Is Donald Trump a Nimby or a Yimby? Given that the housing crisis is a problem in front-and-prime throughout the country, that the president-elect favorable the development of housing is or not an important question.
But Trump is everywhere on the issue of housing, because it is so many others. It is difficult to know where he is really.
The idea of canceling the zoning restrictions to produce more accommodation has benefited from support in both parties at the federal level for decades. In a 1991 report entitled “Not in my backyard: to withdraw obstacles to affordable housing”, A bipartite commission Appointed by the secretary of housing and urban development of the time, Jack Kemp noted that “across the country, local governments use zoning and subdivision orders, building codes and authorization procedures to prevent the development of affordable housing.” But the federals do not control local zoning, so their influence is limited.
As a former real estate promoter-and defender of deregulation in general-Trump should be a Yimby, the Oui-en-Mon file, pro-logging in front of a Nimby. Actually, In an interview last summer with Bloomberg,, He took the zoning, calling him a “killer” and promising to reduce housing costs.
Except, apparently, when this threatens the suburban districts with a unifamilial zoning, the most radical restriction on development in California and beyond. Trump has always said that the idea of high density housing in the suburbs threatens the American way of life. “The destruction of the suburbs will end with us”, it sworn During his first mandate.
Nimbyism crosses the traditional political lines, removing housing in some of the most liberal enclaves in California, but it also rides a lot with Trump's coalition. Maga activists who love their suburban houses and neighborhoods are increasingly at war with the Yimby movement, as Solid resistance to more accommodation in places like Huntington Beach showed.
Lately, Trump and the company took Blame the housing crisis on illegal immigrationsuggesting that the real estate market will be very good once they will expel around 10 million immigrants. But unauthorized immigrants tend to occupy the bottom of the housing, often in overcrowded conditions. Thus, even if mass expulsion occurs, it is unlikely that millions of Americans born in the autochtons will be locked up outside the market suddenly realize the dream of the property of the suburbs.
One of the few specific ideas that Trump has offered to increase the supply of housing is to open federal land for residential development. Last year, he floated the idea of using federal land to build “cities of freedom”, a kind of unregulated business area for housing, business and business flying cars.
The Governor of Northern Dakota, Doug Burgum, Trump's choice for the interior secretary, could be crucial for any administrative housing strategy. Burgum would control the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, which have large land funds in California, almost half of which are held by the federal government and throughout the west. (The US Forest Service, which is part of the Ministry of Agriculture, also claims a large part of the State and the Region.) Although a large part of the media coverage of the appointment of Burgum concerned the prospect of a more fossil extraction of federal land, Burgum could also be the key to plans to build housing on American property.
But developing federal lands is legally difficult, as is the transfer of these lands to local governments which might want to build there. The Bureau of Land Management, for example, is constantly fighting with Clark County, Nev., To find out if more land should be made available for development in the Las Vegas region. In addition, a large part of the land of the federal government is mountainous, distant or both.
Burgum was an ardent defender not only Zoning reform And the development of housing in general but also to build more high density housing in cities and suburbs, which seems to be in contradiction with the Agenda Maga in certain respects. Rich technical entrepreneur, Burgum has paid millions of dollars of his own money in Revitalize the city center in its hometown, Fargo.
Of course, the federal government also has a lot of land in urban and suburban places. But this land would be beyond The recent battle on the veterans' campus in West the revealed.
During the great depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt also promoted the idea of building many housing on federal land, in both suburban and rural locations. Although the effort has generated innovative ideas, only a few subdivisions were finally built.
Trump's cities of Trump are likely to meet the same fate. It is simply difficult for the federal government to cause local zoning reform and the development of housing. It is even more difficult when the president cannot decide where he stands on the issue.
William Fulton is the publisher of “Planning and development report in California. “He is a former mayor of Ventura and former planning director of San Diego.
