Driving the news: Rising home prices and the affordable housing shortage were a big topic in the vice presidential debate this week between Tim Walz and JD Vance. They disagreed on what caused the problem (Vance blamed it on immigrants; Walz seemed to pin it on investors buying up single-family homes.) Both appeared to agree that the U.S. needs more housing supply.
Walz touted the Harris housing plan. "The fact of the matter is, is that we don't have enough naturally affordable housing, but we can make sure that the government's there to help kickstart it, create that, create that base." The Harris campaign proposes five different ways to get to 3 million homes, including legislation that would expand or create new tax credits for building affordable rentals or starter homes to buy.
What YIMBYs really like about it is a proposed innovation fund to encourage states and local governments to come up with ways to build more units, by experimenting with changes to zoning laws, for example. "That's been the most exciting," says Armand Domalewski, co-founder of a new group called YIMBYs for Harris.
The big picture: The federal government has little say in the state and local zoning laws that hold back construction. But what it can do is provide a lot of money to encourage local governments to relax rules and permit more building. "The biggest way the federal government can make change locally..."
Collection
[
|
...
]