. 1 (2019): 41-43.

———. "Understanding and Challenging Opposition to Housing Construction in California’s Urban Areas." Housing, Land Use and Development Lectureship & White Paper  (2016).

Monkkonen, Paavo, and Michael Manville. "Opposition to Development or Opposition to Developers? Experimental Evidence on Attitudes toward New Housing." Journal of Urban Affairs  (2019): 00-19.

Myers, Dowell, and JungHo Park. "A Constant Quartile Mismatch Indicator of Changing Rental Affordability in Us Metropolitan Areas, 2000 to 2016." Cityscape 21, no. 1 (2019): 163-200.

Nelson, Kathryn P. "Whose Shortage of Affordable Housing." Housing Policy Debate 5, no. 4 (1994): 401-42.

Newman, Sandra, and C Scott Holupka. "Housing Affordability and Children’s Cognitive Achievement." Health Affairs 35, no. 11 (2016): 2092-99.

Newman, Sandra J, and C Scott Holupka. "Housing Affordability and Child Well-Being." Housing Policy Debate 25, no. 1 (2015): 116-51.

———. "Housing Affordability and Investments in Children." Journal of Housing Economics 24 (2014): 89-100.

Olsen, Edgar. "We Don’t Need More Housing Projects:  What Strategies Should the Next President Pursue to Make Housing More Affordable?" Washington Post, 2016.

Olsen, Edgar O. "Getting More from Low-Income Housing Assistance." Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, The Hamilton Project, 2008.

Olsen, Edgar O, and Jeffrey E Zabel. "U.S. Housing Policy." In Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, 887-986: Elsevier, 2015.

Pendall, Rolf, Jonathan Martin, and Robert Puentes. "From Traditional to Reformed: A Review of the Land Use Regulations in the Nation’s 50 Largest Metropolitan Areas." Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2009.

Pendall, Rolf, Jake Wegmann, Jonathan Martin, and Dehui Wei. "The Growth of Control? Changes in Local Land-Use Regulation in Major U.S. Metropolitan Areas from 1994 to 2003." Housing Policy Debate 28, no. 6 (2018): 901-19.

Poethig, Erika C. "Evidence-Based Reform of Federal Rental Assistance." Urban Institute, 2016.

Poethig, Erika C, Joseph Schilling, Laurie Goodman, Bing Bai, James Gastner, Rolf Pendall, and Sameera Fazili. "The Detroit Housing Market." Urban Institute, March 3 (2017).

Quigley, John M, and Steven Raphael. "Is Housing Unaffordable? Why Isn't It More Affordable?". Journal of Economic Perspectives 18, no. 1 (2004): 191-214.

Quigley, John M, and Larry A. Rosenthal. "Design and Implementation of a National Database on Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing Development." Program on Housing and Urban Policy, University of California, Berkeley, 2004.

Quigley, John M., and Larry A. Rosenthal. "The Effects of Land Use Regulation on the Price of Housing: What Do We Know? What Can We Learn?". Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research 8, no. 1 (2005): 69-110.

Saiz, Albert. "The Geographic Determinants of Housing Supply." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 125, no. 3 (2010): 1253-96.

Schwartz, Heather L, Raphael W Bostic, Richard K Green, Vincent J Reina, Lois M Davis, and Catherine H Augustine. "Preservation of Affordable Housing: Evaluation of the Macarthur Foundation's Window of Opportunity Initiative." Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2016.

Weicher, John C. "The Affordable Housing Goals, Homeownership and Risk: Some Lessons from Past Efforts to Regulate the GSEs." Paper presented at the a Conference on “The Past, Present, and Future of the Government-Sponsored Enterprises” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 2010.

Weicher, John C, Frederick J Eggers, and Fouad Moumen. "The Long-Term Dynamics of Affordable Rental Housing: Creating and Using a New Database." Cityscape 20, no. 2 (2018): 235-44.

White House. "Housing Development Toolkit." Washington, D.C., 2016.

Postscript

The "inside baseball" photo is of the Pittsburgh Pirates' Roberto Clemente scoring the winning run at Forbes Field -- nothing unusual for him, except it was an inside-the-park bases-loaded home run in the 9th inning.  When he came to bat the Chicago Cubs were leading 8-5, after his hit off Jim Brosnan the Pirates had won the game 9-8. According to Martin Espada, "the only walk-off, inside-the-park grand slam in baseball history."  Inside baseball, indeed.

I grew up in a mixed household, in central Pennsylvania.  My father was a Pirate fan, I was a Phillies fan.  But I thought then, and now, that "The Great One," as he was known at our house, was the best baseball player I had ever seen play in person in my life.

Roberto Clemente was, of course, one of the greatest baseball players of all time.  Hall of Famer, four time National League batting champion, 12 time Gold Glove winner and 15 time All-Star.  He was also a humanitarian, and a hero who died bringing relief supplies to post-earthquake Managua, Nicaragua in 1972.