Does Political Partisanship Affect Housing Supply? Evidence from US Cities

We study the relationship between housing supply and political partisanship in US cities using a new database of mayoral elections combined with local housing permits since 1980. Endogeneity of which party holds the mayoral office is addressed via a regression discontinuity design that relies on closely contested races between Republicans and Democrats. We find that partisanship has no effect on the supply of single and multifamily housing despite recent increases in extreme partisanship, corroborating that US cities follow the median voter. This indicates that solutions to housing affordability will not be dependent upon the political party in power at the local level.