From our Democratizing the Green City colleague Karen Chapple (UC Berkeley), who is a co-author of this report:

Is market-rate development the most effective way to prevent displacement?

We are pleased to release our latest research brief, “Housing Production, Filtering and Displacement: Untangling the Relationships.”

The brief assesses the effectiveness of subsidized and market-rate housing production in alleviating the current housing crisis. We find that both market-rate and subsidized housing reduce displacement pressures in the Bay Area, but subsidized housing has twice the impact.

The brief is our response to the February 2016 report from California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office that used our data to argue that market-rate development would be the most effective way to prevent displacement of low-income households. With the simple addition of data on subsidized housing, we present a more nuanced story.

However, because of the severe mismatch between demand and supply, development alone is not enough. Aggressive preservation and tenant protection strategies will be needed to help vulnerable households stay in their neighborhoods.

Read more of the report here.