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04/06/2026 | News release | Distributed by Public on 04/06/2026 21:44

BU’s Initiative on Cities Latest Menino Survey of Mayors Focuses on Housing Affordability Crisis

BU's Initiative on Cities Latest Menino Survey of Mayors Focuses on Housing Affordability Crisis

A housing development in Austin, Texas. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson told the Menino Survey that the city has changed land-use policies and reduced regulation to allow more construction. Photo via iStock/halbergman

Initiative on Cities

BU's Initiative on Cities Latest Menino Survey of Mayors Focuses on Housing Affordability Crisis

Survey finds more mayors understand the problem, but roadblocks to change remain

April 6, 2026
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A growing majority of mayors in America's cities recognize the need to build more housing to solve the affordability crisis, but there are still obstacles to change, according to the latest Menino Survey of Mayors conducted by Boston University's Initiative on Cities.

The 2025 Menino Survey, released April 1, surveyed 115 mayors of US cities of more than 75,000 residents and found that 75 percent agree or strongly agree that building more housing will lower prices. But political and structural obstacles remain.

"Three-quarters of US mayors now believe that building more housing will reduce prices, up from just 60 percent four years ago," says survey coauthor Katherine Levine Einstein, a College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of political science. "But far fewer are willing to adopt many of the policy changes necessary to meaningfully address their communities' supply crunch."

Einstein wrote the report with BU colleagues David M. Glick, a CAS professor of political science, and Maxwell Palmer, a CAS associate professor of political science.

Political scientists Maxwell Palmer (from left), David Glick, and Katherine Levine Einstein say big-city mayors shun higher office because of its hard-edged partisanship. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

The mayors reported a mix of political and financial obstacles to building more housing, including neighborhood opposition, electoral politics, and onerous local permitting processes.

Some of those obstacles are more pronounced in Democrat-led cities, which tend to have more restrictive building and zoning codes and more citizen input. Ironically, Democratic mayors are also more inclined to agree that lack of housing supply drives up costs-85 percent to just 60 percent for Republican mayors.

Some 79 Democratic mayors and 20 Republican mayors responded to the survey, which Einstein says matches the proportion among mayors of the 523 cities meeting the criteria.

"Relative to even two years ago, Democratic mayors seem to be much more aware that they are underbuilding housing and that failing to build enough housing is connected with our housing crisis," Einstein says. "Their willingness to adopt some of the more aggressive policy solutions lags behind their overall understanding of the housing crisis."

Still, there seems to be more consensus behind pragmatic approaches, including allowing more apartments near train stations, bus routes, and job centers; allowing city staff to approve new housing permits that comply with all existing housing rules (instead of onerous public approval processes), and allowing underused commercial properties such as strip malls or parking lots to be converted to housing.

When the mayors were asked what cities are modeling progressive approaches to housing, Austin and Minneapolis led the list, with 15 mentions each. Both have successfully revamped their zoning codes to increase housing production.

"If people can't afford to live here, we lose the ideas and energy that make this city special," said Austin Mayor Kirk Watson. "In Austin, we've modernized our land use and reduced unnecessary regulation barriers so we can add homes where people most want to live.

"If we believe supply matters, our policies have to reflect it," Watson said.

But while there is "relatively more room for optimism" than in previous years, Einstein says, other ideas are still difficult for many mayors. These include an end to single-family zoning, as in Oregon, and standardizing building codes at the state level, which would reduce local control.

Contentious development processes with vocal opponents also slow support. One stark insight from the study: 44 percent of mayors say public meetings reduce the amount of housing that gets built, and only a quarter say such meetings attract people with views that are representative of their community.

Different versions of a national housing bill have passed the US House of Representatives and the US Senate in Washington, D.C., in recent months. Both versions support zoning reforms and accelerated environmental review. Both also have a surprising amount of bipartisan support on a divided Capitol Hill, where legislators know that affordability could be an important issue for midterm voters. But it's not clear if or when a bill will become law.

Disagreements slowing passage are primarily over a section of the Senate bill that restricts institutional investors from buying more single-family homes.

"There are different understandings of who the key villains are in the housing crisis," Einstein says. "So one of the questions we asked the mayors was, what do you see as the key causes of the housing crisis? At the local level, there's a widespread and growing understanding that the key villain is our failure to build enough housing.

"There's disagreement about how big of a problem that sort of corporate ownership of housing is in the housing crisis," she says. "We are still hotly contesting that within the Democratic Party-what is the key cause of the housing crisis, and sort of what the major policy solution is. Economics research really clearly shows that the biggest problem is our failure to build enough."

The Menino Survey, named after the late Mayor of Boston Thomas Menino (Hon.'01), is supported by Arnold Ventures. The full report, "Unlocking Housing Supply: Mayors' Views on the Politics of Housing," is available at https://www.surveyofmayors.com.

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