New Survey Examines Mayors’ Views on Housing, Policy Solutions, and Political Constraints
Mayors Increasingly Back Housing Supply, But Back Away From Policies That Would Enable It
Democratic Mayors More Supportive of Supply-Focused Reforms Than Republicans
April 1, 2026 — A new report from the Menino Survey of Mayors, based at Boston University’s Initiative on Cities, finds that a large and growing majority of U.S. mayors say increasing housing supply would reduce housing costs. Yet mayors’ support varies (often by political party) across the range of policy tools commonly proposed to expand housing production, with inconsistent backing for many of them.
The 2025 Menino Survey report, “Unlocking Housing Supply: Mayors’ Views on the Politics of Housing,” reveals mayors’ beliefs about what drives rising housing costs, the policy tools they see as most effective, and the political barriers they face when trying to build more housing. It features results from interviews conducted with 115 mayors of cities over 75,000.
“Three-quarters of US mayors now believe that building more housing will reduce prices, up from just 60% four years ago,” said Katherine Levine Einstein, Menino Survey Co-Author and Associate Professor of Political Science at Boston University. “But, far fewer are willing to consistently adopt many of the policy changes necessary to meaningfully address their communities’ supply crunch. Mayors have the power to lead on land use reforms that could unlock the housing supply, but many seem hesitant to implement some of the politically thorny policies needed to do so.”
Key Findings
More mayors now agree that supply matters for affordability. Compared with four years ago, a significantly higher proportion of mayors now agree that increasing the supply of market-rate housing will reduce housing prices in their communities.
- 75% agree or strongly agree that building more market-rate housing will reduce prices, up from 60% in 2021.
- More than half now “strongly agree,” compared with fewer than 30% in 2021.
- 74% say “not enough housing being built” is a “major cause” of rising housing costs.
- 80% report that their city has too little multifamily housing.
Mayors look to cities leading on zoning reform as models. In naming cities “doing the best job” on housing affordability, mayors mentioned 65 distinct cities. But Austin and Minneapolis rose above the rest, each cited by 15 mayors. Both cities have recently reformed their zoning to allow more housing and have increased production as a result.
Support varies across policy options to increase supply, with mayors hesitant to implement many zoning and building code reforms. While many mayors broadly back efforts to streamline housing development, support differs depending on the specific reform being considered.
- Only one-third identify zoning and permitting regulations as a primary cause of high housing costs, and just 14% point to building codes or environmental rules.
- Support for sweeping zoning changes – such as allowing multifamily housing by right in every neighborhood – is limited and sharply divided along partisan lines. While 82% of mayors strongly support expanding the number of apartments near transit and business centers, a more modest 48% strongly support multifamily by right citywide (25% somewhat support).
- Roughly 70% of mayors strongly support allowing city staff to approve permits that meet existing rules, suggesting broad backing for administrative streamlining.
Politics and financing constrain new housing. Mayors report a mix of political and financial obstacles to building more housing, including neighborhood opposition, electoral risk, and intergovernmental dynamics.
- 44% say public meetings reduce the amount of housing that gets built.
- Only 25% agree or strongly agree that such meetings attract a representative set of views, compared to 68% who disagree. Yet, a majority believe that public meetings are a good source of information about public perceptions.
- In an open-ended question open to all potential responses, 30% of mayors named housing as the main issue dividing their city.
- When asked to recall a housing project they considered both feasible and beneficial but that ultimately was not built, mayors most often cited financing and politics as the decisive barriers. Roughly 40% pointed to financing problems, 25% cited public opposition, and 15% named permitting or regulatory issues as the main factor that doomed the project.
Partisan differences are pronounced. Democratic and Republican mayors diverge sharply in their diagnoses of the housing crisis and their support for supply-focused reforms.
- 86% of Democratic mayors say not building enough housing is a major cause of price increases – nearly 50 percentage points higher than Republican mayors.
- 41% of Democratic mayors, but only 5% of Republicans, identify zoning and permitting as major drivers.
- 80% of Democratic mayors endorse converting underused commercial property to housing, compared with 25% of Republicans.
- Allowing more apartments near transit is popular across party lines, but Democrats express stronger support (91% strongly support) than Republicans (63%).
These differences complicate the narrative that high-regulation, “blue” cities are uniformly resistant to supply-side reforms.
“If people can’t afford to live here, we lose the ideas and energy that make this city special,” said Austin Mayor Kirk Watson. “The Menino Survey shows that local leaders increasingly recognize we need more housing to tackle affordability. In Austin, we’ve modernized our land use and reduced unnecessary regulation barriers so we can add homes where people most want to live. When cities lack supply, it drives up costs and undermines generational wealth. If we believe supply matters, our policies have to reflect it.”
Because local governments largely control zoning, permitting, and other land-use rules, mayors’ perceptions and policy choices play a decisive role in whether and how supply increases. The Menino Survey’s findings shed light on a critical tension in contemporary urban governance: while many mayors increasingly accept the logic that enabling more housing can help reduce costs, they confront political and institutional barriers that limit their willingness or ability to enact the reforms most often recommended by housing experts and researchers.
About the Menino Survey of Mayors
The Menino Survey of Mayors, named after the late Mayor of Boston Thomas Menino and supported by Arnold Ventures, is an annual project to understand the most pressing needs and policy priorities of America’s mayors from large and midsize (over 75,000 residents) cities. In total, 115 mayors from 37 states were interviewed throughout the summer of 2025, providing a nationally representative sample of mayors and cities.