Trump must sign the housing bill. Cities must be ready for what comes next.

This week, Congress did something remarkable: it passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act with overwhelming bipartisan votes in the House and Senate, delivering the most significant housing legislation in decades. Then President Trump abruptly canceled the signing ceremony.

This is not a disagreement about housing policy. Republicans and Democrats agree this bill will lower costs and increase housing supply. It is the president holding hostage families who can’t afford rent, to a political demand his own party cannot fulfill.

The president needs to stop this and sign the housing bill.

If this bill becomes law, it will be a massive victory for every American struggling with the cost of housing. But the truth is that the real work of what comes next will largely happen at the local level, in city halls and zoning boards, by mayors who’ve been quietly laying the groundwork while waiting for Washington to catch up.

Most American cities today face a significant and growing housing shortage.

Cincinnati’s story is not unique. Although we have grown in recent years, our housing supply is still more than 40,000 units short. This shortage has been compounded by decades of restrictive single-family zoning, construction costs that have outrun wages, and a wave of institutional investors buying up single-family properties, neglecting their maintenance, and passing the burden to their tenants. The result: rent growth in Cincinnati is now outpacing most peer cities across the country.

The conventional response has been........

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