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Liberalizing Cities
From The Ground Up
Kamala Harris has pledged to build 3 million new housing units. Setting aside the methods, what does that mean? And, would it "end America's housing shortage"?
Some weeks ago, I was participating in a Zoom discussion on NIMBYism, and someone asked: are Republicans and conservatives more pro-housing than Democrats and liberals, or less so? After examining some poll data, I discovered that the answer depends on how the question is asked. A 2023 Yougov poll asked respondents to choose between two alternative views: “People should be free to buy land and develop real estate where they please” and “The government should limit where people are allowed to build things.” 64 percent of Republicans favored the free-market option, as opposed to only 47 percent of Democrats. Similarly, a 2023 California poll asked Californians whether state government should “ease current land use and environmental restrictions to increase the supply of housing.” 64 percent of Republicans favored less regulation, as opposed to only 48 percent of Democrats. Similarly, 62 percent of conservatives and only 49 percent of liberals favored less regulation. Thus, it seems that where development issues are framed as a choice between government regulation and freedom, Democrats are more pro-regulation and Republicans more pro-freedom. Where questions about regulation exclude the magic word “government”, partisan differences become a bit narrower. A July 2022 Yougov poll asked about removing “Regulations and codes that prevent developers from constructing more housing”. Republicans favored the free-market answer by a 43-40% margin, while Democrats disagreed by a 45-38% margin. Polls that don’t directly reference regulation sometimes show that Democrats are more pro-housing. For example, a June 2022 Yougov poll asked respondents whether more apartments should be built: 83 percent of Democrats said yes, as opposed to 68 percent of Republicans. When asked whether more apartments should be built in respondents’ “local area”, the Democratic percentage dropped to 74 percent, and the Republican percentage to 50 percent. When a poll asks generally about “density” […]
Earlier today I was reading this article about “cupcake moms” at the local PTA mobilizing online against TOD in Huntington Station, a hamlet in Long Island, and while it looked like your average suburban NIMBY story, this part of the Long Island Press story jumped out at me: [Supervisor] Petrone had reportedly wanted this revitalization project for the former urban renewal area as his legacy to the town, but he won’t get it now. Instead he was reportedly blindsided by Cuthbertson’s switch last Thursday. Sources told the Press that Cuthbertson withdrew his support because Huntington Democratic Party insiders wanted to take the housing issue off the table so Republicans couldn’t use it against the Democratic incumbents in the elections next year. Councilwoman Susan Berland, who had straddled the fence for months, finally came out against the AvalonBay proposal this summer. She wanted less density. I guess we can count this as a point in favor of Matt Yglesias’ suggestion to isolate local elections from party politics by making the races non-partisan. Another part of the story that I found interesting was all the people hearkening back to their childhoods and their parents’ motivations for moving out of NYC to Long Island and using these as excuses not to let developers build on this site. This is pretty ironic, considering that the development was to be built on a plot of land that was once occupied by housing that was razed in the 1950s in an urban renewal scheme. I’m a few months late to all this, but it was apparently an important battle in the broader war over land use in Long Island – so much so that there was a post mortem held by a Long Island smart growth group that Newsday covered here and here. The articles are, […]
