As the new decade kicks off, there are finally some signs that America’s housing crisis might be starting to abate. Recently, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published an update to its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule. It will ease the onerous restrictions on localities seeking federal funding, instead encouraging municipalities to allow more housing to be built, increasing affordability. Furthermore, more states are now following California’s lead in making it easier to increase housing options by preventing localities from adopting restrictive zoning rules that often make building additional housing next to impossible.
These developments will not only ease the financial pressure on Americans already living in high-cost urban areas but also help put the American Dream within reach for the millions of families living in economically depressed areas across the country. These changes make it easier to access opportunities that astronomically high housing costs currently render out of reach. Restrictive zoning laws, regulations requiring minimum lot sizes, lengthy environmental review requirements and other land-use restrictions have served to artificially inflate the costs of housing for years, particularly in the nation’s prospering cities. They do so by severely restricting the amount of new housing that can be built as populations increase. This has made accessing opportunity even tougher and is a major part of why so many Americans seem to be stuck in place.
The nation as a whole has largely recovered from the financial crisis. But the recovery has been deeply geographically uneven, with urban areas experiencing high levels of population growth and new business formation while rural areas remain much more economically stagnant. Research from the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) notes that “highly populous counties—those with more than 500,000 residents—were far more likely to add businesses above and beyond 2007 levels than their smaller peers.”
Continue reading at The Hill.
Ben Wilterdink is the former Director of Programs at the Archbridge Institute. Follow him @bgwilterdink.
Economics of Flourishing
As the new decade kicks off, there are finally some signs that America’s housing crisis might be starting to abate. Recently, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published an update to its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule. It will ease the onerous restrictions on localities seeking federal funding, instead encouraging municipalities to allow more housing to be built, increasing affordability. Furthermore, more states are now following California’s lead in making it easier to increase housing options by preventing localities from adopting restrictive zoning rules that often make building additional housing next to impossible.
These developments will not only ease the financial pressure on Americans already living in high-cost urban areas but also help put the American Dream within reach for the millions of families living in economically depressed areas across the country. These changes make it easier to access opportunities that astronomically high housing costs currently render out of reach. Restrictive zoning laws, regulations requiring minimum lot sizes, lengthy environmental review requirements and other land-use restrictions have served to artificially inflate the costs of housing for years, particularly in the nation’s prospering cities. They do so by severely restricting the amount of new housing that can be built as populations increase. This has made accessing opportunity even tougher and is a major part of why so many Americans seem to be stuck in place.
The nation as a whole has largely recovered from the financial crisis. But the recovery has been deeply geographically uneven, with urban areas experiencing high levels of population growth and new business formation while rural areas remain much more economically stagnant. Research from the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) notes that “highly populous counties—those with more than 500,000 residents—were far more likely to add businesses above and beyond 2007 levels than their smaller peers.”
Continue reading at The Hill.
Ben Wilterdink
Ben Wilterdink is the former Director of Programs at the Archbridge Institute. Follow him @bgwilterdink.
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