Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper

I remember a time back in 2017, when I was at a friend’s dinner party. He mentioned that one of the other guests was a housing activist, and that because I was also interested in housing issues, she and I should talk. The activist asked me what I thought we needed to do to ensure affordable housing in San Francisco, to which I responded “We should let people build a lot more of it.” At which point a look of shock and dismay came over her face, and in a horrified voice she asked: “Market rate??” “Yes,” I said. “Market rate.” In fact, the belief that building market-rate housing raises rents is surprisingly common. For example, independent journalist Christopher Cook recently tweeted: And Calvin Welch of 48Hills declares: By definition an affordable housing crisis cannot be solved by the market for the simple reason that the folks needing the housing are simply priced out of the market. The logic behind these posts isn’t immediately clear. For example, Cook seems to be concerned mainly w

I remember a time back in 2017, when I was at a friend’s dinner party. He mentioned that one of the other guests was a housing activist, and that because I was also interested in housing issues, she and I should talk. The activist asked me what I thought we needed to do to ensure affordable housing in San Francisco, to which I responded “We should let people build a lot more of it.” At which point a look of shock and dismay came over her face, and in a horrified voice she asked: “Market rate??” “Yes,” I said. “Market rate.” In fact, the belief that building market-rate housing raises rents is