Publications
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Has Falling Crime Invited Gentrification?
Since the early 1990s, central city crime has fallen dramatically in the United States. This study explores the extent to which this trend may have contributed to gentrification. Using confidential census microdata, the authors show that reductions in central city violent crime are associated with increases in the probability that high-income and college-educated households move into central city neighborhoods, including low-income neighborhoods, instead of the suburbs. The authors then use neighborhood-level crime and home purchase data for five major U.S. cities and find that falling neighborhood crime is associated with increasing numbers and shares of high-income movers to low-income central city neighborhoods.
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How NYCHA Preserves Diversity in New York’s Changing Neighborhoods
A new fact brief published by the NYU Furman Center outlines the critical role that the public housing plays in preserving racial, ethnic, and economic diversity in the city’s gentrifying and higher-income neighborhoods. The brief builds on previous work by the NYU Furman Center outlining NYCHA’s outsized role in housing the lowest-income New Yorkers. That crucial role in the affordable housing landscape combined with the geographic distribution of public housing developments in gentrifying neighborhoods means that many of the city’s neighborhoods owe their diversity to NYCHA’s public housing developments.
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State of New York City’s Subsidized Housing in 2017
This brief reviews major programs used to develop and preserve affordable housing in the city, and provides the number and location of properties benefitting from a subsidy or incentive in 2017. It also discusses when affordability restrictions on some of those properties will expire unless renewed by the owners and the housing agencies.
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How Do Small Area FMRs Affect the Location and Number of Units Affordable to Voucher Holders?
This brief explores how the location and number of homes affordable to voucher holders will change in the 24 metro areas mandated by HUD to adopt Small Area Fair Market Rents (“Small Area FMRs”). The change to Small Area FMR—a more localized rent measures as a determinant of subsidy standards—is designed to allow housing choice voucher holders to rent homes in a wider variety of areas. The analysis finds that switching to Small Area FMRs would open up options for voucher holders in high-rent ZIP Codes while reducing them in low-rent ZIP Codes. In addition, the aggregate number of units affordable to voucher holders in these 24 metros would increase with the use of Small Area FMRs.
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Population and Housing in the Floodplain Battered by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma
In conjunction with the launch of FloodzoneData.us, the NYU Furman Center released a series of data briefs to illustrate the housing and population located in the U.S. floodplains. The third brief in the series, Population and Housing in the Floodplain Battered by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, describes the housing and population located in the floodplains of metropolitan areas affected by hurricanes in recent months, including Houston, Miami, Tampa, and Jacksonville. The analysis describes the housing stock (including tenure, size, and number of subsidized housing units) and population demographics (including poverty rates, households with children and seniors, and race/ethnicity) in floodplains within these metro areas.
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Population in the U.S. Floodplains
In conjunction with the launch of FloodzoneData.us, the NYU Furman Center released a series of data briefs to illustrate the housing and population located in the U.S. floodplains. The second brief in the series, Population in the U.S. Floodplains, explores the characteristics of the population located in the 100-year floodplain and the combined floodplain (100-year and 500-year floodplain), nationwide. In 2015, more than 30 million people (10% of the U.S. population) lived in the combined floodplain.
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Katherine M. O’Regan Testimony to U.S. Senate Committee on Finance Hearing on Affordable Housing
On Tuesday, August 1, 2017, Dr. Katherine O’Regan, faculty of NYU Wagner and Faculty Director at the NYU Furman Center, testified at the United State Senate Committee on Finance’s hearing entitled, “America’s Affordable Housing Crisis: Challenges and Solutions.” Dr. O’Regan’s statement outlines the extent of the nation’s affordable housing crisis and its consequences for households and markets. In discussing the federal government’s role in responding to the crisis, she discusses three proposed reforms to the Low Income Housing Tax Credit to “increase its flexibility and feasibility in a broader set of market conditions, to streamline, and to more effectively meet key policy goals.” Read Dr. O'Regan's full statement or watch a video of the hearing.
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Housing in the U.S. Floodplains
This brief, presented in conjuction with FloodzoneData.us describes characteristics about the housing stock located in the U.S. floodplains. Between 2011 and 2015, five percent of all occupied housing units in the United States were located in the 100-year floodplain, and 10 percent were located in combined (100- and 500-year) floodplains. The brief details factors that are important to understand when assessing the risk from flooding and the challenges of retrofitting, including the shares that are rental and owner-occupied, the age of the housing, and whether the housing is government subsidized.
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The Effects of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC)
The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Program is the largest federal subsidy for the development and preservation of affordable housing. Since it was established by the Tax Reform Act of 1986, LIHTC has financed the development and preservation of more than 2.1 million units in over 28,000 developments across the country. As federal tax reform looms, however, there is growing uncertainty surrounding the future of LIHTC. In contemplation of debate about these possible changes, this brief explores what we know about who LIHTC serves and what research has shown about the impact of the program.
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Selling the Debt: Properties Affected by the Sale of New York City Tax Liens
This data brief sheds light on the process of tax lien sales in New York City, which affected over 15,000 properties and roughly 43,600 residential units between 2010 and 2015.
It finds that most tax liens in New York City eligible for sale are sold and generate substantial revenue for the city; between 1997 and 2015, the city raised more than $1.3 billion from the sale of tax liens. However, the city also has the power to remove liens eligible for sale from the lien sale list. The report also describes the characteristics of properties with liens sold in New York City between 2010 and 2015, including the property type, their location, and the outcome following the lien sale.
