Noah Smith wrote:

Housing is probably the most important aspect of any city, and the U.S. simply hasn't been building enough of it. Politically powerful homeowners and landlords dominate local governments, blocking residential construction through a morass of zoning restrictions, parking requirements and other laws. New developments are strangled by endless reviews and challenges, often with environmentalism as a pretext. Fear of urban change is bipartisan — while NIMBYism has often been a tool of the right, it's recently won a growing number of champions on the left.

In response, pro-housing movements are springing up across the country. In Minneapolis and in the state of Oregon, these movements won their first big victory — bans on zoning laws that restrict neighborhoods to single-family homes. Now some California cities are following suit. There’s even talk of action at the national level: President Joe Biden’s infrastructure proposals include handing out money to cities that end the historically discriminatory practice of banning multifamily residences.