TY  - JOUR
AU  - Glaeser,Edward L.
AU  - Gyourko,Joseph
TI  - The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8835
PY  - 2002
Y2  - March 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8835
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8835.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Edward L. Glaeser
Department of Economics
315A Littauer Center
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-0575
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: eglaeser@harvard.edu

Joseph Gyourko
University of Pennsylvania
Wharton School of Business
3620 Locust Walk
1480 Steinberg-Dietrich Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6302
Tel: 215/898-3003
Fax: 215/573-2220
E-Mail: gyourko@wharton.upenn.edu
AB  - Does America face an affordable housing crisis and, if so, why? This paper argues that in much of America the price of housing is quite close to the marginal, physical costs of new construction. The price of housing is significantly higher than construction costs only in a limited number of areas, such as California and some eastern cities.  In those areas, we argue that high prices have little to do with conventional models with a free market for land.  Instead, our evidence suggests that zoning and other land use controls, play the dominant role in making housing expensive.
ER  -