We fix the world’s housing problems by pursuing three goals together: build enough homes where people need them, ensure people with low incomes can afford decent housing, and improve unsafe or inadequate homes that already exist. Supply reform, public investment, and household assistance are complements—not competing ideologies. That combination is broadly consistent with the policy frameworks of the OECD, World Bank, and urban-development researchers. [oecd](https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2021/05/brick-by-brick_eb010639/b453b043-en.pdf)
My central principle would be **affordability**: judge housing policy by whether people can obtain a safe, stable home near work and services—not by whether property prices keep rising.
Here is the economic and planning framework I would use.
## 1. Recognize that there is more than one housing crisis
A worldwide strategy needs common principles but different local priorities.
| Housing problem | Main policy priority |
|—|—|
| Expensive cities with insufficient homes | Allow more construction, provide infrastructure, and expand affordable rental housing |
| Informal settlements without reliable services | Upgrade water, sanitation, drainage, housing safety, and tenure security |
| Low-income households unable to afford available housing | Provide targeted assistance and subsidized housing |
| Deteriorating or poorly located housing | Renovate existing homes and improve connections to jobs and services |
| Housing exposed to flooding, extreme heat, or other hazards | Retrofit, plan safer development, and relocate where risks cannot reasonably be reduced |
These distinctions matter: an additional apartment does not solve a household’s lack of income, and a mortgage subsidy does not provide sanitation to an informal settlement. OECD and World Bank research treats finance, land, infrastructure, housing quality, and affordability as interconnected but distinct problems. [oecd](https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2021/05/brick-by-brick_eb010639/b453b043-en.pdf)
## 2. Make it legal—and practical—to build more homes
In supply-constrained cities, I would replace discretionary, project-by-project bargaining with clear development rules:
- Allow duplexes, townhouses, small apartment buildings, and secondary suites across more residential neighbourhoods.
- Permit greater density around transit, employment centres, and existing services.
- Establish predictable approval deadlines and a single coordinated permitting process.
- Retain safety, accessibility, and environmental requirements while removing rules that unnecessarily restrict housing types.
The important distinction is between regulating the quality of development and preventing development. More flexible zoning and faster approvals can unlock housing, but planning reform needs financing and infrastructure alongside it. [penniur.upenn](https://penniur.upenn.edu/publications/expert-voices-2025-access-to-sustainable-and-affordable-housing)
I would not make every neighbourhood a high-rise district. The aim is a wider range of homes, including modest-sized dwellings that use expensive land more efficiently. [brookings](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/to-improve-housing-affordability-we-need-better-alignment-of-zoning-taxes-and-subsidies/)
## 3. Fund infrastructure before promising housing growth
Permission to build is not the same as a buildable site.
Housing plans should be paired with funded water, sewer, drainage, transport, and other necessary services. In rapidly growing cities, making serviced land available is a central part of making housing possible—not a secondary concern. [openknowledge.worldbank](https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/80fdbaa4-4ce0-5681-830a-ad3eeb636532)
My recommended funding model would combine:
- National or regional infrastructure investment.
- Local contributions tied transparently to actual infrastructure needs.
- Recovery of some land-value gains created by public investment.
- Long-term financing appropriate to the useful life of infrastructure.
Land-value capture means recovering part of the increase in land value produced by public decisions or infrastructure and using it to fund public benefits, including affordable housing. It is one way to avoid leaving the public with all the costs while landowners receive all the gains. [penniur.upenn](https://penniur.upenn.edu/publications/expert-voices-2025-access-to-sustainable-and-affordable-housing)
## 4. Build a permanent affordable-housing sector
Private construction is necessary, but it cannot replace assistance for households whose incomes cannot cover adequate housing costs. OECD policy recommendations therefore include both removing supply bottlenecks and investing in affordable and social housing. [oecd](https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2021/05/brick-by-brick_eb010639/b453b043-en.pdf)
I would expand a mix of:
- Public housing.
- Non-profit rental housing.
- Housing cooperatives.
- Community land trusts.
- Privately delivered housing with enforceable, long-term affordability conditions.
Community land trusts retain ownership of land and use arrangements such as long-term leases and resale restrictions to preserve affordability. That helps keep a public or charitable investment benefiting successive households rather than just its first recipient. [weforum](https://www.weforum.org/stories/urban-transformation/global-housing-crisis-practical-solutions/)
My preferred rule: when public land or substantial public subsidy supports a project, secure durable public value. Contracts should clearly specify affordability, maintenance, eligibility, and what happens if the provider sells or fails.
Operating and maintenance budgets matter as much as the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
## 5. Help people immediately—but avoid simply bidding up prices
People cannot wait years for new construction. Targeted rental assistance and other income supports should bridge the gap between what vulnerable households can pay and what adequate housing costs. However, those measures need to accompany supply expansion. [oecd](https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2021/01/building-for-a-better-tomorrow-policies-to-make-housing-more-affordable_51f68a86/5d9127d4-en.pdf)
I would be much more cautious about broad homebuyer grants, mortgage tax breaks, or easier borrowing in markets with limited supply. OECD research warns that generous ownership subsidies can increase demand and raise prices rather than solve the underlying shortage. [oecd](https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-economic-surveys-netherlands-2025_2dd1f4aa-en/full-report/towards-a-more-accessible-and-sustainable-housing-market_84a37526.html)
The distinction is:
- Targeted assistance protects people who need help now.
- Supply investment improves the options available over time.
