affordablehousing
If there's one thing the last 50 years of American politics have proven, it's that voters hate inflation. If there's another, it's that politicians seeking to capitalize on that hatred will propose unproductive, unworkable, and unaffordable policies to counter rising prices. So it is with Vice President Kamala Harris. In the weeks since she ascended to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, Harris has come forward with a suite of policies she has cast as tools for bringing down the cost of living for middle-class Americans. Among those policies are a vague but potentially sweeping fede...
Reason
The San Francisco city council is smashing the mirror because it doesn't like the face staring back at it. The council just approved a ban on websites that offer data about local rental markets and help landlords set their rents. The council blames these tools for exploding housing costs. It's a classic case of killing the messenger that will do nothing to fix a problem of the city council's own creation—and it violates the First Amendment. Landlords often use websites like RealPage and Yardi that suggest rent prices based on local market data. Recently, activists have started blaming such web...
Reason
Tim Walz is riding high on some stolen valor. By that, I don't mean to refer to the false or otherwise deliberately misleading statements the Democratic vice presidential candidate made about his war record (or lack thereof) over the years. Rather, I'm referring to the unearned enthusiasm he's receiving from housing activists, lawmakers, and the media who somehow have concluded that Walz is a sterling champion of YIMBY (yes in my backyard) zoning reforms. Business Insider called him a "YIMBY" in a recent headline. California Sen. Scott Wiener (D–San Francisco), a prolific author of state-level...
Reason
Happy Tuesday and welcome to another family-friendly edition of Rent Free. This week's lead story takes a look at whether a YIMBY policy agenda of reducing regulation on new housing construction will help or hurt people's willingness to start families. Housing Boom = Baby Bust? America's low birth rate is in the news again, thanks largely to Vice Presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance's (R–Ohio) resurfaced comments criticizing America's anti-family "childless cat lady" ruling class, as well as his various policy proposals—from higher taxes on the childless to more votes for parents—to get Amer...
Reason
Regulations are driving the cost of housing through the solar-ready roof. Parody of Florida Georgia Line's "Dirt" written by Remy; performed by Remy; mastering by Ben Karlstrom. LYRICS: You need the lot biggerNeed this log thickerYou need to pay a really pricey, licensed pipe fitter You can't put floors on itOr put more doors on itYou need a sweaty dude to inspect on all fours on itI've got buyer's remorse on it… It's that permit approval the county is stuck onThat each minute passing you're spending a buck onThe constant code changes they're running amok onThe traffic studies you're stuck onI...
Reason
Happy Tuesday and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week's stories include: Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is rushing to moderate her former progressive position—except on rent control.California Gov. Gavin Newsom has issued an executive order intended to speed up the development of infill housing. Will it do any good?A study looks at the tendency to just keep adding more regulation.But first, our lead story about a development moratorium in Minnesota motivated by standard NIMBYism, and potentially something much darker. A Town Revolt...
Reason
Happy Tuesday and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. Since I'm on vacation this week, I'm afraid readers will have to suffice with a slightly more abbreviated—but hopefully still valuable—newsletter looking at why it's so hard to build a new city in California. California Forever—Delayed or Doing Fine? This past Monday, California Forever announced it would not ask Solano County voters to approve zoning changes it needs to proceed with its planned 17,500-acre, 400,000-person community this year, as it had initially planned. Instead, the development company would work with the county gove...
Reason
Happy Tuesday and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. For the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to refocus the newsletter away from presidential politics and back on the state and local stuff that really matters. And for the past couple of weeks, they keep dragging me back in like Michael Corleone. Our stories this week will have some local-level developments, including: Gainesville, Florida, famous for eliminating and then reimposing single-family-only zoning, has passed minimum lot size reform.Berkeley, California, the birthplace of single-family zoning, is considering allowing low...
Reason
Former President Donald Trump has had one of his periodic changes of heart. In a recently published interview with Bloomberg, he called zoning regulations he'd spent most of 2020 campaigning in favor of "a killer" that's pushing up housing costs. "So 50% of the housing costs today and in certain areas like, you know, a lot of these crazy places is environmental, is bookkeeping, is all of those restrictions," Trump said in an interview conducted in June and published yesterday. "Your permitting process. Your zoning, if—and I went through years of zoning. Zoning is like…it's a killer. But we'll ...
Reason
Happy Tuesday and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. Last week, this newsletter offered a mostly negative assessment of both major presidential candidates' first-term housing records and likely plans for their second. In the past couple of days, things have managed to go from bad to worse on both sides of the aisle. On Monday, former President Donald Trump selected Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) to be his running mate. Vance is an outspoken protectionist, nationalist, and anti-corporate hawk who's bound to shift any future Trump administration in an anti-trade, anti-immigration, and anti-marke...
Reason
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