percentage of black renters who live alone (or without another adult) is probably somewhat inflated, then; but the point about the prevalence of overcrowding among renters not matching the concern about overcrowding among policymakers and analysts remains. American Housing Survey (2013), Table C-02-RO; Milwaukee Area Renters Study, 2009–2011.
Studies have documented an association between crowding and adverse outcomes, but there is not much robust causal evidence of the effect of crowding. See Gary Evans, Susan Saegert, and Rebecca Harris, “Residential Density and Psychological Health Among Children in Low-Income Families,” Environment and Behavior 33 (2001): 165–80; Dominique Goux and Eric Maurin, “The Effect of Overcrowded Housing on Children’s Performance at School,” Journal of Public Economics 89 (2005): 797–819; Claudia Solari and Robert Mare, “Housing Crowding Effects on Children’s Well-Being,” Social Science Research 41 (2012): 464–76.
25. Alex Schwartz, Housing Policy in the United States, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2010), 23.
26. Louis Winnick, “The Triumph of Housing Allowance Programs: How a Fundamental Policy Conflict Was Resolved,” Cityscape 1 (1995): 95–118, 97. The quotation comes from the documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011), directed by Chad Freidrichs.
27. Alex Kotlowitz, There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America (New York: Random House, 1991); Arnold Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
28. Public housing inventory has fallen by roughly 20 percent since 1991. Peter Marcuse and W. Dennis Keating, “The Permanent Housing Crisis: The Failures of Conservatism and the Limitations of Liberalism,” in A Right to Housing: Foundation for a New Social Agenda, eds. Rachel Bratt, Michael Stone, and Chester Hartman (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006), 139–62; Rachel Bratt, Michael Stone, and Chester Hartman, “Why a Right to Housing Is Needed and Makes Sense: Editor’s Introduction,” ibid., 1–19; Schwartz, Housing Policy in the United States.
29. More technically, the voucher covers the remaining costs up to the “payment standard,” a limit set by the local Housing Authority administering the benefit. The program reserves 3 in 4 available vouchers for households with incomes below 30 percent of the area median income or the poverty line (whichever is higher); the remaining quarter may be distributed to households with incomes up to 80 percent of the area median.
30. Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, America’s Rental Housing: Evolving Markets and Needs (Cambridge: Harvard University, 2013); Abt Associates Inc. et al., Effects of Housing Vouchers on Welfare Families (Washington, DC: US Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2006); Michelle Wood, Jennifer Turnham, and Gregory Mills, “Housing Affordability and Family Well-Being: Results from the Housing Voucher Evaluation,” Housing Policy Debate 19 (2008): 367–412.
31. Abt Associates Inc. et al., Effects of Housing Vouchers; Alan Meyers et al., “Public Housing Subsidies May Improve Poor Children’s Nutrition,” American Journal of Public Health 83 (1993): 115. See also Sandra Newman and Scott Holupka, “Housing Affordability and Investments in Children,” Journal of Housing Economics 24 (2014): 89–100.
32. American Housing Survey, 2013, Table C-17-RO. These estimates excluded households classified as “other income verification” (3 percent of renter households below the poverty level) and “subsidy not reported” (1 percent of renter households below the poverty level) because it was unclear whether these households received assistance. Matthew Desmond, “Unaffordable America: Poverty, Housing, and Eviction,” Fast Focus: Institute for Research on Poverty 22 (2015): 1–6.
33. On public housing capital needs, see Meryl Finkel et al., Capital Needs in the Public Housing Program, Contract # C-DEN-O2277-TO001, Revised Financial Report, prepared for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (Cambridge: Abt Associates Inc., 2010).
34. This estimate is consistent across multiple national data sets, including the American Housing Survey, the American Community Survey, the Survey of Income and Program Participation, and the Consumer Expenditure Survey. Frederick Eggers and Fouad Moumen, Investigating Very High Rent Burdens Among Renters in the American Housing Survey (Washington, DC: US Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2010).
The problem of unaffordable housing is not America’s alone. Over the last several decades, millions of people around the world have migrated from rural villages and towns. In 1960, roughly one-third of the planet lived in urban areas; today, more than half does. Cities have experienced real income gains that have brought about global poverty reductions. But therein lies the rub, for the growth of cities also has been accompanied by an astonishing surge in land values and housing costs. Urban housing costs have risen around the globe, especially in “superstar cities” whose real-estate markets have experienced an influx of global capital, driving