Home Zones

When housing and politics collide:

Because they’re used to preempting cities on other issues, preempting local zoning feels like a natural move for red-state Republican legislators, especially when they can focus it on larger cities and exempt suburbs and small towns, as recent legislation in Texas and Montana has done. But “blue-state Republicans are anti-housing” doesn’t explain California, where Republicans from rural and inland areas joined just over half of Democrats in the state Senate to pass SB 79, requiring upzoning near transit stops. Of course, many Republicans in California are anti-housing – conservative Huntington Beach has even flirted with imposing strict rent control to stop apartment construction – but some of them are not. .... My impression, admittedly anecdotal, is that most of the vociferous opponents of zoning reform in New Hampshire grew up near Boston or New York, and have internalized the view that zoning is some kind of symbolic totem with which to stave off the darkness. The details of legislation don’t matter; what matters is maintaining the status quo at all costs. By contrast, Republican farmers in rural northern New England have the same mentality as western ranchers and miners: hands off my property!

A man's home shouldn't be the government's castle...