US cities streamline zoning and permitting to spur housing

Two Pacific Northwest cities have advanced housing-supply reforms in early June: Portland, Oregon's council is weighing its RICAP 11 package of zoning-code simplifications, while Vancouver, Washington adopted a new comprehensive plan and updated zoning map on 1 June, planning for 38,000 new homes and 43,000 jobs by 2045.

The moves reflect a broadly cross-partisan US municipal trend toward upzoning and permit-streamlining as a technocratic fix for housing costs — an approach UK councils and reformers could draw on to depoliticise planning reform as code simplification rather than culture war.