"the interests of the young, middle-class professional with plans of parenthood because this cohort forms the backbone of society"
I can't think of a better representative group. I'm a bit uncomfortable, however, with the idea (and maybe I'm just reading too much between the lines) that there are big _necessary_ tradeoffs between the interets of this group and others. Better (less restritive) land use policies, up-to-date building codes, better policing, better public schools are definitely good for young middle class professionals but do not harn the "rich" or the "poor."
Hell yeah! A clearly stated problem is the first step towards a solution. If we don't solve this for the young families, they'll vote for socialism and this entire US economic miracle will evaporate.
I appreciate this focus on family formation and housing design. And I admire that you're willing to take on entrenched interests and stop pretending there aren't trade-offs in policy choices.
I wrote recently (https://stephnakhleh.substack.com/p/the-sound-of-childhood) about one underutilized tool for bringing families back to cities: courtyard housing. The short version: mid-rise courtyard blocks can achieve the same density as high-rises or sprawl, but create protected outdoor spaces where kids can play freely while parents relax inside—basically upgrading isolated backyards into shared community space. I watched this work beautifully at my daughter's university family housing in Madison. That sound has become so rare in American cities that it felt a bit surreal.
But I don't think the family/poverty housing question is quite as zero-sum as you frame it—there are supply-side reforms (re-legalizing SROs, eliminating minimum unit sizes, allowing rooming houses) that could help both groups without direct competition for subsidy dollars. But as a YIMBY, I'm solidly with you on this: we need to legalize building the housing families actually need—larger rentals, starter homes, and family-friendly designs like courtyards—not treat them as afterthoughts. Looking forward to seeing the rest of this series!
Right. Housing appreciation from artificial scarcity is extractive—it doesn't create value, it just transfers wealth from buyers/renters to owners. The question is whether moderating home price appreciation is a cost we should avoid, because it's politically hard, or a goal we should embrace. I'd argue housing abundance is better for the economy, for society, and for the family formation that the Boyd writers are talking about ... even if it's worse for housing as an investment vehicle. But as they indicate, taking on the top 10% is a political fight.
Not disagreeing, just stating it's a tradeoff from one interest group to another. Which is technically rich, but many homeowners with inflated home values don't see themselves that way.
Expect massive increases in homelessness within the United States. All American citizens should have a right to shelter unless one likes homeless encampments and people sleeping on the pavement outside your place of employment or residence. Shelter also means basics not luxury apartments or homes.
> "since redevelopment is rarely economically feasible (see Rollet 2025), we are likely “stuck” with the housing stock we have. Given that housing construction starts are — almost by necessity — induced by rising rents, no city is likely to experience the purported affordability or spatial allocation benefits of pro-YIMBY legislation until there is a new demand shock to elicit a supply response. Building into falling or flat rents simply does not occur, even if upzoning allows for it."
Forgive my question, I'm not an expert on this. But this is somewhat different than the story we told ourselves when I lived in San Francisco... our narrative was that there was plenty of demand from developers to build new upzoned residential structures at current rents, but that there was such hostility from incumbent neighborhood homeowners (the [possibly apocryphal?] outraged elderly NIMBYs who show up at local hearings claiming that some crumbling parking structure is a historical landmark) that very few projects make it through permitting. Is that not an accurate depiction of how things really work (or rather fail to work)? Or is that a very SF specific dynamic that doesn't have much in common with the nationwide homebuilding picture?
The empirical research (namely Louie et al. 2025) would suggest that on a metro-wide basis (MSA), San Francisco allowed enough building across various — probably less desirable — neighborhoods that didn’t have as stringent zoning, such that aggregate demand was met with a supply response. Whether such spatial misallocations necessarily lead to higher metro-wide unaffordability is a different question altogether.
Give some advice to Boomers who are trying to make it easier for the next generation.
From my vantage point, divorce has kicked many millennials off the housing ladder that they had succeeded in getting on, and now there are two households that need room for the same number of kids because of joint custody. Okay, that sounds very specific, but the instability of families that are formed results in more demand for more inexpensive housing as well as the lack of access to inexpensive housing reducing family formation.
We need to fund and incentivize citizens that are likely to be net contributors to society in terms of lifestyle, labor, or just net tax revenue. Only then do we have the luxury of giving handouts to those that will always be "takers".
