A PRRAC Report (March 2015). By Miriam Zuk and Ian Carlton.
Synopsis: Despite growing interest, policymaking, and funding for the inclusion of affordable housing in TODs, this study finds that limited progress has been made over the past two decades in delivering new affordable housing options near transit stations in high-opportunity neighborhoods. Perhaps because of the need for dense neighborhoods to support ridership combined with the nature of urban poverty and housing policy in the United States, over half of new transit stations have been located in neighborhoods where affordable housing is already located. New transit neighborhoods have not been as successful at attracting new affordable developments, however; we found that in neighborhoods where transit stations opened since 2000 only one in five saw new affordable units added. Combined with our findings that transit-rich neighborhoods were more likely to experience demographic shifts signaling gentrification pressures, and with previous findings that transit neighborhoods were at risk of losing federally subsidized units, these findings create cause for concern of the future for equitable TODs.
