You’ll see a lot folks who are skeptical of the housing supply problem who will compare the growth of households with the growth of housing units, or population growth with the growth of housing units.
I love this. Or more accurately, I hate that you have to do articles to address the madness that comes from people who claim we don't have a housing shortage. Incidentally, Boston might be starting to go through population decline/housing growth cycle. What could be worse over the next few years is policies being proposed by the mayor for rent control and increased builder offsets--so housing production could slow down even more. Everyone who talks big about affordability doesn't say a damn word about zoning reform.
This might be only loosely correlated with the issues you raise in this post, but communities that have seasonal populations can skew housing-per-capita data. The island of Nantucket has a huge surplus of dwellings from October through May. A rich person with two houses who builds a third house increases per capita stock. Some of them should start considering Downton Abbey-like solutions for their servants.
I love this. Or more accurately, I hate that you have to do articles to address the madness that comes from people who claim we don't have a housing shortage. Incidentally, Boston might be starting to go through population decline/housing growth cycle. What could be worse over the next few years is policies being proposed by the mayor for rent control and increased builder offsets--so housing production could slow down even more. Everyone who talks big about affordability doesn't say a damn word about zoning reform.
This might be only loosely correlated with the issues you raise in this post, but communities that have seasonal populations can skew housing-per-capita data. The island of Nantucket has a huge surplus of dwellings from October through May. A rich person with two houses who builds a third house increases per capita stock. Some of them should start considering Downton Abbey-like solutions for their servants.