How to Fix Runaway Housing Costs in Michigan

The Housing Crisis Isn’t a Mystery

It’s a systems failure. Even a machine can see that.

There is an unprecedented housing crisis in this country, and Michigan feels it keenly. Homes are not being built fast enough. Supply is constrained. Prices keep rising, and working families keep getting pushed further from stability.

None of this is subtle. It’s visible to anyone who’s tried to buy, rent, or stay put in the last few years.

What’s interesting isn’t that we have a problem.
It’s that the problem isn’t hard to describe—and it isn’t especially hard to solve.

Out of curiosity, I posed a straightforward question to an AI system: What could realistically be done, at the policy level, to address the housing shortage?

The response wasn’t utopian, ideological, or clever for its own sake. It was practical. Procedural. The kind of answer you’d expect from someone tasked with fixing a system instead of winning an argument.

That alone is worth noticing—and it should also be encouraging.

The Real Issue: The Pipe Is Clogged

Housing is often discussed as if it were a force of nature—too much demand, not enough supply, shrug accordingly.

That explanation is incomplete.

What we’re actually dealing with is a supply pipeline failure, caused by human-made constraints:

• Permits that take months (or years) without clear timelines
• Zoning rules that forbid modest, common-sense housing
• Infrastructure that arrives late, if at all
• Financing that favors large players and sidelines local builders
• A construction workforce that’s aging out faster than it’s being replaced

These aren’t mysteries. They’re bottlenecks.

And bottlenecks, once identified, can be removed.

What Could Be Done (Without Reinventing Civilization)

None of the following requires sweeping ideology or emergency powers. Most of it already exists elsewhere, in other sectors, functioning quietly.

Tie Infrastructure Funding to Housing Production

If federal dollars can be conditioned on safety standards and reporting requirements, they can also be tied to reasonable housing approval timelines—especially where utilities already exist.

Allow “Missing Middle” Housing by Right

Duplexes, ADUs, and small multifamily buildings used to be normal. They still are—except where rules prohibit them. Allowing them again increases supply without turning neighborhoods into science experiments.

Back Small Builders, Not Just Big Developers

Large firms have capital. Local builders often don’t. Loan guarantees and streamlined financing for small, infill, or modular projects would unlock housing quickly and locally.

Pre-Approve Modular and Manufactured Homes

Standard designs reduce uncertainty, speed permits, and lower costs. Michigan, in particular, is well suited for this approach.

Build Infrastructure First

Builders won’t build without water, sewer, power, and access. Cities won’t extend infrastructure without committed builders. Someone has to move first. That someone can be government.

Shine a Light on Land Banking and Vacancy

No bans required. No rhetoric needed. Just data. Sunlight has a way of clarifying conversations—and good policy tends to follow.

Rebuild the Construction Workforce

Apprenticeships, trade education, veteran pipelines, and targeted skilled-trade visas aren’t controversial ideas. They’re how things used to work—when we expected systems to sustain themselves.

This Isn’t About AI Being “Smart”

The machine didn’t invent these ideas. It didn’t have an agenda.

It simply looked at constraints, incentives, and outcomes—and connected dots without worrying about whose toes might get stepped on.

If a publicly available tool can outline credible, balanced solutions in a few minutes, then the real shortage isn’t insight.

It’s decision-making.

Closing Thought

AI shouldn’t run governments. But it can remind us what functional thinking looks like.

When problems persist not because they’re unsolvable, but because no one wants to touch the levers, the system isn’t broken—it’s stalled.

And stalled systems don’t fix themselves.

They wait for adults to show up—and then they move surprisingly fast.

Competence, it turns out, still matters.