A few weeks ago the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law. This is an enormous housing bill that’s been in the works for roughly a year — I first discussed it on Statecraft back in 2025 — and folks are optimistic that it will, per its description, “increase the supply of housing in America.”
I've found that, in Illinois at least, GIS-based data sources don't really exist outside Chicago. Or if they do: the data quality is so bad as to be functionally unusable without alot of scrubbing. So this could move the needle for smaller areas that haven't put in the work? We'll see.
At least someone is trying, but those homes will not plug into municipal building regulations. All the usual restrictions...zoning, permanent foundation, appearance standards, compliance with local wind/snowload regs, prohibitions on single section homes, and on and on...not to mention existing homeowner resistance...makes them a tightly limited option.
Zoning is definitely the biggest constraint on manufactured housing. States are making progress though with Texas, Kentucky, and Virginia all passing bills to help secure a place for manufactured homes within municipalities.
Yup, zoning. It'll remain a fight, though. The degree to which nearly all municipal regulation is anti-housing, is not appreciated or understood by most folks.
Very helpful, thank you. My reaction to the bill is so far: much less than meets the eye. On that single stairway measure...the extra sq. footage freed up makes sense, analytic sense; however, what about the fire safety since it is multi-family units...only one way out? How's this for analysis: the poorer the financial scale of the housing, the more frequent the fires.
As for the rest of the bill so far: good to focus on the fact that we are a capitalist system, so with real estate transactions, and their overhead, always less incentive and less profit to have to go through the same processing for a less expensive project. Gee, maybe that's why nothing much happens for poor people's housing if little new money is put on the table, either gov't itself or subsidized loans or other features to entice the private sector to do that which it isn't willing to do...reminds me very much of the dynamics to the private utilities refusing to bring electricty to the rural areas of America in the 1920's and 1930's. Robert Caro's bio of LBJ and how he got electric for his Hill Country constituents is great read and eye opening public-private sector tensions.
I doubt there's anything like a REA in this bill. And after all, if you money to invest, are you going to go into housing projects or AI and the long booming stock markets and bit coin frenzies?
Demonization of the poor, Nixon, Bushes, Willie Horton, BLM's, DEI and of course, the worst of humanity, the new immigrants...hardly political features to help those who need the housing affordability the most.
I await an era of reforms for capitalism, not led by the MAGA Right and demcoratic party centrists.
I've found that, in Illinois at least, GIS-based data sources don't really exist outside Chicago. Or if they do: the data quality is so bad as to be functionally unusable without alot of scrubbing. So this could move the needle for smaller areas that haven't put in the work? We'll see.
Clayton's most affordable brand Tru is now selling tiny homes with all in costs around $40k. https://owntru.com/model-lines/tru-mini/
At least someone is trying, but those homes will not plug into municipal building regulations. All the usual restrictions...zoning, permanent foundation, appearance standards, compliance with local wind/snowload regs, prohibitions on single section homes, and on and on...not to mention existing homeowner resistance...makes them a tightly limited option.
Zoning is definitely the biggest constraint on manufactured housing. States are making progress though with Texas, Kentucky, and Virginia all passing bills to help secure a place for manufactured homes within municipalities.
Yup, zoning. It'll remain a fight, though. The degree to which nearly all municipal regulation is anti-housing, is not appreciated or understood by most folks.
I marvel at the complexity of the regulations and laws. It’s a wonder anything gets built.
Very helpful, thank you. My reaction to the bill is so far: much less than meets the eye. On that single stairway measure...the extra sq. footage freed up makes sense, analytic sense; however, what about the fire safety since it is multi-family units...only one way out? How's this for analysis: the poorer the financial scale of the housing, the more frequent the fires.
As for the rest of the bill so far: good to focus on the fact that we are a capitalist system, so with real estate transactions, and their overhead, always less incentive and less profit to have to go through the same processing for a less expensive project. Gee, maybe that's why nothing much happens for poor people's housing if little new money is put on the table, either gov't itself or subsidized loans or other features to entice the private sector to do that which it isn't willing to do...reminds me very much of the dynamics to the private utilities refusing to bring electricty to the rural areas of America in the 1920's and 1930's. Robert Caro's bio of LBJ and how he got electric for his Hill Country constituents is great read and eye opening public-private sector tensions.
I doubt there's anything like a REA in this bill. And after all, if you money to invest, are you going to go into housing projects or AI and the long booming stock markets and bit coin frenzies?
Demonization of the poor, Nixon, Bushes, Willie Horton, BLM's, DEI and of course, the worst of humanity, the new immigrants...hardly political features to help those who need the housing affordability the most.
I await an era of reforms for capitalism, not led by the MAGA Right and demcoratic party centrists.