Are Regional Governments the Answer to the Housing Crisis?

In a piece in Business Insider, Ned Resnikoff argues that regional governance is the key to solving the U.S. housing crisis and ensuring that cities, suburbs, and small towns in metropolitan areas have a shared vision.

Suburbs and other satellite towns often comprise a majority of the surface area of a metro region, but the fragmented nature of their governments means they often don’t agree on their goals for housing, transportation, or infrastructure. In California, some areas have attempted to create regional governing bodies, but a statewide proposal to create regional governments never made it through the legislature.

According to Resnikoff, “If states like California did beef up their regional governments, it could go a long way toward solving the housing crisis” because zoning and land use reforms that would force all communities — including small, wealthy ones — to add more housing would likely create much more housing in the suburbs, where land is more easily available. For Resnikoff, “region-wide planning is more democratic than giving exclusive enclaves like Sausalito free rein to write their own rules and lock out lower-income residents from the rest of the region.”