Now that he’s won reelection, maybe Gov. Deval Patrick can take a break from his drive to put a wind turbine on every corner, and instead face up to the biggest economic challenge facing the Bay State.

Simply put, it costs too much to build here, whether it’s a single-family home or a new factory. And those high costs – reflected in middle class homeowners priced out of suburban towns and businesses forced to relocate – are slowly but surely putting a stranglehold on the state’s economy.

Given the lack of attention given to the topic during the campaign, I would say I am not too hopeful of a sudden burst of attention on this issue.

Emboldened rather than chastened by his hard-fought victory over Republican Charlie Baker, the governor is more likely to go further off the green end.

But the core problem – entrenched NIMBY attitudes among local officials throwing every zoning rule in the book to stop new construction – is only getting worse.

“It is getting extremely difficult to be economically feasible and build homes and condominiums in the commonwealth,” Judy Jenkins, past president of the Home Builders Association of Massachusetts, told me. “I honestly don’t understand why there is a part of our population that thinks this is a good thing.”

Short-Term Fix

Sure, the state dodged a bullet with the defeat of Question 2. Championed by angry suburban NIMBYs, the ballot question would have pulled the plug on Chapter 40B – the Bay State’s decades-old affordable housing law – and put into jeopardy plans for 12,000 new apartments and condos across the state.

But all that did was prevent an immediate disaster – not solve the long-term problem.

Despite a real estate downturn that has been dragging on for five years and counting, Greater Boston home prices are still out of reach for many buyers.

After one last burst in the 1980s, new home construction across the Boston area has fallen off a cliff, with builders facing a myriad of evermore clever restrictions by towns striving to zone out new housing development in a short-sighted attempt to keep school costs down.

That means, downturn or no downturn, there is a perpetual shortage of middle-class, single-family housing. In fact, we have the bizarre phenomenon of bidding wars over new and reasonably priced homes in towns like Concord and Needham – all amid one of the gloomiest real estate market in decades.

What happened?

From 1960 to 1975, the size of the Greater Boston housing market rose 27 percent, according to a recent report by Harvard’s Rappaport Institute examining the bewildering array of building obstructions erected by local officials.

But from 1990 to 2006, the local housing market expanded by a relatively paltry 9 percent.

And with new home construction having all but ground to a halt over the past couple years, it’s unlikely we have seen any significant growth since then.

The shortage, in turn, has kept home prices artificially high. Boston-area home prices, compared to the rest of the country, have experienced only a relatively shallow 15 to 20 percent drop from their bubble years peak.

While it may seem perverse to talk about this now, it’s the perfect set-up for yet another housing price bubble once the economy gets rolling again. If you thought 2005 was over the top, just wait until 2015.

Upping The Ante

But it’s not just the homebuilders who are an endangered species in our increasingly high-cost, elitist state.

It’s no picnic for commercial developers either, who face a daunting local and state approval process as they attempt to forge ahead with new office and retail projects.

That ups the ante – and costs – for companies as they look to expand.

Not only that, they also have to shell out higher wages to their employees, who are stuck trying to rent or buy in one of the nation’s priciest housing markets.

No wonder it’s a battle to keep companies here, with the Patrick administration having to dole out millions in economic development subsidies to either keep companies from bolting or attract a few trendy new employers.

What did Patrick’s campaign have to say about the housing mess we are in?

Well I did find this press statement put out last November by the Patrick folks, as home sales temporarily surged thanks to billions in federal homebuyer tax credits.

“The housing numbers are another early sign that an economic recovery is underway in the Bay State, as Governor Patrick continues to make the smart investments that will spur long-term economic growth and new job opportunities.”

Great news – case closed!

To be fair, Patrick did do some nice work streamlining state regulations early in his first term. And frankly, I would be writing much the same column if Baker had won.

We’ve had two Republican governors in recent years – Paul Cellucci and Mitt Romney – and neither did much more than pay lip service to this issue.

That said, Patrick has a chance to start all over here and get religion. My fear, though, is that we are in for more happy talk about green jobs, wind turbines and solar panels – and few serious ideas on what should be done to rein in perpetually inflated home prices and halt the steady erosion of the state’s middle class.n