Expand access
More households can reach jobs and services without needing a long car commute.
05
Homes near transit
Put more homes where the connections already are
A train station surrounded by housing bans is a public investment surrounded by a private waiting list. Let more people live within reach.
In plain English
Let more people live within an easy walk of frequent transit and major job centers, where access is valuable and car ownership can be optional.
How it works
Remove the barrier. Let homes respond.
Use public investment
Ridership and tax base grow around infrastructure communities already paid for.
Reduce combined costs
Housing and transportation are household budget partners; location affects both.
The implementation test
Real reform or paper promise?
Transit-oriented housing is not just towers at rail stations. It can include apartments, townhomes, and mixed-use streets along reliable bus corridors too.
TestStrongWeak or symbolic
Access
StrongBoundaries reflect a safe walk and actual service quality.
Weak or symbolicA circle ignores highways, hills, or infrequent service.
Capacity
StrongThe strongest transit receives meaningful housing capacity.
Weak or symbolicA shallow overlay adds little beyond existing zoning.
Equity
StrongExisting affordable homes and vulnerable tenants receive protection.
Weak or symbolicCapacity is added without tracking displacement risks.
Pair it with
- Bus lanes and service frequency
- Affordable-housing preservation
- Safe walking and cycling routes
- Reduced transit fares
Measure whether it works
- Homes within walking distance
- Transit ridership
- Combined housing and transportation costs
- Affordable homes preserved and added
In practice
What this reform looks like on the ground.
Raleigh, North CarolinaAugust 8, 2022
Missing Middle 2.0 and Frequent Transit Development
Raleigh combined additional citywide middle-housing changes with a geographically targeted development option around mapped frequent transit.
Lesson
Raleigh transit-overlay explanation ↗ (opens in a new tab)A transit map should be a welcome mat, not a moat. The strongest service should connect more people to more homes.
Why support it?
The evidence behind the solution.
Established evidence
Scarcity turns neighbors into bidders.
When more households want in than there are homes available, the highest bidders win. Everyone else pays more, accepts less, moves farther away, doubles up, or leaves.
Keep in mind: Construction costs, incomes, interest rates, amenities, and migration matter too. Housing supply is not the only force—it is the part local policy can directly obstruct or enable.
Strong evidence
A city cannot build homes it has made illegal.
Legalize real projects across enough land and builders respond. Auckland did this at city scale and saw a large permitting boom; narrower reforms have usually delivered less.
Keep in mind: Permission is necessary but not sufficient. Financing, land, construction costs, approval time, and demand determine whether newly legal homes are actually built.
Strong evidence
Saying no to new homes does not make newcomers disappear.
When newcomers cannot rent new homes, they bid for existing ones. Project-level studies generally find that nearby construction reduces rent and displacement pressure rather than increasing it.
Keep in mind: Displacement is difficult to measure, and new construction cannot undo every pressure. Tenant protections and direct assistance remain important during periods of rapid change.
Figure 2 · Rent event studies
Both comparison strategies turn negative after treatment; the vertical bars show uncertainty.
Figure 3 · Rents before and after the completion year
The completion event study shows little pre-trend and a growing negative rent effect afterward.
