About us

Our mission

We help Allston-Brighton grow in ways that make homes more affordable, streets more beautiful and opportunity easier to reach, for the people who live here now and those who will come next.

Most of the decisions that shape daily life in our neighborhood are made in zoning hearings, planning documents and agency guidelines. What gets built, how much it costs, what it looks like and who can afford to live in it are all decided there. Those decisions deserve better evidence than they usually get.

We study those questions with the tools of economics, data analysis and the science of how people experience places. We publish what we find in plain language, along with practical proposals, from model legislation to design rules, that neighbors, officials and builders can use.

What we believe

Practical optimism, fair rules and solutions that actually get built

01

Neighborhoods can keep getting better

Allston has been remade many times, and each generation inherited something good and improved it. We think ours can too. Progress comes from building on what works, not from starting over or standing still.

02

Everyone deserves a fair shot at a home here

Housing is the largest bill most households pay. When homes are scarce, our neighbors pay for it in higher rent, in crowded apartments or by having to leave. More homes, in the right places, is how that changes.

03

Good ideas have to pencil out

A plan helps only if homes actually get built. We look for policies that work financially, so builders can deliver homes without endless subsidies or special deals, and taxpayer dollars go further where they’re truly needed.

04

Clear rules beat case-by-case deals

When the rules are written down in advance and apply to everyone, small owners and local builders can compete with big institutions, neighbors know what to expect, and projects aren’t won by whoever has the most lawyers.

05

Everyday buildings can be beautiful

Allston’s early twentieth-century apartments prove that middle-class housing can have dignity and charm. Beauty shouldn’t be a luxury, and our research shows it doesn’t have to cost a fortune.

06

Show the evidence

We rely on data and peer-reviewed research, state our assumptions, cite our sources and publish our caveats. When better evidence comes along, we update our conclusions and say so.

How we work

Economics, data and the psychology of place

Our housing research uses standard tools of urban economics: supply and demand, the responsiveness of housing supply to prices, and comparisons with cities that build more freely. Our design research draws on how people actually perceive buildings, including our preference for symmetry, order and visible craftsmanship.

Every publication includes its sources and its sensitivity ranges. We treat our numbers as planning estimates, not certainties, and we say plainly what they can and cannot show.

Areas of work

Founders

The people behind the Foundation

Nick Pellow

Co-founder

Nick practices law at a Boston law firm. Pro bono, he represents children and parents on appeal in Massachusetts family court.

Nick holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an M.A. in public policy from the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, where he was a senior editor of the Chicago Policy Review, and a B.A. in philosophy, summa cum laude, with a minor in economics, from Wake Forest University. Earlier, he worked on research about poverty and opportunity at the American Enterprise Institute.

Daniela Gómez Treviño

Co-founder

Dany is a Senior Research and Policy Manager at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), the research center at MIT that uses randomized evaluations to find out which anti-poverty programs work. She has been at J-PAL since 2019, rising from Senior Research Associate to Research Manager to her current role, where she connects rigorous evidence with the people who make policy.

Dany holds a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago and a licenciatura in political science and international relations from the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico City.

The Foundation’s work reflects the views of its authors, not those of their employers.

Get in touch

Questions, data, or a project in Allston-Brighton?

We welcome questions from neighbors, reporters, officials and builders, and we’re glad to hear where you think our work is wrong.

Email the Foundation

[email protected]

Homes our neighbors can afford, on streets worth loving