Housing Policy

Christian Britschgi | From the November 2024 issue

Is Kamala Harris running the first ever YIMBY ("yes in my backyard") campaign for president? She's certainly talking like she is, even though her housing platform is riddled with policy proposals that will make high housing costs worse.

"There's a serious housing shortage in many places. It's too difficult to build, and it's driving prices up," said Harris in a mid-August campaign speech laying out her economic policy agenda. "As president, I will work in partnership with industry to build the housing we need, both to rent and to buy. We will take down barriers and cut red tape, including at the state and local levels."

The vice president promised to deliver 3 million units of housing affordable to middle-class families by the end of her first term.

Her mention of high housing costs, and her speech accurately blaming them on state and local regulation, earned her rapturous praise from YIMBY commenters, including a few free marketers.

Kevin Erdmann, a scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, described Harris' remarks as "arguably the best pro-supply housing speech........

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