Housing Policy

Live Free or Ban Data Centers

Plus: D.C. considers single-stair reform, Idaho legalizes starter homes, and Florida bans discrimination against manufactured housing.

Christian Britschgi | 3.31.2026 1:00 PM

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Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week's newsletter covers a number of new reforms that try to relegalize formerly ubiquitous forms of affordable housing.

Single-stair apartment buildings, starter homes, and manufactured housing are nothing new. All worked to make the American cities and towns of the past more affordable, accessible places to live.

Rent Free Newsletter by Christian Britschgi. Get more of Christian's urban regulation, development, and zoning coverage.

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Over the decades, states and localities have imposed rules that restrict or even ban these forms of housing. As evidenced by the reforms advancing across the country, many policymakers consider those restrictions a mistake. Bit by bit, we're returning to the old, freer land use regime.

But first, the newsletter covers how the backlash to data centers in rural Ohio is leading some communities to consider adopting zoning for the first time.

Live Free or Ban Data Centers?

In rural Ohio, residents are balancing two uncomfortable propositions: live next to new data centers or adopt zoning codes to stop them.

WUOB, the state's public media outlet, reports that a mounting number of data center developments are springing up in the state's southeast, where many of the area's rural counties have no zoning codes.

The data centers are often unpopular, with local residents complaining about large, unsightly buildings consuming existing farmland and the lack of transparency from local governments and data center builders about their projects.

But without zoning codes, local officials have limited ability to block new data centers where they're proposed.

As I noted in a recent cover story for Reason, data centers are—all things considered—pretty low-impact land uses. They're not particularly........

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