Talking Headways Podcast: It Costs More to Drive Til You Qualify

The topic this week is housing affordability and transit, with guests Shima Hamidi, Reid Ewing, and John Renne. They discuss their recent paper in the journal Housing Policy Debate, “How Affordable is HUD Affordable Housing?” As it turns out, a lot of HUD rental assistance is spent in areas with high transportation costs. We talk about the impetus for the study and how they designed it.

So where should people live to keep their household transportation costs affordable? We explore that question and more, previewing upcoming research on transit-oriented parking standards, commercial rents near transit during the last recession, and tech innovation’s relationship to urban form.

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High Transportation Costs Make a Lot of HUD Housing Unaffordable

By Angie Schmitt |
Rental assistance from HUD isn’t enough to make the cost of living affordable when the subsidies go toward housing in car-dependent areas, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Texas and the University of Utah. The study evaluated transportation costs for more than 18,000 households that receive HUD rental subsidies, estimating that nearly half of recipients have to spend more […]

The Good Problem With Housing Near Transit: It’s Almost Too Popular

By Elana Schor |
Local officials are catching on to the power of transit-oriented development to transform quality of life while decreasing congestion, as my colleague Ryan Avent has explored. But now that the federal government is starting to explore how to expand transit-accessible housing, an intriguing problem is arising: it’s almost too popular. Transit-oriented development in Jersey City, […]

Feds Begin Redefining ‘Affordable Housing’ to Include Transport Costs

By Elana Schor |
Comparing the transportation savings in dense versus dispersed neighborhoods for a dozen U.S. metro areas. (Chart: CNT) The process of expanding the federal government’s definition of "affordable housing," a stated goal of the Obama administration’s sustainable communities effort, began in earnest yesterday with the introduction of a new index that integrates transportation prices into the […]

EPA and HUD Make Big Investments in Sustainable Development

By Elana Schor |
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are making significant progress on their joint effort, with the U.S. DOT, to connect cleaner transportation options with affordable  housing and denser urban development. A future commuter rail station along Boston’s Fairmount Line, one of five areas selected for EPA sustainable […]