Faced with an affordability crisis, mayors across the country have pledged to build thousands more units of housing. But a new analysis shows to meet those targets, many would have to exceed the construction pace reached at the height of the housing boom.
Cities such as Los Angeles, Boston and New York would have to build more homes per year than they did from 2000 to 2010—a decade that includes an unprecedented national building boom, although also some of the ensuing bust.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has called for the construction of 100,000 new units of housing by 2021, or about one for every two additional adults expected to move to the city. That’s about a 25% jump from the decade between 2000 and 2010, when the city added some 76,000 units—less than one for every two additional adults, according to Zillow’s analysis of U.S. Census data.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh says the city would add 53,000 units in 15 years to accommodate an estimated 91,000 new residents. From 2000 to 2014, the city added about half that, or nearly 22,000 units, according to Zillow.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s goals are more in line with the city’s past but likely not nearly enough to meet its needs. The mayor has said the city needs to build 160,000 new units of market-rate housing and has pledged to build 80,000 affordable units over the next decade. That’s about a 40% jump from 2000-10, when New York added about 170,000 units, according to Zillow’s analysis. Nonetheless, that only translates to about one for every three to four adults the city is expected to add—not nearly enough to comfortably house the newcomers.
“The reality is these places are getting larger. There are more people coming to these places because they have good jobs. If they don’t want to have crazy affordability issues, they’re simply going to have to build more,” said Svenja Gudell, chief economist at Zillow.
While economists highlight the need to ramp up production in order to bring down the cost of housing in cities, the study shows how daunting a challenge that is. Even in a decade that includes a housing bubble, some of the country’s largest cities struggled to keep pace with demand.
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