![](https://housingandclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Housing-crunch.jpg)
Since the early 20th century, the Legislature has let individual municipalities thwart housing. Now the consequences threaten the Commonwealth’s future. A little more than a century ago, Massachusetts voters approved a constitutional amendment that gave the Legislature a far-reaching new power in the seemingly humdrum question of where to build houses and what type to build.