The Year of the Starter Home
Lawmakers across the country are introducing bills that would make it easier to build smaller single-family homes on small lots.
Zoning
Trump's Proposed Ban on Institutional Investors Owning Single-Family Homes Would Make No One Better Off
While owning a very small percentage of single-family homes, large investors provide renters with more options and increase home construction rates.
Barring Institutional Investors From Buying Homes Won't Make Housing More Affordable - and Would Likely Make Things Worse
There is no evidence that institutional investors increase prices. Barring them from the market could actually exacerbate the housing crisis.
The Contradictions of Supply-Side Socialism
Zohran Mamdani signs executive orders to speed up new construction. His housing policy picks also want to abolish private property.
Yale Journal on Regulation Symposium on the 20th Anniversary of Kelo v. City of New London
I co-edited the symposium along with Eric Claeys and David Schleicher, and am also one of the contributors.
Unlearning History
Three decades after Massachusetts ended its disastrous experiment with rent control, voters are considering giving the policy another shot.
Is Zohran Mamdani Coming Around to Housing Deregulation?
New York's new mayor has moved away from some of his far-left beliefs, acknowledging that private businesses play an important role in homebuilding.
Would Star Trek's Transporter Destroy Cities or Save Them?
What a speculative technology can tell us about the demands for urban density and sprawl
Trump Blames Illegal Immigrants for High Housing Prices. Blame Zoning Instead.
Low-skilled immigrants would expand the supply of housing more than they increase demand, if local governments would just allow new construction.
Bernie Sanders Wants To Pause New Data Centers To Stop the Economy From Growing Too Much
The socialist senator wants a moratorium on new data centers to slow the AI and robotics industries down.
Localism and the Limits of Regulating What We Love
When the perceived emotional harm from new development becomes a justification for state intervention, the law gets really arbitrary really quickly.
Non-Paywalled Version of My Washington Examiner Article on "Foot Voting, Housing, and Affordability"
The Cato Institute has posted one on its website.
What America Can Learn From Japanese Housing
On housing policy, America needs to be less fascist King Kong and more free-market Godzilla.
My New Washington Examiner Article on "Foot Voting, Housing, and Affordability"
We can make housing more affordable and empower people to "vote with their feet" by curbing exclusionary zoning. Left and right should support that instead of counterproductive snake oil like rent control, tariffs, and deportations.
In Connecticut, Zoning Reform Is Back From the Dead
Plus: A challenge to the Trump administration's shift away from "housing first" and reflections on the West's "Great Downzoning"
Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention Panel on Zoning, Property Rights, and the Housing Crisis
I participated along with James Burling (Pacific Legal Foundation), Prof. Peter Byrne (Georgetown), and Prof. Sara Bronin (George Washington University).
Election Day
What races in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia can tell us about the future of housing policy.
Marc Benioff's Ideas for Fixing San Francisco Keep Getting Worse
The billionaire Salesforce CEO said Trump should use the National Guard to clean up San Francisco's streets.
The Zoning Theory of Everything: Abortion Edition
Every political issue ultimately becomes a zoning issue.
YIMBY Reforms Win Big In State Legislatures in 2025
In 2025, momentum behind state-level supply-side housing reforms accelerated almost everywhere.
In California, YIMBYs Pass Holy Grail Zoning Reform
Plus: San Francisco preliminarily passes citywide upzoning, a New Jersey town backs off family farm seizure, and YIMBY martial law ruled illegal in Hawaii.
Steamed NIMBYs Mandated Saunas To Stop New Housing
Several Lone Star cities are attempting to undermine new state-level zoning reforms by requiring new apartment buildings come with ritzy amenities.
New York City Wants $250,000 From SoHo Artists Just To Stay in Their Homes
The city that artists built now wants them to pay up.
The Trump Administration's Fake Housing Emergency
The results of America's overly burdensome housing regulations aren't great. But they're not an "emergency."
Help Workers by Breaking Down Barriers to Labor Mobility
Labor Day is a great time to remember that we can make workers vastly better off by empowering more of them to vote with their feet, both within countries and through international migration.
Capitalism in the Cracks: How Japan's Microspaces Unleash Economic Experimentation
These spaces are so small that most cities would ignore them. Tokyo doesn't.
New Pew Charitable Trusts Repot on "How States and Cities Decimated Americans' Lowest-Cost Housing Option"
They have done so banning or severely restricting low-cost "single-room occupancy" (SRO) housing.
The Man in the Red Beret: What Curtis Sliwa Brings to New York's Wild Mayoral Race
The Guardian Angels founder battles Zohran Mamdani for the anti-establishment vote while he fights Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo for the anti-socialist vote.
America's Housing Shortage Won't Be Fixed With 'One Weird Trick'
Highlighting individual wonky rules that drive up housing costs is good. But getting America building again is going to require more than a few marginal reforms.
Georgia Woman Could Lose $30,000 After Local Government Denies Her Permit To Open Hair Salon
Despite meeting all the requirements, the Board of Commissioners in Clayton County made an arbitrary decision to deny Khalilah Few a conditional use permit to open her salon.
All You Need Is Love (and Deregulation)
Building our way to affordable cities does not require a government-led "post-neoliberal" approach to housing development.
My New Boston Globe Article on Why Massachusetts Should Reject Rent Control, and Instead End Exclusionary Zoning
Rent control would only make the housing crisis worse. Zoning reform would make things better.
Andrew Cuomo Proposes 'Zohran's Law' To Fix the Unfairness of Rent Law Cuomo Signed
Plus: Why Blackstone is good, actually, and a Georgia judge rules for tiny homes.
Minnesota Town Denies Family Permission To Build Affordable Housing Unit on Their Property
The Pepin family is suing the City of Blaine after the City Council used dubious reasoning to deny a permit for additional housing on their property.
One Big Beautiful Housing Supply Bill
Congress considers a consensus housing supply bill while the White House cracks down on the homeless.
Michigan Wineries Win $50 Million in Fight Against Local Zoning Rules
A federal judge ruled that Peninsula Township’s former restrictions on music, events, and grape sourcing violated the rights of local wineries.
Is Housing 'Out of Reach' for More Than Half of Workers?
Plus: Single-stair reform in Nashville, an inclusionary zoning lawsuit in Seattle, and a zoning-created full-service Popeyes in Illinois.
Conservatives Shouldn't Oppose California's Potential Zoning Reforms
You have rights to your property, not to control others.
Seattle Property Owners Challenge Program That Charges 'Affordable Housing' Fees for Building New Homes
A new lawsuit alleges that the city's Mandatory Housing Affordability program unconstitutionally penalizes property owners just for trying to build housing.
Barack Obama Wants Democrats To Be the YIMBY Party. That's Easier Said Than Done.
The housing crisis is bad for national Democrats. At the state level, it's a political winner.
Life as an Academic Defender of the Intuitively Obvious
Academics are supposed to discover nonobvious, counterintituitive truths. But, especially in recent years, much of my work involves defending positions that seem obvious to most laypeople, even though many experts deny them.
The Decentralized Master Planning of Seaside, Florida
The city where The Truman Show was filmed balances communal norms with private preferences.
Pacific Legal Foundation Symposium on the 100th Anniversary of Euclid v. Ambler Realty
The symposium is seeking submissions.
NIMBY Lawsuit Accidentally Abolishes City's Entire Zoning Code
Plus: The Supreme Court declines to hear major eviction moratorium case, Maine passes zoning reform, and why tourist traps are good, actually.
