Dive Brief:
- A majority of U.S. mayors in a 2025 survey believe increasing market-rate housing development can reduce housing costs in their cities. The 75% of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing with that assertion last year is an increase from 60% in 2021, according to the Menino Survey of Mayors initiated by Boston University’s Initiative on Cities.
- Among mayors surveyed, 80% say their city has too little multifamily housing, and 82% strongly support adding apartments near transit and business centers.
- Support for zoning and permitting code reforms — often seen as tools to encourage more development — is more divided. One-third of surveyed mayors say such regulations are the primary cause of high housing costs, and 48% strongly support multifamily housing by-right citywide.
Dive Insight:
Housing affordability is a top concern of local government leaders, and a growing number of cities are seeking to reform housing regulations such as zoning and building codes to kick-start development.
“In Austin, we’ve modernized our land use and reduced unnecessary regulation barriers so we can add homes where people most want to live,” Austin, Texas, Mayor Kirk Watson told researchers. “When cities lack supply, it drives up costs and undermines generational wealth. If we believe supply matters, our policies have to reflect it.”
The surveyed mayors support administrative streamlining when it comes to housing, with 70% strongly supporting giving city staff the ability to sign off on permits. More than 40% say public meetings reduce the amount of housing that gets built.
Roughly 40% of mayors cite financial issues as barriers to viable housing projects getting built. A quarter of them point to community pushback as a barrier, while 15% say permitting or zoning regulations stifle projects.
The survey found sharp divisions along party lines: 41% of Democratic mayors cite restrictive permitting and zoning regulations as major drivers of the housing crisis, compared with 5% of Republican mayors. Eighty percent of Democratic mayors also endorsed converting commercial property to housing, compared with 25% of Republican mayors. Building more apartments near transit had high approval among both parties, but Democrats expressed stronger support at 91% than Republicans with 63%.
“Mayors have the power to lead on land use reforms that could unlock the housing supply,” Katherine Levine Einstein, Menino Survey co-author and associate professor of political science at Boston University, said in a news release, “but many seem hesitant to implement some of the politically thorny policies needed to do so.”
