The difficulty of measuring the U.S.’s housing needs

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How many housing units are needed in the United States? Different sources disagree and they measure the issue in different ways:

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The disparate projections reflect the challenge of quantifying the nation’s housing needs, a puzzle that rests on assumptions about how much a home should cost, how many people it should hold, and how big a footprint it should have…

The U.S. has 146 million homes, Census Bureau data show. Of those, 8.1 million are “doubled up” households, meaning people are sharing space with non-relatives. Zillow’s housing estimate assumes most of those people would prefer having their own place. There also are 3.4 million vacant homes available to rent or buy, the real estate website says. So Zillow economists subtracted the number of available homes from the number of doubled-up households and concluded that the nation needs 4.7 million more homes…

Several analyses zeroed in on two questions: How many homes should be vacant, and how many consumers have delayed striking out on their own because of the cost…

For many economists, that suggests the equation should be: the number of existing households, plus the number of homes that should be vacant, plus the number of households that would naturally come into being if there was enough inventory to lower prices.

This matters for multiple reasons. First, it is helpful to have more accurate estimates. This can help policies intended to help. These are methodological questions; how do we measure what is happening on the ground? Projections that are too high or too low could lead to not addressing the issue or actions that do not have the intended consequences.

Second, the number of units needed matters because it is part of the public discourse about housing. The article describes estimates ranging from 0 units needed to 8-20 million units are needed. When discussing social problems in public discussions, these numbers can influence a sense of urgency. If people hear there are 5 million units needed, are they more likely to act compared to hearing 1 million units are needed?

Third, the numbers are part of a national discussion. Housing needs can vary quite a bit place to place. Housing is often a very local issue. These numbers are about what could be done on a national level which then has affects on local efforts.

These different measurement strategies and results could end up make it harder to reach consensus on what should be done.

I like a city’s map as part of the basketball floor

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NBA teams in recent years have come up with some unique basketball floor designs. Here is what I saw last night when watching the Chicago Bulls play the Milwaukee Bucks in Milwaukee:

The area inside the three-point line and outside the lane is a map of Milwaukee streets. I do not know the city well enough to immediately know what part of Milwaukee displayed. But, I might be be able to figure it out with a little time. A Midwest grid is visible with some slight variations.

What if every NBA team put a map on their floor? Some of the might be more recognizable than others. Perhaps the maps could be bigger; imagine the map being outside the three-point lines and spanning most of the court. Or the map could emphasize a particular neighborhood or city feature.

I generally like seeing maps. I want to figure out what they are showing and consider what we can learn it. This map might be more of a decorative element than anything else but I am in favor to adding more maps to sports settings.

Former suburban college campus to large youth sports facility

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Add another redevelopment option for suburban communities: large parcels of land, like former college campuses – Trinity International in Bannockburn, Illinois in this example, can become youth sports sites:

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Now he has pivoted from that proposal to a larger one on the Trinity campus, which already includes about 60 acres of sports fields and facilities. Donato said he will run indoor youth sports leagues immediately at an existing Trinity athletic center, but will ultimately raze the building and replace it with an indoor sports complex as large as 400,000 square feet. That building would combine with adjacent outdoor athletic fields to create what he envisions as a destination for area youth sports leagues and camps.

The project — which is subject to approval from the Village of Bannockburn — stands to breathe new life into a large suburban property that has been underutilized since Trinity closed in-person undergraduate programs there in 2023. The religious school announced in April that it would vacate the property entirely after the 2025-26 school year, adding it to the list of sprawling suburban properties in need of revitalization following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Donato said his planned indoor complex would include a professional-size soccer field, a gym with eight basketball courts and a portion of the building with “kids-oriented” activities such as bowling, miniature golf, an arcade, a restaurant and other attractions that could host as many as 5,000 kids on a given weekend. A portion of the existing grass field area would be converted into artificial turf fields.

As the college was shutting down there was one other redevelopment option that fell through:

Trinity had been working on a deal in 2024 to sell its campus to Dallas-based developer Hillwood, which publicly shared plans at the time to turn the site into a biotechnology and pharmaceutical research and technology park. A unit of Takeda Pharmaceuticals operates out of a building next to the campus along Lakeside Drive.

The option in the last paragraph is one that many suburbs would like: research and technology jobs in suburban offices. These are good jobs with high status companies.

Youth sports facilities are something else. They are part of a growing industry. (College and universities may be going the other way.) Suburban families and kids can have a lot of interest in sports. Such a facility can provide options for year-round activity.

And perhaps key to this: the youth sports facilities can generate revenue. Tax monies. Companies will be interested. Training kids in sports and providing sports entertainment can involve a lot of money.