In rational society, it is not possible for “policy” to invest. Public policy must be implemented as the protection of rights. Government does not create wealth. There is no profit incentive. Money coerced from the private sector is capital that would naturally flow to its most efficient use. Bureaucrats do not have the knowledge or the moral authority to dictate how money they didn’t earn themselves should be allocated. “Policy” created the problems it purports to solve.
This is in line with our thinking. "Policy" as an apparatus should probably be rolled back in a lot of ways. But it is also a tool to serve certain social and political ends such as boosting fertility rates. We agree though that it is basically always distortionary.
Thank you, and I suspect that government policy directed exclusively toward the defense of rights and sound money will naturally and quickly boost fertility rates.
Home ownership, as one of the main sources of household “wealth building” (instead of just having a place to live), is a zero-sum game.
The house (or, more accurately, the land under the house) my wife and I purchased many years ago has insanely appreciated. Good for us, but who else has benefited? A similar gain in the stock market would, at least in theory, have been our legitimate reward for providing investment capital to create new products, services and jobs. But our real estate gain is a loss for the next generation trying to buy their own homes.
Decades of guaranteed, subsidized, tax deductible mortgages encouraged urban sprawl, inhibited worker mobility in a changing economy and, aided by “monetary easing” on the demand side and NIMBY and environmental building restrictions on the supply side, inflated the housing bubble (and re-inflated the bubble again after the ’08 meltdown).
I would speculate that without these public subsidies, widespread homeownership might not be sustainable – or even desirable. Maybe historically it was seen as a necessary bit of social/political engineering to inoculate the working classes from the allure of socialism and communism. But going deep into debt to own a home is a good idea only if you know the value of the home will always go up – or at least never go down. Therefore it became the political imperative to make sure home values always go up (see previous paragraph). And that gets us back to square one with a lot of working class and middle-class folks who can’t afford to buy a home – unless Mommy and Daddy help.
Yes, a lot of paper wealth has been created through homeownership – wealth generated by real estate speculation and not by investment in productive industries. Wealth through inflated real estate values is truly a zero-sum game that exacerbates inequality.
Nothing but full-throated support for this line of thinking.
Based
"the interests of the young, middle-class professional with plans of parenthood because this cohort forms the backbone of society"
I can't think of a better representative group. I'm a bit uncomfortable, however, with the idea (and maybe I'm just reading too much between the lines) that there are big _necessary_ tradeoffs between the interets of this group and others. Better (less restritive) land use policies, up-to-date building codes, better policing, better public schools are definitely good for young middle class professionals but do not harn the "rich" or the "poor."
Hell yeah! A clearly stated problem is the first step towards a solution. If we don't solve this for the young families, they'll vote for socialism and this entire US economic miracle will evaporate.
I appreciate this focus on family formation and housing design. And I admire that you're willing to take on entrenched interests and stop pretending there aren't trade-offs in policy choices.
I wrote recently (https://stephnakhleh.substack.com/p/the-sound-of-childhood) about one underutilized tool for bringing families back to cities: courtyard housing. The short version: mid-rise courtyard blocks can achieve the same density as high-rises or sprawl, but create protected outdoor spaces where kids can play freely while parents relax inside—basically upgrading isolated backyards into shared community space. I watched this work beautifully at my daughter's university family housing in Madison. That sound has become so rare in American cities that it felt a bit surreal.
But I don't think the family/poverty housing question is quite as zero-sum as you frame it—there are supply-side reforms (re-legalizing SROs, eliminating minimum unit sizes, allowing rooming houses) that could help both groups without direct competition for subsidy dollars. But as a YIMBY, I'm solidly with you on this: we need to legalize building the housing families actually need—larger rentals, starter homes, and family-friendly designs like courtyards—not treat them as afterthoughts. Looking forward to seeing the rest of this series!
"Tradeoffs" for any policy that makes it easier to build housing are that existing house appreciate less,which makes their owners less well off.
Right. Housing appreciation from artificial scarcity is extractive—it doesn't create value, it just transfers wealth from buyers/renters to owners. The question is whether moderating home price appreciation is a cost we should avoid, because it's politically hard, or a goal we should embrace. I'd argue housing abundance is better for the economy, for society, and for the family formation that the Boyd writers are talking about ... even if it's worse for housing as an investment vehicle. But as they indicate, taking on the top 10% is a political fight.
Not disagreeing, just stating it's a tradeoff from one interest group to another. Which is technically rich, but many homeowners with inflated home values don't see themselves that way.
