A Smart Growth 'Rent Belt'?

Housing affordability problems are concentrated in regions where anti-growth land-use regulations have limited the supply of building lots, according to the report.

"High-cost housing encourages business and households to move elsewhere and undermines the regional economy. The solution is to attack the root cause of the affordability problem (restrictive land-use regulations) and increase the supply of building lots."

From the conclusion:

"A better solution is to attack the root cause of the affordability problem-restrictive land-use regula­tions-and increase the supply of building lots. If such a policy were implemented in any of the impacted areas, home prices in now-unaffordable regions like Los Angeles, Washington, New York City, and Miami would begin to return to affordable levels. Efforts to turn back such regulations are underway in a number of communities. The most notable is a recent ballot box victory that forced Oregon to relax its regulations.

The overly regulated metropolitan areas seem likely to experience considerably less population and economic growth in the future than would have occurred if their land-use policies had not broken the historic relationship between house values and household incomes. To restore higher levels of eco­nomic growth, such areas will need to liberalize their land-use policies.

In the meantime, affordable metropolitan areas that have not grown as strongly in recent decades face a unique opportunity for renewal and expan­sion. Such areas-many in the long-dormant Mid­west-will need to ignore the siren song of excessive land-use regulation to take advantage of their potential."