Article from Reason by Christian Britschgi.

Policymakers looking to bring down housing costs across the country may want to follow the example of Minneapolis, which just passed one of the most sweeping housing reforms in the nation.

On Friday, the Minneapolis City Council approved its comprehensive plan, Minneapolis 2040, which lays policies for managing the city’s growth over the next 20 years. The most promising, and most controversial, provisions of the 1,100-page plan are changes to the city’s zoning code that will let triplexes be built where once only single-family homes were permitted and will allow larger apartment buildings to be constructed along transit corridors.

Free marketers should celebrate the vote. Government limits on the buildings’ height and density are both a major restriction on property rights and a big driver of housing costs in America’s growing urban areas.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey made the latter point following the city council’s 12–1 vote approving the plan. “When you have demand that is sky-high, and you don’t have the supply to keep up with it, prices rise. Rents rise. That’s what we’re seeing,” Frey told CityLab.

Read the entire article at Reason.

Image Credit: By Cellofellow (Gadsden_flag.svg) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons