State & Local Policy

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.

Remarks at the Council of State Governments East housing event on the emerging federal housing supply agenda, what is moving in Congress, and why state action remains decisive.

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.

Semafor examined the growing bipartisan federal agenda around housing supply, including proposals aimed at reducing barriers to development and rewarding local reform.

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

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

I introduce a series on the broken housing ecosystem by showing how impact fees that rise as growth slows can undercut the development cities need.

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.

I place the emerging supply and access movement in a longer history of American housing policy and ask whether a fifth wave was forming.

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.

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.