The US housing market faces significant challenges with cities like New York experiencing 68% above national median rents. Cities like Austin and Seattle have implemented policies driving down rents by loosening zoning restrictions, scrapping parking requirements, and adjusting height caps. These measures show that the housing crisis is solvable within a year or two without government subsidies.
The median rent in New York City is 68 percent above the national median, with shelter inflation contributing 65 percent to the month’s 2.3 percent increase in the Consumer Price Index.
In established tech hubs like San Francisco and New York, the housing crisis is not an accident but a result of deliberate policy choices that prioritize property value over affordable housing for all. In New York City, homeowners lobbied for regulations requiring real estate developers to assess environmental and social impacts, adding 11 percent to 16 percent to project costs.
In contrast, emerging tech hubs like Seattle and Austin have successfully implemented policies that drive down rents. In these cities, zoning restrictions were loosened, minimum parking requirements were scrapped, and height caps were adjusted, enabling developers to build more housing faster.
At the root of this crisis lies a paradox: Americans living in expensive cities overwhelmingly support the idea of affordable housing—until it’s built near them. Homeowners often lobby against new construction by advocating for zoning laws, density caps, and height restrictions, making building new housing prohibitively expensive.
In October, rent in Austin and Seattle fell 9.6 percent and 2.3 percent year-over-year, respectively, according to Zillow data. This is largely thanks to YIMBY activism: In Austin, advocates successfully pressured the city to cut through bureaucratic red tapes after the pandemic ushered in skyrocketing rents.
Austin and Seattle’s success proves that the housing crisis is solvable—not in decades, but in just a year or two and without the government having to spend billions on subsidies or infrastructure projects.