A change in property status could bring out objections from neighbors. People get used to being near a college, now that property could become something else. But suburbanites like the idea that their kids are going to get ahead, suburban communities do not like vacant properties, and Americans like sports. And there is money to be made…

One version of Pizza Hut as “classic” and “a civic institution”

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Pizza Hut has made sure an unknown number of locations look and feel like older Pizza Huts – and some people really like this:

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Over the last several years, Pizza Hut corporate leadership has slowly restored a handful of its restaurants in the style of the company’s analog-era golden age. Collectively, these locations are branded as “Pizza Hut Classic.” The Tunkhannock restaurant is one of them, making it an accessory to an advertising campaign. Nobody seems to know how many Pizza Hut Classics exist, how long this strategy has been employed, or if the company plans on adding more in the future. (Pizza Hut didn’t respond to my request for comment, nor have they spoken to anyone else who has covered the initiative.) But Bender provided some insight. He mentioned that his franchise has always been a sit-down affair, retaining its diner bones throughout innumerable rebrands and pivots. About 10 years ago, his bosses fully converted the restaurant into an official, bona fide Classic. The corporate office shipped over a bevy of 1990s accoutrements, including cups, lamps, and a plaque emblazoned with a quote from Dan Carney, Pizza Hut’s co-founder, that was to be pinned up in the beige foyer.

“This Pizza Hut Classic celebrates our heritage,” the inscription reads. “It reminds us of the Pizza Hut where generations first fell in love with pizza. We’re so happy to have you here; we hope you fall in love all over again.”

The national Pizza Hut apparatus has refused to tabulate an official directory of Pizza Hut Classics. There is not a shred of information about these vintage establishments on the company website. Instead, the locations are uncovered by dedicated Pizza Hut wayfarers and fetishists as a kind of scavenger hunt. The Classics all appear to be located in small towns—Tunkhannock has a population of only 1,727—with the lion’s share situated in the boondocks of Texas, the state where the restaurant is headquartered. Rolando Pujol, a New York–based journalist who takes a special interest in throwback American kitsch, has curated the only definitive list of Pizza Hut Classics on his Substack, The Retrologist. It is, by leagues, the highest-traffic piece of writing he’s ever published on the internet.

What exactly about these locations drives interest?

I pondered the thousands—millions?—of couples just like them, whose love story began in a Pizza Hut, because Pizza Hut used to be a place where you could go on a first date. I am not claiming that the restaurant is a civic institution. But once upon a time, Pizza Hut was filled with other people, and being around other people does the soul good.

Nostalgia seems to be a powerful consumer force in today’s world. What people remember as a kid or decades ago can drive behavior today. Or perhaps what looks like a simpler past is attractive compared to the unpredictability and change of today.

But this second piece is also interesting. Restaurants can be places to be around others and have positive social interactions. Everyone has to eat and eating together can bring people together. Having regular social interactions in a restaurant or continuing relationships that exist outside the restaurant can be rewarding.

Two things still strike me: this is all happening within locations of an international brand with thousands of locations and it is might be happening more in smaller communities where these classic locations are. On the first, Pizza Hut is out to make money. It is part of a private company. The classic experience sells. It might be a gathering place or a local institution but it is a commodified global product. Americans may need third places but they are likely to find them at places like Pizza Hut or McDonald’s.

On the second, are small towns or smaller communities more prone to look fondly on the past? Or do they have fewer dining options? On the flip side, are cities less excited about nostalgia, partly because there are always more new options? The classic model may work in some places but it is a product that may not work on the broad scale. Pizza Hut is an institution in certain places and not others and there is money to be made with both options.

Ongoing housing affordability issues in the Chicago region in 2026

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Finding affordable housing is not predicted to get easier this year in the Chicago region:

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While experts said Chicago might see small, incremental improvements in the housing market this year, many said affordability and a lack of homes will define 2026.

“In Illinois, the issue is very acute in the sense that our housing economy hasn’t recovered in the same manner that other states have,” Illinois Realtors CEO Jeff Baker said. “Housing stability, housing affordability, the trickle down affects every other element of our state from economic development to school funding, public safety. It touches everything.”…

Baird & Warner predicts homeowners will see their home values rise this year. It also predicts home listings will continue to be snapped up quickly, with the average number of days on market virtually unchanged. Homes in the Chicago metro area are on the market for an average of 29 days until they’re sold, according to Illinois Realtors…

Pekarsky said Chicago’s housing inventory crunch is even more dire for first-time homebuyers, who often can’t compete with all-cash offers and buyers who have built up equity.

