Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:41, and sunset is 8:21, for 14h 39m 26s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 67.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1775, the office that would later become the United States Post Office Department is established by the Second Continental Congress. Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania takes office as Postmaster General.
Genevieve Redsten reports Wisconsin isn’t building new housing fast enough, Policy Forum report finds:
Home prices and rents have surged statewide since the pandemic, and relief isn’t coming fast enough.
That’s according to a report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum, which found that despite pushes from lawmakers — and strong demand from homebuyers and renters alike — Wisconsin still isn’t building enough new housing.
Since the Great Recession kneecapped the state’s homebuilding industry, Wisconsin hasn’t added enough new apartments, condos and single-family homes to keep up with demand, which in turn has pushed prices up. And after a surge in construction in the early days of the pandemic, homebuilding has stagnated, the report found.
The soaring cost of housing “is a glaring indicator that the state’s housing inventory remains insufficient to meet demand,” the report said.
The answer to this demand is more supply. All the rest is bad economics and bad public policy.
World’s largest platypus conservation center opens in Australia: