*New* Evans School Research Seminar: Dowell Myers, USC Sol Price School of Public Policy (2/11/25)

Posted: 1/17/2025 (Local Events)

Tuesday, February 11, 2025 – 12:00 – 1:00pm, Parrington Hall 360

Dowell Myers, Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California

This seminar is co-host by the College of Built Environments. Please note that we will have a special Tuesday seminar. The seminar location is still PAR 360.

Dr. Myers will present a paper, Extending Analysis of the Great Misalignment Between Housing and Population. 

Abstract:Major omissions of demographic factors in policy making are argued to be a principal cause of the crisis of housing shortages since the Great Recession. Overlooked changes in cohort size and lagged measurements have misled about current housing preferences, and quantity of housing needed, with mistiming producing extreme volatility. Restrictions of credit and supply legislated in 2010 were aimed at curbing the excesses of the early 2000s bubble but clashed after 2010 with requirements of much larger millennial cohorts, creating shortages first in rentals, then in homes for sale. For lack of apparent input of any demographic reasoning, analysis by policy makers and contributing housing experts omitted crucial temporal factors shaping demand. Thus was constructed the great misalignment between population and housing. This paper considers how housing policy should be crafted in anticipation of housing needs based on changing cohort sizes and the active demands of expected life-course transitions. Principles of housing demography can help integrate these population dynamics with temporal dynamics of the housing stock itself.