Comment on Dowell Myers and Elizabeth Gearin's “current preferences and future demand for denser residential environments”

Abstract The market for housing is changing and becoming more diversified. Myers and Gearin do a commendable job of combining existing housing preference data with demographic projections to delineate a sizable and growing minority of consumers who will be searching for more compact, walkable communities. How should the public and private sectors respond to increased demand for denser neighborhoods? First, regulatory barriers to the creation of mixed‐use, compact housing should be eliminated. At the same time, communities should take steps to guard against potential negative impacts. Because the land use patterns of many inner‐city neighborhoods are most conducive to walkability, communities should implement policies to prevent displacement of existing residents. Although there are uncertainties and a lack of data in estimating potential growth, this article could have benefited from more analysis of factors such as booming transit usage, the growing popularity of transit‐oriented development, and the increasing popularity of walking.