It doesn ' t add up : Boston needs more housing units
Despite having the highest percentage of young professionals among any US city , the 2016 Boston Housing Report Card shows we are not delivering enough housing units in metro Boston to meet demand , period . Metro Boston is projected to add 164,000 households between 2010 and 2030 or 8,200 per year . Logic says that over that same period we will need to deliver 8,200 net new housing units per year to meet demand . However , while we may meet that pace in a single year , we are lagging far behind in the aggregate . Unless we witness a radical policy change , the current housing shortage will continue .
Boston is 1st in young professionals as % of population
27.4 %
27.4 %
San Diego
Chicago
28.4 %
Denver
28.4 %
27.2 %
Nashville
San Francisco
29.6 %
Columbus
35 %
Boston
31.8 %
29.8 %
Seattle
Austin
31.4 %
Washington
“ With all due respect to the impressive endeavors put forward to date , the Commonwealth and the Greater Boston region will need to implement largescale innovative approaches to building the housing we need .”
Barry Bluestone , Economist - The 2016 Greater Boston Housing Report Card
Yet Boston is last in institutional housing as % of total
20.1 %
22 %
18.8 %
Los Angeles
Chicago
New York
14.3 %
Boston
25.7 %
San Francisco
25.6 %
Dallas-Ft Worth
25.3 %
Washington
22.7 %
Seattle
22.7 %
Miami
24.5 %
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