Expect massive increases in homelessness within the United States. All American citizens should have a right to shelter unless one likes homeless encampments and people sleeping on the pavement outside your place of employment or residence. Shelter also means basics not luxury apartments or homes.
Great article.
> "since redevelopment is rarely economically feasible (see Rollet 2025), we are likely “stuck” with the housing stock we have. Given that housing construction starts are — almost by necessity — induced by rising rents, no city is likely to experience the purported affordability or spatial allocation benefits of pro-YIMBY legislation until there is a new demand shock to elicit a supply response. Building into falling or flat rents simply does not occur, even if upzoning allows for it."
Forgive my question, I'm not an expert on this. But this is somewhat different than the story we told ourselves when I lived in San Francisco... our narrative was that there was plenty of demand from developers to build new upzoned residential structures at current rents, but that there was such hostility from incumbent neighborhood homeowners (the [possibly apocryphal?] outraged elderly NIMBYs who show up at local hearings claiming that some crumbling parking structure is a historical landmark) that very few projects make it through permitting. Is that not an accurate depiction of how things really work (or rather fail to work)? Or is that a very SF specific dynamic that doesn't have much in common with the nationwide homebuilding picture?
The empirical research (namely Louie et al. 2025) would suggest that on a metro-wide basis (MSA), San Francisco allowed enough building across various — probably less desirable — neighborhoods that didn’t have as stringent zoning, such that aggregate demand was met with a supply response. Whether such spatial misallocations necessarily lead to higher metro-wide unaffordability is a different question altogether.
Give some advice to Boomers who are trying to make it easier for the next generation.
From my vantage point, divorce has kicked many millennials off the housing ladder that they had succeeded in getting on, and now there are two households that need room for the same number of kids because of joint custody. Okay, that sounds very specific, but the instability of families that are formed results in more demand for more inexpensive housing as well as the lack of access to inexpensive housing reducing family formation.
We need to fund and incentivize citizens that are likely to be net contributors to society in terms of lifestyle, labor, or just net tax revenue. Only then do we have the luxury of giving handouts to those that will always be "takers".
Amen!
In rational society, it is not possible for “policy” to invest. Public policy must be implemented as the protection of rights. Government does not create wealth. There is no profit incentive. Money coerced from the private sector is capital that would naturally flow to its most efficient use. Bureaucrats do not have the knowledge or the moral authority to dictate how money they didn’t earn themselves should be allocated. “Policy” created the problems it purports to solve.
This is in line with our thinking. "Policy" as an apparatus should probably be rolled back in a lot of ways. But it is also a tool to serve certain social and political ends such as boosting fertility rates. We agree though that it is basically always distortionary.
Thank you, and I suspect that government policy directed exclusively toward the defense of rights and sound money will naturally and quickly boost fertility rates.
Home ownership, as one of the main sources of household “wealth building” (instead of just having a place to live), is a zero-sum game.
The house (or, more accurately, the land under the house) my wife and I purchased many years ago has insanely appreciated. Good for us, but who else has benefited? A similar gain in the stock market would, at least in theory, have been our legitimate reward for providing investment capital to create new products, services and jobs. But our real estate gain is a loss for the next generation trying to buy their own homes.
Decades of guaranteed, subsidized, tax deductible mortgages encouraged urban sprawl, inhibited worker mobility in a changing economy and, aided by “monetary easing” on the demand side and NIMBY and environmental building restrictions on the supply side, inflated the housing bubble (and re-inflated the bubble again after the ’08 meltdown).
I would speculate that without these public subsidies, widespread homeownership might not be sustainable – or even desirable. Maybe historically it was seen as a necessary bit of social/political engineering to inoculate the working classes from the allure of socialism and communism. But going deep into debt to own a home is a good idea only if you know the value of the home will always go up – or at least never go down. Therefore it became the political imperative to make sure home values always go up (see previous paragraph). And that gets us back to square one with a lot of working class and middle-class folks who can’t afford to buy a home – unless Mommy and Daddy help.
Yes, a lot of paper wealth has been created through homeownership – wealth generated by real estate speculation and not by investment in productive industries. Wealth through inflated real estate values is truly a zero-sum game that exacerbates inequality.
Your position is literally "fuck the poor" in favor of some of the most upwardly mobile people in this country.
"Middle-class professionals" can afford housing. The poor can't.