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Research & Policy
Proposed Legislation Expands Private Activity Bond Recycling
As the nation grapples with an affordable housing crisis, a recently proposed bipartisan bill aims to address the shortage of affordable housing by expanding and strengthening the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). The Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act of 2019 will reportedly create 1.9 million additional affordable housing units over the next decade. The new proposal includes a simple tweak that the NYU Furman Center wrote about previously which has the potential to significantly expand financing for affordable housing in New York and across the country.
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Research & Policy
Does Gentrification Displace Poor Children? New Evidence from New York City Medicaid Data
A new working paper, “Does Gentrification Displace Poor Children? New Evidence from New York City Medicaid Data” helps to determine gentrification’s impact on the frequency and distance of low-income families’ residential moves, as well as the housing and neighborhood conditions in which they live. Using longitudinal New York City Medicaid records, the authors track the movement and compare the outcomes of low-income children from 2009 through 2015, a seven-year period in which the city experienced high levels of gentrification.
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Research & Policy
State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods in 2018
The State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods report, published annually by the NYU Furman Center, provides a compendium of data and analysis about New York City’s housing, land use, demographics, and quality of life for each borough and the city’s 59 community districts. Indicators are available for download on CoreData.nyc.
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Research & Policy
REPORT: Uneven Progress in School Diversity as New York City’s Neighborhoods Experience Change
A new report from the NYU Furman Center, The Diversity of New York City’s Neighborhoods and Schools, examines the racial and ethnic diversity of the city’s neighborhoods and public elementary schools. The report finds evidence of progress—for example, the concentration of racial and ethnic groups has grown less extreme over the past 12 years for Black, Hispanic, and white students.
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Research & Policy
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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Research & Policy
The Potential of the Fair Housing Act’s Affirmative Mandate and HUD’s AFFH Rule
NYU Furman Center Faculty Director Katherine O’Regan and NYU Furman Center Distinguished Fellow Ken Zimmerman recently published an article in the journal Cityscape, examining The Potential of the Fair Housing Act’s Affirmative Mandate and HUD’s AFFH Rule. The article reviews the Fair Housing Act (FHA) as well as HUD’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule and reflects on the ongoing barriers to fair housing.
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Research & Policy
Policy Minute: Rent Regulation Reform
State lawmakers are gearing up to take action on the state rent laws that are set to expire in June. New York Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie recently announced a package of bills aimed at strengthening rent regulation laws and increasing tenant protections.
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Research & Policy
School Climate and the Impact of Neighborhood Crime on Test Scores
A recent article in The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences explores administrative data on middle schoolers in high-poverty New York City neighborhoods to understand whether school climate alleviates or exacerbates the effect of neighborhood crime on academic performance.
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Research & Policy
Faculty Director Vicki Been Testifies at Charter Revision Expert Forum
On March 21st, Furman Center Faculty Director Vicki Been testified on a Land Use expert panel before the 2019 NYC Charter Revision Commission. Her testimony focused on proposed changes to the city charter that would require the city to develop a comprehensive plan that sets long-term development goals. Been raised concerns about the proposal, noting that the city already carries out a significant amount of planning, and it is unclear how a comprehensive plan would differ from the city’s many efforts. She emphasized that the there is no clear agreed upon definition of comprehensive planning and that submitting such an ambiguous concept to a vote could prove confusing and dangerous for New York City and its voters.
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Research & Policy
Supply Skepticism: Housing Supply and Affordability
Will building more housing lead to more affordable rents and lower home prices? Economics 101 says yes, but an increasingly vocal cohort of advocates and activists—supply skeptics—oppose new housing construction on the grounds that it will not enhance affordability in their communities and might, instead, increase prices and rents.
