After decades of disinvestment, American cities are rebounding, but new development is often driving housing costs higher and displacing lower-income residents. For cities struggling to maintain economic integration, inclusionary housing is one of the most promising strategies available to ensure that the benefits of development are shared widely. More than 500 communities have developed inclusionary housing policies, which require developers of new market-rate real estate to provide affordable units as well. Economically diverse communities not only benefit low-income households; they enhance the lives of neighbors in market-rate housing as well. To realize the full benefit of this approach, however, policies must be designed with care.

Empirical research on the scale, scope, and structure of inclusionary programs and their impacts is limited. The valuable research that does exist is often inaccessible or lost in dense academic journals or consultant reports. This report captures and digests the lessons from these sources and makes them readily available to local policy makers. It also draws heavily on an empirical project conducted in 2014 by the National Housing Conference’s Center for Housing Policy (CHP) and the National Community Land Trust Network, which resulted in the Lincoln Institute working paper “Achieving Lasting Affordability through Inclusionary Housing” (Hickey, Sturtevant, and Thaden 2014).