Another possible way to frame this story: a long-standing affordable housing shortage continues in 2026. Sure, COVID may have interrupted plans but it is not like the region had a surplus of affordable housing before that.

The topic of affordable housing does come up in local discussions but then affordable housing is difficult to approve and construct and then can be limited in scale or intended for particular people.

Imagine a different headline: plans and building underway in 2027 to add affordable housing or more housing? What would have to happen in 2026 for that to happen?

Wait, the Midwest is growing?

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Recent population data suggests population growth is happening across the Midwest:

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Only one region of the country, the Midwest, saw every one of its states gain population between July 2024 and July 2025. The Midwest population has grown steadily each year since 2023, including slight gains in what the Census Bureau calls “natural change” ‒ births minus deaths.

Marc Perry, a senior demographer for the Census Bureau, said for the first time in the 2020s, the Midwest saw net positive domestic migration ‒ more people moving to the region from elsewhere within the United States, a “notable turnaround” from population losses in 2021-2022.

A region that has had population loss in a number of cities. A region with lots of lost industrial activity and jobs. A region used to decline so why not experiment?

The population gains are modest: the population increase was several hundred thousand across the entire region. But what if that continued for a few more years? What if other populous states lose people and the Midwest slowly gains?

Of course, it would be interesting to know why the Midwest has grown in the last few years. Business activity? Cheaper housing compared to other locations? A particular lifestyle? It’s not the warmth and sunshine.

Would you put a “Museum for the Middle Class” in Schaumburg, Illinois?

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A 2004 Onion article imagined a “Museum for the Middle Class” in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg:

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“The splendid and intriguing middle class may be gone, but it will never be forgotten,” said Harold Greeley, curator of the exhibit titled “Where The Streets Had Trees’ Names.” “From their weekend barbecues at homes with backyards to their outdated belief in social mobility, the middle class will forever be remembered as an important part of American history.”

Museum guests expressed delight over the traditions and peculiarities of the middle class, a group once so prevalent that entire TV networks were programmed to satisfy its hunger for sitcoms…

During the modern industrial age, the middle class grew steadily, reaching its heyday in the 1950s, when its numbers soared into the tens of millions. According to a study commissioned by the U.S. Census Bureau, middle-class people inhabited great swaths of North America, with settlements in the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest, and even the nation’s urban centers…

One of the 15 permanent exhibits, titled “Working For ’The Weekend,’” examines the routines of middle-class wage-earners, who labored for roughly eight hours a day, five days a week. In return, they were afforded leisure time on Saturdays and Sundays. According to many anthropologists, these “weekends” were often spent taking “day trips,”eating at chain family restaurants, or watching “baseball” with the nuclear family.

If there were such a museum, would it make sense to have it in Schaumburg? Here are a few pros and cons for doing so:

Pros: Schaumburg is a postwar suburban community incorporated in 1956. It is home to nearly 80,000 residents today. It has a large shopping mall within village limits and it has plenty of office space. (More on this in the Cons section.) It has access to multiple major highways and a train station on a line to Chicago, facilitating travel throughout the region. Locating a museum about middle-class life in a successful suburb makes sense given that suburban life is often associated with middle-class life.

Cons: Schaumburg is a particular kind of suburb, an edge city, with lots of retail and office space next to major highways. It is less of a bedroom suburb full of quiet single-family home neighborhoods and more of a suburban commercial center. It is less about a bucolic suburban lifestyle and more about easily-accessible stores and entertainment options. If a middle-class American life was about providing opportunities for their kids and having a single-family home, plenty of other suburbs could showcase this.

Perhaps the 2004 Onion was correct: the American middle-class of the turn of the twenty-first century might become a relic. If it does, where it is commemtorated will be interesting to see.

When a vehicle is “an urban/suburban crossover”

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I recently read a review of the 2026 Nissan Kicks and one paragraph toward the end mentioned suburbs:

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It’s also stable and decently quiet at highway speeds. The engine has to work to pass, but it doesn’t require as much planning. At the end of the day, the Kicks is more of an urban/suburban crossover rather than a long-distance mile-eater, but it’s pretty competent at 60+ mph.

The comparison seems to be between a vehicle well suited for city and suburban contexts versus one that is meant for long-distance highway travel. But perhaps this line from earlier in the review describing the origins of the Kicks model helps explain:

In fact, it did exactly what Nissan intended it to do: offer an inexpensive, fuel-efficient, city-friendly crossover with a smidge of edgy style to lure younger buyers and first-time owners.

