One of the most frustrating things about housing policy debates is that a lot of self-styled "affordable housing" advocates spend a lot of time opposing the construction of new (market rate) housing. My latest looks at research showing this is misguided. fullstackeconomics.com/how-luxury-apa… 
Affordable housing advocates lobby for subsidies for housing with below-market rents. This is a worthwhile effort, but budget constraints often mean that the number of units is wildly inadequate to meet the need.
Meanwhile, market-rate housing is free to the taxpayer. Better than free in fact, since it often generates additional tax revenue you can use to pay for more affordable units later.
And the moving chain literature indicates that a nice side effect of building market-rate apartments is that you often get vacancies in lower-end housing.
So given a choice between building one affordable unit or five market-rate units, people who care about affordability should take the market rate units—even if you only care about people in the bottom half of the income distribution! fullstackeconomics.com/how-luxury-apa…
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