It took about three years to go from permit to moving in at the Denton Apartments – Boise’s largest affordable-housing development. By contrast, California leaders say they have 40,000 affordable units stuck in the pipeline. Now they’re pushing voters for another $10 billion to pay for it. But they also needed massive funding in 2018, when voters approved $6 billion in bonds for affordable housing.
But all that public funding is still not making a sufficient dent in the problem. Los Angeles has become a risky investment, according to the Los Angeles Times, which in October 2025 headlined a story: “Almost no one is building new apartments in Los Angeles.” Part of that problem stems from the city’s “mansion tax,” which also applies to apartment construction.
The numbers clearly favor development in cities using the alternative carrot strategy. Boise’s 238,000 population is one-third of Portland, Ore.’s, population of 636,000. One recent Redfin analysis found that over 13 recent months Boise issued 9,846 housing permits, or 8% more than Portland’s 9,102.
Coincidence? Seattle’s Democratic Socialist mayor Katie Wilson took office in January, and new housing permits dropped 63% since December 2025. Seattle has nearly 800,000 people – three times more than Boise – but you wouldn’t know it from its permit numbers. San Jose has nearly 1 million people, but only 6,700 new permits, 33% fewer than Boise.
And then there’s Los Angeles, which at 3.9 million has roughly 16 times more residents than Boise. The Redfin data says Los Angeles OK’d only 24,000 permits, and other sources peg it at closer to 10,000 – basically even with Boise in raw numbers.
