- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
But with rent that’s more than doubled…
We really need politicians to start paying more attention to the housing crisis. Housing costs have been such a massive squeeze on literally everyone, and it’s an incredibly stupidly self-inflicted wound because for the last 50 years we collectively decided that housing should be a primary investment asset for all Americans instead of a place to live, and fundamentally, you cannot have housing both be a good investment and have it be cheap.
Literally just build more housing. Public housing, subsidized housing, private market rate, yuppie condos, literally anything.
https://usafacts.org/articles/population-growth-has-outpaced-home-construction-for-20-years/
In the last 20 years, we build around a million single-family homes. In that same time period, the population increased by 3 million. There is no universe in which this happens and housing doesn’t become significantly more expensive.
Zoning restrictions is a huge cause of housing shortages and higher infrastructure costs.
Biden is giving developers a bunch of money to convert vacant business properties into housing, so it’s a start.
A band aid solution to the problem, in my opinion, but I agree it’s a start.