Research

Texas continues to outpace California on housing reform despite the influence of the 'Abundance' movement on the left, with Texas's 2025 by-right zoning laws (SB 840) covering nearly all major cities' commercial zones far exceeding California's more incremental steps like transit-oriented rezoning and environmental review exemptions. The piece argues that Republican-led states achieve better housing outcomes not through policy ideas but through coalitional interests aligned with development, while Democratic states remain constrained by activist constituencies like labor unions and environmentalists.

Austin added 120,000 housing units from 2015 to 2024 through a series of zoning, permitting, and density reforms, resulting in a 19% inflation-adjusted rent decline and the steepest nominal rent drops of any major U.S. city—with the largest decreases (11%) in older, lower-cost buildings serving lower-income renters. The case demonstrates that a sustained, multifaceted approach to removing regulatory barriers to housing construction can meaningfully improve affordability even amid strong population growth.

Despite decades of attempts to reduce housing costs through factory-built prefabrication—from 1930s panel homes to the $2 billion startup Katerra—cost savings have proven elusive, typically reaching only 10-20% over traditional methods rather than the dramatic reductions seen when manufacturing and automobiles moved from craft to industrial production. The article argues that fundamental differences between homebuilding and manufacturing (site variability, customization, transportation costs, regulatory fragmentation) have prevented prefabrication from achieving the durable efficiency gains that make reverting to old methods unthinkable.

U.S. construction labor productivity fell 30% between 1970 and 2024 — the worst decline among advanced economies — with tightening land use regulations accounting for 40% of the gap between construction and economy-wide productivity growth, while limited technological innovation and quality mismeasurement each contributed another 20%.

Analyzes Portland Metro's 2014 Urban Growth Report, arguing the agency's plan to accommodate all residential growth through increased density — targeting 64% multifamily construction versus the historical 15-30% — would dramatically increase housing costs without expanding the urban growth boundary. Warned that median housing prices could reach $719,000 by 2035, displacing low-income households and new homebuyers, while requiring massive developer subsidies.

Examines urban growth boundaries adopted by over 100 U.S. cities and counties, finding they reduce the supply of developable land and increase housing prices. Portland experienced dramatic affordability declines between 1990 and 1995, with lot prices more than doubling while consumer prices rose 52.5%, transforming Portland from one of the most affordable to one of the least affordable housing markets on the West Coast. Recommends market-oriented alternatives including relaxing zoning density restrictions and pricing infrastructure at full marginal cost.