Building a Better Future: Solving Seattle’s Housing Crisis

Abstract

The City of Seattle, like much of the country, faces a serious housing crisis. Houselessness is ubiquitous and most ordinary citizens, many of whom were deemed essential workers during the pandemic, cannot afford to live in Seattle. Much of the workforce is forced to suffer financially or commute long distances, which weakens communities and accelerates climate change. One of the main policy responses to this, at least at the municipal level, has been to up-zone neighborhoods. The assumption behind liberalizing the housing market is that more supply will be generated and in the process the cost of housing will be within reach of more citizens. In short, it presumes that a less regulated housing market will increase supply which in turn will result in more affordable housing. Unfortunately, this is unsubstantiated. Researchers in Chicago and Vancouver have found that up-zoning has neither increased the overall supply of housing nor reduced its costs. Sustainably built, quality housing that all residents can afford is not a profitable venture. Thus, one of our main takeaways is that up-zoning based around for-profit housing development will not address the housing crisis. Moreover, many quality neighborhoods will be upended and up-zoning as a policy (which we believe is needed) will have been discredited because it failed to deliver what many of its advocates promised.