A strong economy, falling interest rates and new mortgage lending policies have made home ownership attainable to an ever- growing proportion of the population. Fueling the housing demand is a new practice of low down-payment mortgage lending. Partly as a result, immigrants, minorities and low-income families are buying homes like never before. They represented 42 percent of the four million people who bought a home for the first time from 1994 to 1997, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. The booming market for affordable housing has fueled development on the outer edges of metropolitan areas where land is still comparatively cheap and mass production of dwellings in large scale subdivisions helps to keep construction costs down.
Sprawl is largely a creature of our housing policies.
Just as government mortgage policy under the GI Bill of Rights encouraged the first wave of suburban migration in the 1950s, our liberal mortgage policies to promote home ownership equity contribute importantly to the current wave of suburban expansion. The Waning Influence of Transit on Urban Development Even if the political will to constrain growth were present, cities may find themselves lacking the practical means of making compact development work. Higher development densities would permit reduced automobile travel and greater use of public transit-an approach favored by many urban planners. But this would require huge public investment in additional transit facilities and services. Besides, expanding mass transit is not likely to remedy the problem.