By most accounts, the need for affordable housing across North Carolina is massive. According to 2019 census data, over a million North Carolina households are “cost burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing. Almost half of those are “severely cost burdened,” meaning the … Read more

A recent Community and Economic Development blog post outlined the concept of Workforce Housing – housing affordable to households earning 60 – 120% of the Area Median Income (AMI) – including the roots of workforce housing initiatives, and how macroeconomic trends have challenged the supply of hous … Read more

In many cities across the country, it is increasingly difficult for middle-income workers to buy or rent housing in the areas in which they work. This is in part due to wages not keeping up with increasing costs of living but is also due to the limited supply of housing affordable to these workers. … Read more

If you were to Google micro-apartments, articles about innovative projects in Seattle, Washington D.C., Boston, San Francisco or former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to solve the housing crisis in New York top the list. Seattle alone has 780 units already approved for occupancy and about 1,600 more … Read more

In “Public Schools and Economic Development: What the Research Shows” (2004), Jonathan Weiss demonstrates the increasingly important role that public schools play in an area’s economic development. As businesses consider expanding or relocating into various communities, they look at the level of qua … Read more

Tyler Mulligan is a School of Government faculty member. As part of its comprehensive planning process, a town commissioned a housing study to determine whether its current and projected housing stock is adequate to meet the needs of its local residents and workforce. The results weren’t terribly su … Read more

Imagine that you own a home, but not the land on which it sits. You’re a tenant on the land, subject to a 99-year ground lease. As a condition of the ground lease, you are permitted to sell your home only to a household earning less than the community’s median wage, and the ground lease sets a maxim … Read more