As noted in last week’s policy brief, a pandemic is less likely to “change everything” than it is to accelerate and magnify existing trends. The Census Bureau’s recent release of 2019 American Community Survey data along with other housing data can help us predict what trends the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to accelerate.
Click image to download a five-page PDF of this brief.
One unfortunate trend is the increasing cost of housing, which is a result of government regulation. However, this is one trend that the pandemic might reverse, as that increase is mainly taking place in particularly dense urban areas such as Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, and people’s responses to the pandemic are likely to reduce densities as they escape from such dense areas and move to places with less land-use regulation. Continue reading
