With an unemployment rate of 2.6 percent, a diverse economy anchored by health and education institutions, and a flourishing tech and life sciences sector, Greater Boston appears poised for continued growth, even with the specter of a potential recession on the horizon. But, like many other growing U.S. cities, the demand for housing far outstrips the supply. Much of the expanding workforce is in danger of being priced out of the market, as are many longtime residents.

Using available land is a key strategy for filling the District of Columbia’s need for affordable housing units, Mayor Muriel Bowser said at ULI’s Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C. Bowser recently articulated her vision to construct 36,000 additional housing units in the District by 2025.

No single solution exists among the efforts to deliver attainable and affordable housing in a country where home prices continue to escalate significantly and the dream of homeownership is out of reach of millions of households, an expert panel told attendees at ULI’s 2019 Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C.

The New York City Housing Authority and the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority have been selected by the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing as the joint winners of the 2019 Robert C. Larson Housing Policy Leadership Award, which is an annual recognition of the innovative ways that the public sector is addressing the country’s affordable housing crisis. The winners, selected by a jury of nationally renowned housing industry leaders, were announced today during ULI’s 2019 Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C. Terwilliger Center Founder and former ULI Chairman J. Ronald Terwilliger served as the jury chairman.

Plaza Roberto Maestas in Seattle; the Lindley in Bethesda, Maryland; and the Watson in Quincy, Massachusetts, have been selected as the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing’s 2019 Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award. The annual award recognizes best practices in the development of housing that is affordable to people with a broad range of incomes. Developments eligible for the award are those in which all or a portion of the units are affordable to households earning up to 120 percent of the median income in the areas in which the projects are located.

A light-gauge steel structural system allows an apartment building to rise 12 stories above five parking levels in Atlanta.

ULI Los Angeles, together with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro), engaged the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and the Los Angeles Planning and Land Use Society to study seven half-mile (0.8 km) transit station areas in Los Angeles County in order to determine the positive effects that more development near transit might have on transit ridership, as well as on sustainability, economic development, health, and quality of life in Los Angeles.

Panelists at the recent ULI Housing Opportunity 2019 conference said that while the data paint a bleak picture of America’s housing affordability, the spending priorities of California’s new governor may be a sign of positive policy changes at a more local level.

Recent moves by companies like tech giant Microsoft and health care provider Kaiser Permanente to invest in housing initiatives represent a form of “enlightened self-interest,” said panelists during the recent ULI Housing Opportunity 2019 conference in Newport Beach, California.

According to a forecast by Marcus & Millichap, Minneapolis/St. Paul climbed two spots to head this year’s National Multifamily Index, as sustained apartment demand kept vacancy persistently tight, allowing for steady rent growth. San Diego also inched up two notches on solid rent growth to claim second place.