Growth Management and Affordable Housing: Do They Conflict? (James A. Johnson Metro) [Paperback]

Anthony Downs (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2004 | Series: James A. Johnson Metro

Advocates of growth management and smart growth often propose policies that raise housing prices, thereby making housing less affordable to many households trying to buy or rent homes. Such policies include urban growth boundaries, zoning restrictions on multi-family housing, utility district lines, building permit caps, and even construction moratoria. Does this mean there is an inherent conflict between growth management and smart growth on the one hand, and creating more affordable housing on the other? Or can growth management and smart growth promote policies that help increase the supply of affordable housing? These issues are critical to the future of affordable housing because so many local communities are adopting various forms of growth management or smart growth in response to growth-related problems. Those problems include rising traffic congestion, the absorption of open space by new subdivisions, and higher taxes to pay for new infrastructures. This book explores the relationship between growth management and smart growth and affordable housing in depth. It draws from material presented at a symposium on these subjects held at the Brookings Institution in May 2003, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Association of Realtors, and the Fannie Mae Foundation. Contributors seek to inform the debate and provide some useful answers to help the nation accommodate the curtailment of growth in urban and suburban domains while still ensuring a supply of affordable housing. Contributors include Karen Destorel Brown (Brookings), Robert Burchell, (Rutgers University), Daniel Carlson (University of Washington), David L. Crawford (EconsultCorporation), Anthony Downs (Brookings), Ingrid Gould Ellen (New York University), William Fischel (Dartmouth College), George C. Galster (Wayne State University), Jill Khadduri (Abt Associates), Gerrit J. Knaap (University of Maryland), Robert Lang (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University), Shishir Mathur (University of Washington), Arthur C. Nelson (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University), Rolf Pendall (Cornell University), Douglas R. Porter, (Growth Management Institute), Michael Pyatok (University of Washington), Michael Schill (New York University School of Law), Samuel R. Staley (Reason Public Policy Institute), Richard P. Voith (Econsult Corporation).

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Anthony Downs is a senior fellow in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. His specialties are housing, real estste, real estate finance, metropolitan planning, demographics, and transportation. His books include New Visions for Metropolitan America (Brookings/Lincoln Institute for Land Policy, 1994), and Still Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion (Brookings, 2004).

Product Details

• Paperback: 290 pages
• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press (July 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815719337
• ISBN-13: 978-0815719335
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,927,555 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #71 in Books > Law > Administrative Law > Housing & Urban Development

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars evidence of the weakness of public policy?, September 12, 2005

By 

Michael Lewyn (Forest Hills, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Growth Management and Affordable Housing: Do They Conflict? (James A. Johnson Metro) (Hardcover)

The basic message of most essays in this book is that growth management and inclusionary zoning simply don't matter as much as their vigourous critics suggest: that neither program does much good or much harm.

For example, one of the earliest essays compares Montgomery County, Maryland (which has a growth management policy that preserves some of the county's farmland, and which also has inclusionary zoning) with Fairfax County, Va. (which is much less restrictive as to both issues), and concludes that affordability problems existed at a roughly similar rate in both counties.

Similarly, another essay evaluates Oregon's urban growth boundary and its affect on housing prices in Portland, and concludes that Portland has not become more expensive any faster than other western cities with conventional zoning. (Although as William Fischel points out in a reply to that essay, a city with no zoning at all would be cheaper than either Portland OR other heavily zoned cities).

One small quibble: the essays betrayed lots of confusion about what the ultimate goal of national housing policy should be. For example, one response to the Portland essay (Fischel's) complains that prices are too high in the West- while another reply suggests that Oregon's policies might actually reduce home values by trying to urbanize essentially suburban areas.

Government housing policy is afflicted by the same confusion - on the one hand, government funnels money into housing in order to increase affordability, but on the other hand government restricts development in order to bid up housing prices. We as a culture cannot decide whether we want expensive housing to protect existing homeowners or less expensive housing to protect the people who aren't homeowners.