I doubt there’s scientific research on it, but I’ve had this idea niggling at the back of my mind for a while. Anecdotally, how likely is your voting district to blue-shift based on the number of apartments you allow developers to add?
We know that urban areas overwhelmingly vote Democrat. These places had a lot of Housing density in the form of compact living (apartments)—lots of them. Does it then follow that the more of these you add to any area, the more likely it is to lean left at the ballot box?
The concern has been exacerbated by calls from otherwise conservative or libertarian quarters to do something about the housing crisis. The response has been to allow developers – who pay politicians through donations to let them build – to add an increasing number of apartment buildings – anywhere they are allowed or can get them shoe-horned in.
They aren’t rent subsidized, so while they might sell them as workforce or affordable housing, they are ATMs for developers who can (and do) charge market rates for rents. And they keep building them.
Republican towns like Merrimack and Bedford are increasingly purple-ish, and I feel confident the addition of numerous apartment complexes is to blame.
Anecdotal but with legs – the more urbanized we get, the more blue we become. Sure, more people want to move here, but if it’s to ruin the state and transition it into another Vermont or Massachusetts, how about not?
A recent piece (ironically?) at The Balze is adding fuel to my smoldering anecdotal fire. Titled, ‘Cities can Turn Blue: Homestead will keep America Red, Daniel Horowitz warns team MAGA about the risk to rural America from Freedom Cities.
Trump announced his plan in March as part of “Agenda 47” to build 10 “freedom cities” on 3.2 million acres of federal land. The cities would be selected through a contest, with the best development proposals winning. Trump has suggested that the housing crisis stems from a lack of supply rather than inflation or monetary policy and that building cities in rural, red America could help solve it.
Horowitz explains the very problem that’s been niggling at the back of my mind. Doing this will blue-up red places, and why would we want that? He also notes that the housing crisis narrative is something of a deception.
The rush for new housing construction rests on a false premise. Supporters claim there is a massive housing shortage, while others argue that zoning laws are stifling the housing market.
In reality, even with the freest zoning laws imaginable, homes would remain unaffordable. General inflation and Federal Reserve interest rate policies have created a generational gap in mortgage rates, locking up the resale market and driving housing prices higher.
Housing construction remains strong, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Over the past 10 months, builders issued 846,446 single-family home permits nationwide — a 9.4% increase from 2023. The number of homes under construction or already completed has reached its highest level since the 2007 housing bubble. Overall, the supply of new homes has risen by 70% over the past three years.
The issue isn’t a lack of new construction. It’s the soaring cost of building, driven by general, debt-fueled inflation. The housing market also suffers from the Federal Reserve’s policies, which created an asset bubble by purchasing $2.5 trillion in mortgage-backed securities. By keeping interest rates artificially low for a generation, the Fed incentivized cheap borrowing.
When inflation spiked, the Fed rapidly raised rates, triggering a “death trap” for homeowners who now refuse to sell and face significantly higher mortgage payments.
Today, deficits and inflation remain so high that even recent Fed rate cuts have failed to lower mortgage rates. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note — which heavily influences mortgage rates — has climbed 85 basis points since the Fed cut rates by 50 basis points on September 19.
Simply put, the housing crisis stems from debt-driven inflation, not a lack of supply.
He offers a solution if you’re interested. Another MAGA objective is to sell or give back vast swaths of federally monopolized land to the states and the people. Why not do this instead?
Rather than urbanizing red-state America, a better plan would encourage conservatives nationwide to move to red states organically by re-ruralizing the country. The federal government should sell parcels of land — between 10 and 50 acres — to individuals, allowing them to live and farm as they see fit. This would create the ultimate version of freedom: a rural-based economic freedom zone.
He’s definitely onto something.
Promoting rural land use would counteract the harmful effects of farm bills, which distort markets in favor of specific crops. This approach would attract people aligned with rugged individualism, not urbanization, making red states even redder.
By incentivizing privacy and self-reliance, we would avoid high-tech surveillance schemes that threaten to transform America into a version of China. True freedom lies in wide-open spaces, not congested cities.
This doesn’t address the problem in states like New Hampshire, where greedy developers and their elected benefactors are happy to profit regardless of the political fallout, but it’s a start. The Feds need to get off that land – with few exceptions, and let states manage it themselves.
As for us in the Granite State, if we stay the course, we’ll be blue at the state level in less than a decade – so we might need some of that land out west. As long as I can get internet, it might be worth doing. I know the Dems and at least a few Republicans would not be sad to see me go, but I should remind them that I can write about New Hampshire from anywhere.
No, I’m not going anywhere just yet. It’s not even on the table, but my housing crisis narrative is that housing density is not good for the New Hampshire Advantage. What happens when Nashua, Manchester, or other cities become so large we can’t counter their left-leaning influence? And towns like mine become extensions of them?
We become Massachusetts or Vermont.
Governor Kelly Ayotte ran on not Massing Up New Hampshire. How we address the “housing crisis” and density could make keeping that promise impossible.
