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Notable Excerpts:
"The most extreme version of “trust the market” housing policy is the common refrain — popularly associated with the “Yes in My Backyard” (or YIMBY) cause — that zoning rules are a primary, if not the primary, cause of the present housing crisis. YIMBYs call for the reform or abolition of zoning rules that prevent construction of duplexes, triplexes, and other multi-family housing, along with rules on minimum lot sizes and parking requirements. This cause is commonly captured in the slogan “legalize housing.” The idea is to get out of the market’s way and let the drive for profit solve the problem.
Profit considerations, however, mean that more liberal zoning rules are at most necessary, but not sufficient, to increase the supply of housing. Just because private developers can build housing does not mean they will. Liberalization of zoning regulations appears to increase the supply of housing, but the effect is rather modest. Summarizing the findings of a co-authored paper, Yonah Freemark of the Urban Institute — a leading researcher on land-use reforms — told an interviewer, “[W]e found the average upzoning would result in a 0.8% increase in housing supply in the short- to medium-term after the change, three to nine years after the upzoning.” That is not nothing, but hardly lends strong support to the cause of zoning reform."
"The country’s housing crisis will not be solved through simple deregulation of zoning laws and building codes — it requires ambitious public action. Federal, state, and local governments must pursue stronger public governance of housing markets, undertake systematic planning, and build homes themselves."
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