The new bipartisan Yes In My Back Yard or YIMBY Caucus in Congress is a promising sign that the housing affordability crisis gripping American cities might finally get the national attention it deserves.

Almost no major U.S. city allows housing development sufficient to keep rents and prices from spiraling ever higher. State and local reformers have pocketed some key victories over the last few years — particularly California — but hardly enough to end housing shortfalls. Yet existing federal tools have few clear ways to break down local barriers to denser housing development. Restrictive single-family zoning, minimum lot sizes and off-street parking requirements are all under the purview of local authorities.

In other words, new YIMBY Caucus members have their work cut out for them.

Federal interference has to strike a balance, careful not to alienate locals while also pushing cities to actually change course. One easy place for the YIMBY Caucus to start? Its own backyard, Washington D.C., where the antiquated Height of Buildings Act is stunting new development and needs to be repealed.

Passed by Congress in 1910 in response to outrage over the new

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