Pacific Legal Foundation
In an August 16 Wall Street Journal op-ed, President Donald Trump and Ben Carson, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, pledged to protect America’s suburbs against federal regulations and “ultra-liberal” attempts to “abolish single-family zoning.”
But the reality is that it’s not the suburbs that need saving—it’s the homeowners and developers trying to build more homes and make suburbs more affordable.
Presumably, our developer-president has never tried to build housing in the suburbs, and thus he hasn’t attempted to run the gauntlet of large-lot exclusionary zoning, endless environmental reviews, and NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) lawsuits that can drag projects out for years while driving up costs and home prices.
Trump and Carson criticize past attempts by the federal government and current Democratic efforts to impose federal zoning mandates and to build low-income housing outside urban centers. But these attempts at federal control are entirely the result of the abject failure of suburban governments to allow enough housing to be built to meet demand.
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