Everyone within this nation, needs to have a physical place to live in, and in consideration, of the massive income disparity of the population within America, it would behoove State as well as the Federal government to make it their point and principle to be more forthright in dealing with this all important issue. For instance, the Federal government has all sorts of rules and regulations that are applicable to all sorts of businesses throughout this nation, that thereby supersede local and community desires for control; so that it therefore seems surprising, how much local and county control that there is in regards to housing within communities. While, one can understand the mindset for rules and regulations so being contemplated and subsequently passed by local or county legislatures that address the need for having a certain percentage of undeveloped land, or to limit a particular percentage of land to a particular use, or to preclude land ever being used for certain industries, of which, on paper at least, all of this seems reasonable and sensible. The problem though, is that when each locality is able to impose what they will or will not accept in regards to the housing in their particular domain, that this without a doubt, drives up the price of future housing within those communities, while also helping to subsidy or to augment those that are already home owners within those neighborhoods, by virtue of the fact that when supply is limited, and/or additional rules and regulations are effected which impacts adversely the costs so associated with building future housing; than those that already own, are effectively protected from any sort of oversupply or anticipated adverse actions negatively impacting their home investment.
The additional problem to this, is the issue of "not in my neighborhood," of which when localities make a determination that they will not accept housing less than a certain amount of square footage, or that they will not accept high density housing, or that they will not accept apartment dwellings within their community, than they have categorically and deliberately eliminated a significant percentage of Americans from being able to live within their communities. This thus signifies, that what is actually so occurring, is that these communities are consciously precluding people that they consider to be "suspect" or undesirable, from becoming members of their community, under the belief that by blocking these people from their neighborhood, that their own quality of life, will be better and more secure.
The upshot of these limitations upon housing, so imposed by local and county communities, is that developers are thereby limited to developing high density housing and apartments only in those areas of communities that are prone to accept such; typically because those communities are amendable to any sort of investment that they can so garner within them. Additionally, this also serves to segregate the poor from those that have money, and thereby consistently creates ghettos of poverty, which thereby typically results in the negative issues and the downward spirals so created by that concentrated poverty. Still unresolved, though, is that none of this substantially addresses the real need for more affordable housing, because the effective pricing of that housing so being constructed, and the short supply of such, still ends up by consuming too much of the income of those that need housing, and of which the good options for those that are impoverished, are sorely lacking.