Allowing more home construction on smaller lots in Wisconsin would substantially drive down prices, according to a new analysis by scholars at the American Enterprise Institute.

“What we’re saying is that your biggest opportunity here is to just build at somewhat higher density,” said Ed Pinto, co-director of the AEI Housing Center.

If development since 2000 had averaged 5.9 units per acre instead of 3.5 per acre, AEI estimates, an additional 209,000 single-family houses would have been built — a 66% increase on the same amount of land.

Rich Lowry, the editor-in-chief of National Review, will offer post-election insights on conservatism’s future in Wisconsin and the nation at a breakfast buffet sponsored by the Badger Institute on Wednesday, April 16.

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But first, Lowry took a few minutes to share some initial reactions to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election, chatting with Badger Institute policy director Pat McIlheran.

Despite a much ballyhooed second line added last April, ridership on Milwaukee’s financially challenged streetcar, the Hop, last year was still nearly 30 percent below that of pre-COVID 2019.

And with the evaporation of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds that in 2022 covered nearly 65 percent of the streetcar’s operating cost, the City of Milwaukee is using Transportation Fund money to plug a $4 million hole in a $5.7 million operating budget for 2025.

The city’s Department of Public Works made up most of the streetcar’s operating deficit last year with millions diverted from revenue generated by a steep increase in parking ticket fines, as the Badger Institute reported in October.

Wisconsin drivers set a record of 68.3 billion miles driven on Wisconsin roadways in 2024, preliminary data from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration show.

Vehicle-miles of traffic, or VMT, is a measure of all miles driven within an area over a specified period.

VMT took a dramatic fall in 2020 to just 57.4 billion miles amid COVID-19 lockdowns. By 2022, however, miles driven had nearly returned to their pre-pandemic level, and in both 2023 and 2024, Wisconsin drivers were more mobile than in any previous year.

The Milwaukee Brewers notched their best season in 2011, winning 96 games.

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