I see that Mayor Menino had a letter to the editor in last week’s Economist on the issue of housing shortage (sorry, no link - I’m too cheap to subscribe and likely any readers here are too). It’s fascinating to see him turn policy wonk. I do have to admire his desire to forge some sort of national/federal-level response to the problem of housing, though I doubt he’s going to get much traction. Part of the problem of course is that people in the middle of the country are not likely to care about the urban housing and rental crunch on the coasts. Compound that with a general problem of housing policy - namely that it usually involves zero-sum trade-offs, as policies that are designed to help low-to-mid-income homebuyers hurt renters, and policies restricting growth or protecting neighborhoods freeze first-time buyers out of the market. The result is inaction and more of an unacceptable status quo.
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