Supply Alone Won’t Solve America’s Housing Affordability Crisis

Trump’s housing approach is unlikely to fix the affordability crisis. The piece argues prices rise with incomes—especially among college-educated workers—so simply deregulating or freeing up zoning won’t rapidly bring rents and home prices down. Studies suggest adding housing stock could gradually ease prices, but at slow speeds (often decades in major cities), and even then would also raise land and construction costs. Rent control and other fixes have mixed outcomes, so broad, effective reform is more complex than cutting regulation alone.