The Austin metro area led the nation in housing permits in 2022, permitting 18 new homes for every 1,000 residents. Los Angeles’s and San Francisco’s metro areas permitted only 2.5 units per 1,000 residents.31 In our political typologies, it is liberals who embrace change and conservatives who cling to stasis. But that is not how things work when you compare red-state and blue-state housing policies.
