Happy Tuesday and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. Despite the ink still wet on many state-level YIMBY reforms prodding local governments to allow housing, we’re already witnessing a concerted counter-revolution from the forces of local control. This week’s stories include:
- Slow-growth activists in the Boston-adjacent suburb of Milton, Massachusetts, have successfully overturned state-required zoning reforms that allowed apartments near the town’s train stations.
- Local governments in Florida are trying to defang a new state law allowing residential high-rises in commercial zones with lawsuits and regulatory obstructions.
- A lawsuit against Arlington, Virginia’s exceedingly modest “missing middle” reforms that were passed last year trundles on.
But first, our lead item is a short take on how America’s overregulated, undersupplied housing market turns good things, like economic growth, into bad things, like more evictions.
Hellbound and Down 