Beyond Urban Renewal: Retooling Redevelopment Authorities to Create Social Housing in Massachusetts
The Rapaort Institute for Greater Boston unveiled a new report urging Massachusetts to transform its existing redevelopment authorities into engines for social housing. The briefing, anchored by Cambridge Mayor Samul Sadiki, highlighted the state’s chronic shortage of affordable units and the 2024 Housing Act’s allowance for a social‑housing pilot, while emphasizing that current tools are under‑utilized. Key findings define social housing as income‑diverse, publicly owned housing financed outside the low‑income housing tax credit, and argue that redevelopment authorities—originally created under Chapter 121B to combat blight—possess land‑acquisition, eminent‑domain, and procurement exemptions that can be redirected toward mixed‑income projects. The study surveyed roughly 30 active authorities, noting that effectiveness depends more on staffing, funding, and local political backing than on institutional form. Mayor Sadiki cited Cambridge’s affordable‑housing overlay and recent zoning reforms as concrete examples of repurposing existing mechanisms. The presenters also referenced external models, such as Montgomery County’s county‑level housing authority and Seattle’s newly created social‑housing entity, to illustrate how public ownership can sustain affordability over time. If Massachusetts leverages these authorities, the state could accelerate the delivery of mixed‑income units without building new bureaucracies, addressing affordability across income levels and preserving community cohesion. The report calls for a dedicated task force, clearer mandates, and sustained investment to translate legal powers into tangible housing outcomes.
Measuring the Impact of State Pro-Housing Policies: Empirical Traps to Avoid
The webinar, led by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and Arnold Ventures’ Jenny Schutz, examined how states are rapidly embracing pro‑housing policies and the methodological pitfalls that hinder accurate impact measurement. Over the past five to six years, more...
Of Tracks and Trails: How Accessible Green Spaces Reshape Communities
The webinar presented new research on how converting abandoned rail lines into public rail trails reshapes surrounding housing markets and demographic composition. Using a detailed event‑study design that exploits staggered trail openings in Boston and a national panel of census...
America's Rental Housing 2026
The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard released its 2026 edition of America’s Rental Housing report, the eleventh in a series tracking the nation’s rental market. The briefing highlighted a turning point: after years of rapid growth, apartment‑house demand...
Did Mortgage Rate Locks Lead to Rising House Prices?
The Joint Center webcast examined whether mortgage rate‑lock incentives helped fuel the sharp rise in U.S. home prices amid the pandemic. As the Fed pushed 30‑year rates from about 2.5% to near 8%, analysts expected a steep price decline,...
Using Design Competitions to Improve the Quality of Housing: A Roundtable Discussion
The roundtable, hosted by the Joint Center, examined how design competitions can improve the quality of housing built on publicly owned land. Speakers highlighted the Zurich model, where a two‑stage competition—first for the land lease concept and then an...
Understanding the Rapid Rise in Rural Home Prices
The Joint Center’s recent webinar dissected the unprecedented surge in rural home prices that unfolded during and after the COVID‑19 pandemic. Researchers Alex Hermann and Peyton Whitney presented findings from a new working paper, highlighting how remote‑work‑enabled migration reshaped housing...