The real solution to high housing costs is a policy almost everyone hates: Build more luxury homes.
Suddenly everyone has a plan to bring down housing costs.
In his Jan. 1 inaugural address, New York Mayor Zohran Mamadani promised “we will freeze the rent” for the city’s roughly one million rent-stabilized apartments. Not willing to be left out of the affordability parade, the Trump administration says it is working on a range of housing-policy ideas to include in an upcoming executive order. “We are bringing back the AMERICAN DREAM,” the president said on Truth Social.
While some claimed to see hints of moderation during Mr. Mamdani’s campaign, the new mayor confirmed his far-left bona fides in his fiery speech: “I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist.” Mr. Mamdani’s director of the Office to Protect Tenants, Cea Weaver, almost overshadowed her boss when her past radical statements came to light. While Mr. Mamdani vaguely praised “the warmth of collectivism,” her social media posts included calls to “elect more communists” and “seize private property!”
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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James B. Meigs is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a City Journal contributing editor.
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