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Blockers and Pillars come from Up for Growth’s housing framework.

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September 16, 2026 FOOTNOTES | ANALYSIS

Multifamily insurance is becoming a capital problem

If owners cannot pass higher insurance costs through to tenants, the next effects may show up in property values, debt capacity, equity returns, and investment decisions.
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June 23, 2026 WRITING | ESSAY

The $546,000 Door

Chris LaGrand and I explain why Build America, Buy America lands hardest on affordable deals, where capped rents and fixed awards leave added costs nowhere to hide.
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May 28, 2026 FOOTNOTES | NOTE

Wisconsin shows the ROAD Act's affordability case

Three provisions, three different theories of what makes housing expensive: who buys existing homes, how long review takes, and whether local governments can plan past one appropriations cycle.
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May 24, 2026 FOOTNOTES | NOTE

Washington’s scissor stair reform shows how code fixes can unlock more homes

Building codes decide floor plates and capital stacks as surely as zoning decides density. Washington’s single-stair change is a test of how much housing a technical code fix can unlock.
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December 12, 2025 SPEAKING | KEYNOTE

Housing needs a system that can deliver

Remarks on why America's housing shortage is a systems problem, how fragmented governance produces underbuilding, and why a modern housing framework is needed to align local action, state capacity, federal investment, and accountability.
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May 10, 2025 WRITING | ESSAY

We didn't just price out renters. We priced out the ability to build.

How regulation, delay, and rising development costs turned a housing affordability crisis into a breakdown in the basic ability to build — and where that leaves federal policy.
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July 14, 2022 MEDIA | ARTICLE

The Housing Shortage Isn't Just a Coastal Crisis Anymore

The New York Times examined how the housing shortage had spread well beyond high-cost coastal metros, drawing on Up for Growth's analysis to show underproduction as a national constraint.
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October 15, 2021 WRITING | ESSAY

Courage at all levels

I examine why local housing reform needs support from state and federal institutions, especially when capacity, incentives, mandates, and political risk shape implementation.
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July 29, 2021 WRITING | ESSAY

Ending single-family zoning? Not quite.

I separate what zoning reform can do from what it cannot, arguing for more housing options without pretending land-use reform solves every constraint.
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May 17, 2019 WRITING | ESSAY

The Legacy of Redlining Lives on Today Through Exclusionary Zoning

I compare 1930s redlining grades with zoning maps in St. Louis and Portland to show how exclusionary single-family zoning sustains old patterns of segregation.
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May 14, 2019 WRITING | ESSAY

The fifth wave of housing advocacy

I place the emerging supply and access movement in a longer history of American housing policy and ask whether a fifth wave was forming.
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April 25, 2019 WRITING | ESSAY

The Cautionary Tale of Portland’s Inclusionary Housing Policy

Noel Johnson and I examine Portland's permit data after inclusionary housing took effect and argue the policy was reducing housing production at most income levels.
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March 8, 2019 WRITING | ESSAY

It’s not just more supply – addressing existing housing plays an important role in curing America’s broken housing ecosystem

I argue that housing policy has to distinguish shortage from vacancy, quality, preservation, and affordability problems because different markets fail in different ways.
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January 18, 2019 WRITING | ESSAY

A Housing Agenda for Rural America

I use a visit to Mason County, Washington, to show that rural communities face their own housing shortage, and what local, state, and federal policy could do.
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October 23, 2018 WRITING | ESSAY

Why older homes become more unaffordable if new homes cost more to build

I trace how higher development costs can suppress new production and transmit scarcity into the prices of older homes in high-demand markets.
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May 16, 2018 MEDIA | ARTICLE

The American Housing Crisis Might Be Our Next Big Political Issue

Bloomberg CityLab examined the growing effort to make housing affordability and underproduction a national policy issue, including Up for Growth's early work on housing supply.
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April 16, 2018 MEDIA | ARTICLE

Just How Widespread Is the Housing Shortage?

The Wall Street Journal examined how broadly the housing shortage extends across the country, drawing on Up for Growth's early work on underproduction and the consequences of failing to build enough homes.
Open