Mixed-Income Housing: Unanswered Questions

Mixed-income housing represents the current direction of U.S. housing policy, but little is actually known about its social benefits, its costs, and the preconditions for its viability. Until these key questions are answered, advocacy of mixed-income housing will be based largely on faith and on dissatisfaction with the previous thrust of housing policy. This article examines various types of mixed-income housing and develops a simple analytic framework for exploring critical questions about it. The feasibility of mixed-income housing is shaped by local housing market conditions and by the physical and demographic characteristics of individual housing developments. The article also reviews the literature regarding the key questions and frames a research agenda.