The U.S. currently has a 7.3 million unit affordable housing shortage. 3 million new affordable housing units isn’t even half of what is needed to make up the shortage and 3 million over four years is 750,000 new units per year. The U.S. is already running a housing deficit building almost twice that number (1.42 million) per year. Only building at half the current rate would lead to a more severe housing shortage. This sort of milquetoast YIMBYism is not only economically illiterate but it also just gatekeeps the only permanent solution (land value capture) by steering people away from the root cause of the problem (real estate speculation). I already explained why the simple minded approach of YIMBYism cannot bring down and stabilize housing prices especially within the unsustainable housing model of suburban sprawl.
The False Promise of YIMBYism: It is no Substitute for LVT
YIMBYism allows property owners to feel charitable without compromising their class interests which is what is necessary to have affordable housing in perpetuity.
Half of tenant households (21/42 million) are rent burdened (i.e. spend >30% of household income on rent).
U.S. Census Bureau: Nearly Half of Renter Households Are Cost-Burdened, Proportions Differ by Race
My wife and I aren’t in that demographic but we’ve known people who were and were priced out of their unit during the past four years while shitlibs pretended the economy is peachy for everyone just because unemployment figures are low and wages are rising and ignore the structural problems in the housing market in favor bullshit band-aid policies that don’t stop the hemorrhaging artery of rack rents caused by artificial scarcity.
As I pointed out previously, despite unprecedented wage growth rent hikes exceeded wage growth over the past four years. Renters, who are around a third to three-eighths of the population and vote Democrat by a 2 to 1 margin are probably finally starting to realize that the patch work of housing vouchers, rent controlled buildings and artificial wage floors offered by that party are largely ineffective and that YIMBY proposals offer the same empty promises. They don’t quite understand land value capture or all of the potential mechanisms for its implementation, but are tired of long housing waiting lists and the incompetent bureaucrats that manage them. It will probably take another generation or two and a homeownership rate >50% for the electorate to come to grips with this economic reality.