Example Image
Civitas Outlook
Topic
Pursuit of Happiness
Published on
Mar 10, 2025
Contributors
Joel Kotkin
Photo by Maximillian Conacher on Unspash

How Federal Lands Can Be Used to Ease the Housing Crisis

Contributors
Joel Kotkin
Joel Kotkin
Senior Research Fellow
Joel Kotkin
Summary
To create affordable homes on federal lands, the federal government shouldn’t sell lands for development — it should lease them.
Summary
To create affordable homes on federal lands, the federal government shouldn’t sell lands for development — it should lease them.
Listen to this article

Next to inflation, Americans ranked housing as their top financial concern in a Gallup survey last May. Since then, it’s gotten only worse. January home sales were down 5 percent from last year’s dismal numbers. Record numbers of first-time buyers are stuck on the sidelines as housing affordability stands at its lowest level in 40 years.

President Trump must follow through on his campaign pledge “to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction.”

The housing market depends largely on interest rates and zoning — factors outside any president’s direct control. But the massive federal land portfolio gives middle- and lower-income Americans a better shot at homeownership. The federal government is the nation’s biggest landowner, holding one-third of all property — a land mass six times the size of California.

Continue reading at The Hill

10:13
1x
10:13
More articles

The Enduring Promise of America

Pursuit of Happiness
Jun 30, 2026

No, the Declaration of Independence Did Not Reject Executive Power

Politics
Jun 30, 2026
View all

Join the newsletter

Receive new publications, news, and updates from the Civitas Institute.

Sign up
More on

Pursuit of Happiness

The Rise of Latino America

In The Rise of Latino America, Hernandez & Kotkin argue that Latinos, who are projected to become America’s largest ethnic group, are a dynamic force shaping the nation’s demographic, economic, and cultural future. Far from being a marginalized group defined by oppression, Latinos are integral to America’s story. They drive economic growth, cultural evolution, and workforce vitality. Challenges, however, including poverty, educational disparities, and restrictive policies, threaten their upward mobility. Policymakers who wish to harness Latino potential to ensure national prosperity and resilience should adopt policies that prioritize affordability, safety, and economic opportunity over ideological constraints.

Joel Kotkin, Jennifer Hernandez, Wendell Cox, Marshall Toplansky, Erika Ozuna
Pursuit of Happiness
Nov 10, 2025
Revival: Americans Heading Back to the Hinterlands

Smaller communities throughout the country are poised to play an outsize role in forging our future.

Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox
Pursuit of Happiness
Sep 19, 2025
How to Save Our Urban Centers

What will the future of American cities look like?

Joel Kotkin
Pursuit of Happiness
Jun 26, 2025
National Poll from Civitas Institute: Americans Concerned About AI, Economic Issues

The Civitas Institute Poll, conducted from March 11-20, 2025, asked 1,200 Americans an array of questions about how things are going in the country.

Daron Shaw
Pursuit of Happiness
Jun 11, 2025
Peter Robinson Unbridled - A Civitas Institute Podcast

Peter Robinson Unbridled

A new show and podcast bringing the energy of Austin to wide-ranging conversations on politics, economics, education, and culture.

View all
** items
The Enduring Promise of America

Joel Kotkin
Pursuit of Happiness
Jun 30, 2026
Art of the New Deal

Richard M. Reinsch II
Pursuit of Happiness
Jun 29, 2026
Retiring the Nutty Professor

Joel Kotkin
Pursuit of Happiness
Jun 22, 2026
An Allegiance to Ghosts

Richard M. Reinsch II
Pursuit of Happiness
May 22, 2026

Constitutional Experts Expose the Untold Truth Behind Deep Political Division

Pursuit of Happiness
Jun 29, 2026
1:05

AEI’s “America at 250” Summer Series: We Hold These Truths

Pursuit of Happiness
Jun 22, 2026
1:05

Robert George and Cornel West - Truth Matters, A Book Talk

Pursuit of Happiness
Sep 26, 2025
1:05

Arthur Brooks on the Secret to a Fulfilling Life

Pursuit of Happiness
Jul 7, 2025
1:05

Populism Unpacked: Voices from the Heartland

Pursuit of Happiness
Mar 4, 2025
1:05
No items found.
No items found.
The Declaration Is a Metaphysical and Political Triumph

It is the nature of genuinely lasting great texts that we observe new things in them that fit our moment.

Brian Smith
Pursuit of Happiness
Jun 17, 2026
Gordon S. Wood's American Revolution

Widely acknowledged as the pre-eminent historian of the American Founding in our time, Wood was virtually without peer within academic American history today.

Steven Hayward
Pursuit of Happiness
Jun 11, 2026
Gordon Wood Told the Truth About America

Gordon Wood showed us that a great historian could also be a regular guy.

Wilfred McClay
Pursuit of Happiness
Jun 11, 2026
The Active Dead

Helprin’s refusal to flatter the tastes of our prize-encrusted literary establishment merits three cheers from thinking people on the right.

Lee Oser
Pursuit of Happiness
Jun 5, 2026
No items found.