Biden's victory sounds alarm for Jenrick

摘要

No fake news: Joe Biden won it. While the outcome of the most expensive job interview in history may seem some distance removed from housing policy in the UK, the role that America's suburbs played in the veteran Democrat's victory in the race for the White House is likely to be ringing alarm bells in Downing Street right now. As in many democracies, the US progressive/ conservative divide plays out along spatial divides. In the US, the big urban areas vote Democrat and the small towns and rural places pull the lever for the Republicans. The liminal suburbs are always much tighter. This year, the presidential election pivoted on Biden squeaking the first blue majorities there since Barack Obama's win in 2008. The US-UK parallels are striking. Faced with an all too familiar list of broader housing challenges, including chronic undersupply and low affordability, the presidential candidates opted for policies that mirrored our own left/ right split. Biden offered a 5,000-word, $640bn (£476bn) shopping list of interventions targeting affordability and disadvantage: $300bn for more building; a homeowner and renter bill of rights; a $15,000 first down-payment tax credit to help families offset the costs of homebuying and vouchers for 17 million more tenants; "housing first" in federal programmes in the first 100 days of his presidency, and so on.