Framing Us In Them: Explaining Black Public Opinion On Immigration

Alisson Ramos

Affordable to Whom? The Politics of Housing Affordability

Adrian Pietrzak with Tali Mendelberg and Gustavo Novoa

Building new housing is critical to ameliorating the housing affordability crisis in the US. Many local government programs provide benefits to developers (e.g. density bonuses, tax breaks) in exchange for setting aside some units for certain incomes. However, housing projects often face public resistance, even when designated as affordable. Why is that? We hypothesize this resistance is partly caused by public perceptions that the developments are not meaningfully affordable, or that they favor affluent residents or wealthy developers. We hypothesize this perception arises for three reasons: 1) affordable developments often designate only a small percentage of units as affordable; 2) public subsidies (if provided) are perceived as “lining the pockets” of “greedy” developers; and 3) the ‘affordable’ thresholds are not perceived as actually affordable, either for lower-income or for middle-income people. Additionally, these perceptions may be moderated by a respondent’s own income, the income of their neighborhood, and attitudes about redistribution. We test these propositions with precise conceptual definitions, measures, and randomized survey questions that vary affordability along several dimensions. With these improvements, we can clarify mixed findings in the literature about the effects of affordability on support for housing.