America Needs to Build More Housing(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
America Needs to Build More Housing
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/05/18/opinion/affordable-housing-america.html
4 comments
They also need to have satellite offices and/or remote work. There's lots of ground over here, but the jobs are over there. Extreme commuting just doesn't work.
Yea sure if we can figure out how to build cheap housing. Nobody can afford building costs unless you are rich.
I think evidence in Minneapolis, Denver, Austin, etc. is showing that increasing housing supply can apply downward pressure on rent prices, and subsequently the rent burden of many households as a percentage of their income.
I work/volunteer as a planning commissioner for a suburb of Denver, and allowing more housing to be built is one of the most politically divisive things I've ever had to deal with. People think that if a property is zoned for high density, it will be built overnight. This is not the case unless it's a specific property being changed.
We recently had an apartment building constructed that was zoned for this use almost 20 years ago. The community went into an uproar about this new apartment building, and tried to petition to modify the zoning after permitting was already approved.
This is near a park, has multiple transit stops, walking distance to large employment centers, grocery stores, gyms, and a school. It was a prime candidate for more housing.
Now, since the community has realized that zoning is what controls housing, they have petitioned against following zoning changes, and are basically freezing our zoning code in amber.
It's quite sad, as I see homeless encampments around, people living in their cars, and college grads living with 4 roommates in a house in a suburb. We had a light rail line built through our town a little over a decade ago that connects to Downtown Denver and a few major employment centers, and we still have R1 zoning surrounding some of the stations. We have so much opportunity and it continuously gets squandered by folks that already got theirs.