A common theme amongst investors and developers is that they hate uncertainty. It is possibly the biggest driving force in their decision making. Local politicians are mostly to blame for this uncertainty. Uncertainty stops progress.

The short election cycles encourage most politicians to espouse some sort of radical agenda, often proposing policies to appeal to a relatively small group to buy votes. Many of these policy suggestions may be well intentioned, but usually they are devoid of any practical thinking. Usually they ignore data, facts and precedence. There is nothing worse than being dead right....but dead. Investors listen to all this stuff, and what do they do before taking on the risk of a big, expensive real estate investment? They pause. They wait. And often they seek out opportunities elsewhere with less risk.

If we want to build more and provide more affordable options at all levels, we have to make this economically viable for the people doing the developing and building. It is really that simple. If we don't, we cannot complain. Many towns, cities and states have attempted to put politics aside and bring together all parties to find efficient, rational, practical, clearly defined policies and procedures to address all of housing's big challenges. This has to be done collaboratively and with urgency, as it has been neglected for too long.

Yes, there is a happy medium between destroying neighborhoods and overwhelming infrastructure and building nothing, allowing housing costs for consumers to soar, leaving too many without a home. Suburbs, towns and cities can only function efficiently if all those who comprise that local economy are housed, preferably avoiding those 2-hour commutes that erode spending power, hours on the job and prevents a healthy home environment for a family to thrive. Few hate the office/workplace: most hate a long commute. Affordability is not merely an issue for the poor: it impacts the vast majority of people....and voters