Well-designed affordable housing involves more than the provision of safe, decent, and inexpensive shelter; it needs to be central to the resilience of cities. Framing the issue as a matter of “what affordable housing should afford” expands the agenda for housing designers to consider factors that extend beyond the physical boundaries of buildings and engage the social, economic, environmental, and political relationships that connect housing to cities.

The overwhelming emphasis in the United States on financial approaches in expanding access to homeownership could be found, and it suggests that the focus detracts from a serious consideration of the role of design in making housing affordable. The article also suggests that modest designs that facilitate and allow for progressive expansion and improvement over time have an important role in affordable housing.

Department of Agriculture-financed program of affordable housing through mutual self-help and incremental development. I show that in the past two decades the program has moved away from its initial focus on modest designs that were ideal for incremental expansion. Consequently, the initial cost of housing has increased, and the program’s ability to target very low-income households has decreased. I discuss opportunities for design-based strategies in improving housing affordability, but I also caution against some emerging directions in design-based thinking.