the valley builds three times more

and part of the reason starts underground.

The Valley builds about three times as many homes every year as Anchorage does. Same state, same weather, an hour apart.

Start with the dirt. The Valley sits on gravel, which is about the friendliest thing you can pour a foundation on. Anchorage got swamp and silt, steep lots, and water that has to go somewhere.

Out in the Valley, some areas ask for little more than a driveway permit. In Anchorage a set of plans can sit twenty, forty, sixty days.

One builder said everyone says they need more housing, and then they write policies that work against it.

But the city has an answer, and it's a serious one. Anchorage builds to the international code, which means somebody checks your snow load, your wind, and whether the house stays standing in an earthquake.

After the twenty eighteen earthquake, the damage rate in the less regulated country north of town ran about five times what it was in the Anchorage Bowl.

So it's cheap and fast on one side, and slow and inspected on the other.

Anchorage has already loosened some rules. Duplexes became legal in every residential district there two years ago.

The mayor wants ten thousand new homes in Anchorage over the next ten years. The Assembly takes up a rewritten zoning plan this month.