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A new report for Boston Indicators, “Exclusionary by Design”, shows the clear intent of many Greater Boston suburbs to resist racial and class integration in the 1970s. Housing scholar Amy Dain demonstrates how racial prejudice and class exclusion figured into suburbs’ downzoning in the 1970s; and how putatively legitimate concerns like tax revenue, aesthetic continuity, and the environment served the cause of exclusion.
Read the “Exclusionary by Design” report, and see the accompanying 1-hour webinar with Amy Dain, Luc Shuster of Boston Indicators and Ted Landsmark of Northeastern University.
“This research finds widespread evidence that over the past 100 years, zoning has been used by cities and towns across Greater Boston as a tool for excluding certain groups of people, including:
- Racial minorities, especially Black residents
- Lower-income and working-class residents
- Families with school-aged children• Religious minorities
- Immigrants
- And, in some cases, any newcomers/outsiders at all”
Low Diversity is No Accident
In the 1970s, municipalities were ordered by state law to create Growth Policy Statements – but with no mandate that communities actually endorse growth nor inclusion. Exclusionary language in these statements was seemingly anodyne, seeking to preserve the “present characteristics of their communities” or “socio-economic status“. In several cases the fear of integration was quite apparent: Milton’s statement referred to problems in “surrounding communities” (ie Mattapan and Dorchester) and “breakdown of society”; both Milton and Melrose make mention of the pressures caused by people “moving out of Boston”. Belmont’s plan explicitly calls for the town to stay “relatively expensive … [so as to] attract only those families so economically situated.”
The intent of such language was not somehow lost on people in that era. Needham’s Local Growth Policy Statement included, but pointedly disavowed its own “Appendix A” — a dissenting statement by the Congregational Church of Needham, calling out the town’s exclusionary aims and endorsing a vision of inclusive growth.
In addition, in many places where multi-family housing was theoretically allowed, “poison pill” requirements and impediments were added to make such building a practical impossibility. More recently we have seen the ironic use of infeasible “inclusionary zoning” requirements – which ensure that no affordable housing can actually be built.
The same language, un-evolved and unrefined, is still invoked by “neighborhood defenders” today. Our current housing affordability crisis and segregation is the plain result. The report is a sobering, enlightening read – essential for any active citizen or town official in eastern Massachusetts.
Data in a Mass Housing Partnership report shows how far behind the Boston metropolitan area has fallen in meeting the housing needs of its citizens. There are four primary categories for measuring the inadequacies: 1. Availability, 2. Affordability, 3. L0cation and Mobility and 4. Equitability. See the full report for more data and examples. Two slides are shown below.
by Arthur Prokosch
New research from the Urban Institute shows that rent control and rent stabilization policies in 27 metro areas increased the supply of rental units with prices affordable to extremely low-income residents. However, this came at the cost of less overall housing supply, and especially fewer rentals with prices affordable to higher-income residents. If subsidization proposals return to Boston and Massachusetts again next year, they will not be a silver bullet for affordability, but could be one ingredient in a successful strategy alongside more housing construction.
As detailed in an in-depth Boston Globe article, rent control in Massachusetts was last repealed statewide, 51-49%, by an initiative petition in 1994. A year ago, as the Globe also reported, Boston and Massachusetts saw a number of “rent stabilization” proposals to reinstitute some components of rent-control policies. None of these proposals included income-specific provisions like limits on higher-income tenants occupying rent-stabilized apartments. Discussions are likely to restart next year.
The new research gives stronger evidence that achieving the goal of affordable housing at all income levels requires multiple complementary strategies, because each affordable housing strategy has its own tradeoffs. Rent control may increase the number of very-low-priced rentals across an entire region, at least in the short run, with the tradeoff of reducing housing supply and affordability at higher income levels. Thus, at best, rent control would need to be paired with greater amounts of new housing production–even more than is already needed today–to be able to give a net benefit for low-income, moderate-income, and every other income band above very-low-income residents.
Other affordable-housing strategies have their own tradeoffs. Arlington’s inclusionary zoning requirements set aside some units for lower- and moderate-income residents, with a tradeoff of increasing the prices of the remaining units, or reducing their number. Meanwhile, nonprofit organizations like the Housing Corporation of Arlington and government agencies like the Arlington Housing Authority ensure that some lower-income residents can afford housing, with the tradeoff that their limited funding only allows them to serve a small fraction of the demand.
In contrast, reducing barriers to the construction of new housing decreases housing costs across a metro area. See another recent article for a description of how housing construction has a “filter effect”, slowing rent growth at all income levels. Even so, a range of strategies would help ensure that affordable housing arrives as quickly as it is needed, at every income level, and in every neighborhood where it is needed.
In summary, rent control can be a useful tool, one that’s most effective when combined with other strategies. Our housing problems are multi-faceted, and the responses have to be multi-faceted too.