- Broad purchasing subsidies can make households better able to bid without making homes more plentiful.
The goal should be secure housing, whether rented, cooperative, or owned—not homeownership at any financial cost.
## 6. Protect tenants without making rental provision unworkable
A functioning rental system should provide stability for tenants and a viable basis for financing and maintaining buildings.
My recommended package would include clear leases, enforceable maintenance standards, protection against arbitrary eviction, accessible dispute resolution, and carefully designed rent stabilization where appropriate. OECD research recognizes the protection rent controls can provide, while also warning that poorly calibrated restrictions can discourage investment or worsen allocation. The effects depend on the policy’s design and the surrounding market. [oecd](https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2021/01/building-for-a-better-tomorrow-policies-to-make-housing-more-affordable_51f68a86/5d9127d4-en.pdf)
This is not a choice between “landlords can do anything” and “freeze every rent forever.” Protect existing residents while ensuring that new rental homes can be built and existing ones maintained.
## 7. Upgrade informal settlements—not just replace them
For much of the world, housing reform is about reliable services, safer structures, and protection against losing one’s home.
Where feasible, I would prioritize improvement in place:
- Safe water and sanitation.
- Drainage and flood protection.
- Safer access and transport connections.
- Incremental structural improvements.
- Resolution of land-rights disputes and more secure tenure.
- Financing that lets residents improve homes progressively.
World Bank work identifies in-place upgrading, serviced sites, land readjustment, and redevelopment as different tools; relocation is an option when other approaches cannot address the problem. Its housing programmes also emphasize community planning, infrastructure, and tenure together. [documents1.worldbank](https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099111023105529602/pdf/P174764054bcca05b0843c06b4a68c48f08.pdf)
My planning preference would be to involve residents from the outset and preserve their access to livelihoods. A technically better building is not a successful solution if its location makes daily life unaffordable.
## 8. Improve construction productivity—and preserve usable homes
We should pursue lower construction costs through repeatable designs, better procurement, workforce training, and appropriate prefabricated or modular methods. The European Investment Bank identifies construction productivity, regulatory reform, and financing as complementary parts of the affordability response. [eib](https://www.eib.org/en/stories/housing-crisis-solutions-europe)
But I would not bet the strategy on one technology. Modular construction is a tool, not a substitute for affordable land, infrastructure, approvals, or financing.
Existing homes also deserve investment. Renovation, insulation, passive cooling, and other upgrades can improve housing quality, reduce household energy costs, and strengthen resilience. Housing should be assessed by its ongoing cost and suitability—not just its purchase price. [wri](https://www.wri.org/insights/how-solve-worlds-housing-crisis)
## 9. Change incentives around land and public investment
I would review tax systems that favour property accumulation while doing too little to encourage useful housing provision.
Priorities would include examining ownership tax advantages, the treatment of expensive underused land, and whether publicly created land-value gains help finance housing and infrastructure. OECD and Brookings analyses connect these incentives to affordability and land use. [oecd](https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2021/05/brick-by-brick_eb010639/b453b043-en.pdf)
Vacancy measures and short-term-rental regulation can also be useful where those uses materially reduce available housing, but they belong within a broader policy mix. They are not replacements for construction, social housing, and tenant protection. [world-habitat](https://world-habitat.org/blog/why-housing-became-so-unaffordable-and-how-to-fix-it/)
My test for an intervention would be simple: does it improve access to homes, or merely punish an unpopular category of owner without changing the shortage?
## 10. Put delivery and accountability ahead of announcements
My proposed implementation sequence would be:
| Period | Main priorities |
|—|—|
| First year | Diagnose local needs; protect vulnerable households; identify serviced land and infrastructure constraints; simplify approvals; fund urgent repairs |
| Years 1–3 | Expand affordable-housing programmes; finance infrastructure; establish a predictable construction pipeline; begin settlement upgrading and workforce development |
| Years 3–10 | Sustain construction and renovation; extend transport and services; preserve affordability; revise programmes using measured results |
These are planning horizons, not a promise that every country can solve its shortage on the same timetable.
I would publish a housing dashboard tracking:
- Completed and occupied homes—not merely announcements.
- Housing costs relative to household income.
- Affordable-housing availability and waiting times.
- Homelessness, overcrowding, and displacement.
- Access to water, sanitation, jobs, and transport.
- Approval times, construction costs, and building condition.
The OECD’s housing database similarly separates market conditions, housing quality and affordability, and public policy—because a single headline figure cannot describe whether a housing system is working. [oecd](https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/oecd-affordable-housing-database.html)
## The hardest issue is political
Here is the trade-off governments should acknowledge openly: improving affordability cannot depend on homes becoming more expensive faster than people’s incomes.
My preferred objective would not be a sudden property crash. It would be a sustained improvement in the relationship between housing costs and household incomes, while expanding safe and stable options for people currently excluded.
That requires governments to stop treating rising property values as the principal measure of housing success. It also requires accepting more homes in established communities, funding infrastructure, and maintaining long-term support for households the market cannot adequately serve.
The practical strategy is neither “leave everything to developers” nor “have government build everything.” It is to give private builders a predictable path to produce homes, give public and non-profit providers the resources to maintain lasting affordability, and give residents protection and assistance where needed. That combined approach addresses both the shortage of suitable housing and the unequal ability to pay for it. [oecd](https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2021/05/brick-by-brick_eb010639/b453b043-en.pdf)