Research

Peer-reviewed Publication

Housing shortages following the global financial crisis have been accompanied by a new, sharp downturn in rates of residential mobility, largely among renters. The Great Recession precipitated major, lingering housing disruptions, with local mobility declining by one-third in the US from 2010 to 2019. Slow construction despite employment recovery and burgeoning numbers of young Millennials led to intensified competition for vacancies. That ‘friction of competition’ is posited to delay moves and reduce overall mobility rates. Questions investigated are how urban area declines in renter mobility are related to slower housing construction than job growth, fewer rental vacancy chains released by home buyers, concentrations of young adults, and affordability. Analysis is with the American Community Survey for the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the US Mobility constriction is a new indicator of declining housing opportunity. Similar outcomes bear investigation in other cities and nations impacted by housing shortages and the shift to renting. 

Works in Progress

The lack of housing supply has reached crisis levels, gaining recognition from the Federal Government (White House, 2024). The estimated national shortages vary widely, ranging from 1.5 million to 7.3 million according to the methodology and data (Harvard JCHS, 2024). However, these estimates often focus on the national level rather than the regional specifics, and there is a lack of academic discussion on the indicators, and thus no agreement is reached on methodology. This study addresses these gaps by investigating three questions. First, what theoretical framework is necessary to explain the current housing shortage crisis? Second, how well does each measure of the shortage correlate with rising house prices or other affordability metrics? Third, what characteristics are associated with housing shortages in metropolitan areas?  

We study how time use varies with city size using the American Time Use Survey. Residents of big cities spend more time traveling, but there are sizable differences in how individuals compensate for this time. Men in big cities dedicate less time to home chores, while women socialize less. Those with children devote more time on childcare in big cities. College graduates and high-income earners spend less time working, while low-income individuals allocate less time to leisure and socializing. We also find that big cities offer time allocation that is associated with greater well-being, especially for men but not for low-income individuals. Moreover, since 2020 time use differences by city size have become much smaller. 

Regional planning seeks to balance housing supply and employment growth to meet the population’s housing needs. Today there is mounting consensus that that housing shortages are a growing problem in large metro areas that are centers of growth for the U.S. economy. While there is a longstanding interest in achieving aggregate jobs-housing balance, the intersection of population, workers, and housing occurs within every individual occupied housing unit. We achieve this close inspection by using the microdata files of the American Community Survey, concentrating on 2014 and 2019, the years after recovery from the Great Recession and preceding the pandemic disruption. The large urban region of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is contrasted to the United States as a whole. This paper examines the ratio between the number of workers and housing units within major categories of housing type, including single-family versus multifamily housing units, and also comparing owners and renters. We closely investigate differences between households headed by individuals of different ages, because older and younger generations may face very different jobs-housing balances.  The ongoing retirement of the large Baby Boom generation is causing a large share of the total housing stock (24%) to become empty of any workers at all, while middle-age and younger households with 3 or more workers comprise a growing share of all occupied housing, more so in southern California where shortages are more acute. 

Presentations