Rethinking Housing Policy

Our failure to build sufficient housing in places people want to live due to expanding regulatory burdens, overly restrictive zoning and local veto points (‘NIMBY’) is driving up the cost of living, preventing people from living where they can be most productive and holding our economy back. Making our most productive cities bigger and more affordable would supercharge our economy and prospects for workers. Federal efforts to address this collective action problem have been neglected due to lack of perceived opportunity, but there are more affordances available than people realize, from building codes to conditional subsidies to the rules for mortgage influence and more.

Please note that this topic introduction is preliminary, and more details as well as policy proposals, academic studies, data, model legislation, and other resources on this issue are forthcoming. We share this overview now to provide initial context and give readers a sense of our current perspective and approach to the issue.