So some vehicles are city and suburban friendly? If a vehicle was described as “city-friendly,” I would tend to think of a smaller vehicle. It could fit into smaller parking spaces. It would be easier to navigate along smaller or crowded roadways. It might have particular styling that is cool.

I do not know what adding “suburban” to this description means. Is there a particular kind of vehicle in the suburbs? There is a lot of driving and parking in suburbs. Is this about space and how much driving is done? Or is this about styling? There might be “family” vehicles or predictable/bland/conformist styles (critiques often leveled on suburban aesthetics).

I will be on the lookout to see how the new Kicks fits in with the suburban vehicles, particularly all the other SUVs, already on the road.

A majority of new housing constructed in a community association

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HOAs or community associations are common features of new housing in the United States:

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“Nearly 60% of homes built today are in some sort of community association,” said Jake Gold, executive director of the Foundation for Community Association Research, based in Falls Church, Virginia. “There were (about) 10,000 community associations nationwide in 1970. We estimate now there’s about 370,000.”

A majority could mean:

  1. This is what developers prefer.
  2. This is what communities prefer for new housing buildings or developments.
  3. This is what residents prefer.

I am not sure all these assumptions can be accepted together. Of course, it does not just happen that HOAs and community associations happen so regularly today. But the motivations of the three groups above could be very different. Do these associations give residents peace of mind (and developers like this because it helps sell units)? Do communities like this because some of the cost of the new development is carried by the association?

Given that there are some strong reactions against community associations, it would be interesting to have more data on what kinds of new developments have community associations.

Trying to untangle the factors behind a drop in violent crime across American cities

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What explains a decrease in violent crime in big American cities in the last few years? Some possibilities:

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Few experts endorse the idea that the police “had nothing to do with it,” as the Seattle protester claimed, but the link between the number of cops and the number of crimes seems hazier than ever. The low point in violent crime has arrived even though large police departments employed 6 percent fewer officers going into 2025 than they did at the beginning of 2020, according to a survey by the Police Executive Research Forum. Though they were mostly not in fact defunded, police forces were rocked by retirements and departures. New Orleans lost nearly a quarter of its officers in the years after the pandemic—and then recorded its lowest homicide rate since the 1970s in 2025. Philadelphia had its lowest per-capita police staffing since 1985—and just clocked its lowest murder rate since 1966.

There are many plausible explanations for the recent crime downturn: sharper policing strategy, more police overtime, low unemployment, the lure of digital life, the post-pandemic return to normalcy. Each of these surely played a role. But only one theory can match the decline in its scope and scale: that the massive, post-pandemic investment in local governments deployed during the Biden administration, particularly through the American Rescue Plan Act, delivered a huge boost to the infrastructure and services of American communities—including those that suffered most from violent crime. That spending may be responsible for our current pax urbana.

Naturally, every local leader likes to say that their police department is making the difference. But in this case, every happy family is not alike: Police staffing and strategy vary widely from place to place, so an exceptional local police chief can hardly explain gains that are so widespread. “What has changed nationally is a huge investment by the federal government in prevention in response to the COVID epidemic,” John Roman, a criminal-justice researcher who heads NORC’s Center on Public Safety and Justice at the University of Chicago, told me. He credits ARPA with sending billions to local governments to use as they saw fit, and defines prevention in the broadest possible sense. “Investing in education, police, librarians, community centers, social workers, local nonprofits. Local-government employment rolls increased almost perfectly inverse to the crime rate.”…

These hypotheses are about to be put to a test. Police staffing is recovering in many cities, and police funding remains as much a political priority as ever, but the last of the ARPA grants will be spent this year, forcing cities to make choices about which programs to fund and which to eliminate. Many “alternative” public-safety grants have already been cut by the Trump administration, leaving recipients such as schools and community organizations in the lurch. It’s as if the national gravity pulling down crime rates will suddenly evaporate, Roman, at the University of Chicago, suggested, revealing the weight of local choices. Baltimore is working on a post-ARPA plan to make sure its public-health approach to policing can be supported by the city’s general fund, but not every investment of the Biden years can be sustained.

Whether the trend continues – violent crime decreases – or reverses – violence crime numbers go up, I imagine this will lead to a good amount of academic research. As noted above, there could be a lot of factors at play. What methods can help address the multiple forces at work? What data can get at all the factors at play?

Additionally, this is a political matter. At the local and national level, residents, the media, and politicians pay attention to these figures. Numerous actors would be interested in figuring out what exactly happened. Some will want to take credit, others will argue for changes.

And if it does turn out evidence shows large-scale public funding helped reduce violent crime, how much would that influence funding? This could be contingent on elections and who is in office but it could also depend on other budget priorities.