Politico reports:

California and San Francisco in particular have become the poster child for unaffordability, with expensive housing fueling waves of homelessness that burden city services and repel people and businesses. State lawmakers have responded, passing laws that streamline permits for affordable housing and banning single-unit zoning, an effort seen as critical to paving the way for more building.

“America is not a museum,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who’s locked in a tough reelection race, said as Democrats gathered on the last day of the DNC. “We build museums for preservation purposes. We protect some places for historical reasons, but cities are valuable because of their people, and in order to serve and protect those people and to make sure they have a safe affordable place to call home, all roads lead to housing.”

Red and blue states alike have pursued similar paths as lawmakers in state capitals have taken zoning power away from localities.

Washington state and Vermont have also effectively banned single-family zoning. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis have made housing reform top priorities. They both found out the hard way how politically combustible the issue is even within their party: Hochul pursued a modest approach to housing this year after facing blowback to a more ambitious proposal that failed in Albany last year, while Polis also had his original measures rejected by fellow Democrats in Denver before reaching compromise this year.

Conservative states like Montana have taken action, too, appealing to an anti-California sentiment in a push to keep the state affordable for locals after a rush of homebuyers hailing from liberal enclaves swooped in to buy cheaper housing during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The “YIMBY” pro-housing movement, or Yes In My Backyard, hasn’t had a natural political home with its center-left and center-right appeals. But with top Democrats from Obama to Harris to Polis to House Financial Services ranking member Maxine Waters devoting substantial time to the issue at the DNC, the push from the national ranks to apply pressure for more and cheaper housing is unmistakable. There could be wide appeal, from younger people disillusioned by the housing market to more conservative-leaning voters who are also feeling squeezed. [Continue reading…]