Housing In The Eighties

Housing provides shelter, in a variety of forms, but it is also resonant with meaning on many other levels--as a financial asset, a status symbol, an expression of private aspirations and identities, a means of inclusion or exclusion, and finally as a battleground for social change. John Adams' impressive new study explores this complex topic in all its dimensions. Using census data and other housing surveys, Adams describes the recent history of housing in America; the nature of housing supply and demand; patterns of housing use; and selected housing policy questions. Adams supplements this national and regional analysis with a remarkable set of small-area analyses, revealing how neighborhood settings affect housing use and how market forces and other trends interact to shape a neighborhood. These analyses focus on a sample of over fifty urbanized areas, including the nation's three largest cities (New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago). Special two-color maps illustrate the dynamics of housing use in each of these communities. Clearly and insightfully, this volume paints a unique picture of the American "housing landscape," a landscape that reflects and regulates significant aspects of our national life. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Census Series

This in-depth study of 2,801 U.S. households is the first comprehensive examination of contemporary American housing preferences.

Analyzes the principal factors that influenced housing markets in 1970s and assesses their likely effects on housing supply and demand to the year 2000.

Will the major changes in domestic economic policies enacted during the Reagan administration change the fact that Americans have always been among the best housed populations in the world? The authors address two key issues: 1) Will all Americans living in urban areas be as well housed at the end of the 1980s as they were at the beginning of the period? 2) Will they be as well housed under Reagan policies as they might have been under those enacted by a second Carter administration? Nineteen tables illustrate and support the authors' findings.