Guest Editor's Introduction

Vicki Been, New York University School of Law; Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy
Ingrid Gould Ellen, New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service; Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or the U.S. government at large.

Americans have long been in love with homeownership. Even Alexis de Tocqueville endorsed this preoccupation, arguing that homeowners would be more responsible citizens and predicted that nations with more homeowners would be more politically stable and have fewer revolutions. More recently, others have argued that homeownership makes people take better care of both their homes and their children and helps households to build wealth. The corollary of this fixation on homeownership is that researchers have paid far less attention to rental housing, and federal policymakers outside the halls of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development largely ignore it. The unifying theme of the articles in this issue of Cityscape is that rental housing deserves more attention.