Mayor Johnson is stepping up, declaring 2026 the “Year of Housing” and, among other can-do initiatives, launching a “Raze & Revive” program to replace dilapidated buildings with new residential construction.
Uh-oh, check that.
The mayor behind “Raze & Revive” is Cavalier Johnson, the dynamic leader of Milwaukee. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has done a lot of griping about housing affordability, just like his counterparts in Springfield, but we’re not seeing the construction boom Chicago badly needs to help a population under stress.
Last year, economists at the usually upbeat Realtor.com predicted how long it will take for the U.S. housing market to recover from decades of underbuilding. Nationwide, they said, more than seven years. In the Midwest? Forty-one years. Ouch!
The Chicago area does not have that kind of time.
Consider last week’s earnings results from H.R. Horton, one of America’s biggest homebuilders, with properties all around Chicagoland. Revenues have been under pressure for a couple of years now, and last week this bellwether company lowered its expectations for the rest of its fiscal 2026. Like other homebuilders, Horton is treading cautiously in a tricky business environment.
Costs have shot up in recent years, for everything from building materials and buildable lots to skilled labor. The Donald Trump administration’s trade wars contributed to those higher costs. Another big pressure point stems from a shortage of workers, as tighter immigration enforcement exacerbates labor shortages in construction. Further, workers in some areas can make more money building data centers and other highly valued projects instead of housing developments.
The housing shortage already is having unwanted knock-on effects.
The city has long attracted fresh college graduates, an important source of economic dynamism. These days, youthful grads are finding it harder to climb the property ladder from shared apartments to home ownership. The lack of housing opportunities stands to weaken growth. It also could encourage voters to back candidates with more extreme ideas for reducing the cost of living.
The solution is simple to say, but hard to do: Chicago needs to get building again.
Having heard loud complaints from constituents, federal lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a sweeping effort to boost the housing supply. We cringed at the thought of Congress taking its usual ham-handed approach to decisions that are almost always better made locally.
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To our surprise, Congress came up with a decent plan to reward communities that streamline permitting, modernize land-use rules and otherwise make it easier to build housing. By leveraging federal funding, the bill provides a big incentive to reform old-fashioned regulations and encourage more building.
One Mayor Johnson seems to have got the message. The other still needs to rise to the occasion.
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