Future Housing Shortage in Metro Washington? GMU's Center for Regional Analysis Forecasts for the 2030 Group

George Mason University's Center for Regional Analysis has begun producing a series of long-term analyses for the "2030 Group," a group of a few dozen of the region's largest developers and property owners.

A key theme in GMU CRA's first two reports is that the Washington Metropolitan area will face a major housing shortage over the next twenty years, diverting income produced here to spending beyond the metro area with consequent adverse effects on retail and other consumer-based business growth as well as tax revenues. While the two forecasts highlight this relative revenue under performance, they do not note, for example, that the Washington metro has the highest personal income and growth rate for income of the three comparative areas in Technical Report #1, nor do they assess the effects of forecast growth (or implicit accelerated growth) on existing residential areas, transportation, the environment, and other factors that comprise a more holistic view of the Washington metro area.

Terry Maynard
Reston 2020

Here are a couple of key passages about future housing shortages in the area and their implications with links to the full documents.

Page 2, The Future of the Washington Area Economy: Alternative Forecast, Employment, and Housing Implications, Technical Report #2, Stephen S. Fuller, GMU CRA, September 2009.



Page 2, The Washington Metropolitan Area 2030 Economic Outlook: Standard Forecast, Technical Report #1, Stephen S. Fuller and Ellen Harpel, GMU CRA, March 2009.