by Megan McArdle.
most people really don’t like living in high rises, or near poor people, and that the legal revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s have allowed affluent elites to make those wishes come true, at the expense of everyone else.
by Megan McArdle.
most people really don’t like living in high rises, or near poor people, and that the legal revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s have allowed affluent elites to make those wishes come true, at the expense of everyone else.
legal revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s have allowed affluent elites to make those wishes come true
Should we bring back rent control? That might have an impact!!
The primary problem of libertarians complaining about local governments not allowing more house building is they forget who runs local governments. Local governments are run by LONG TIME HOMEOWNERS so if we want to change building permits we have to win LOCAL HOMEOWNERS. (And don’t liberetarians like the economic elite running local governments?) Frankly, I don’t see why the homeowners slowing down building permits are any worse than patented drug company charging high prices.
Also, I wish (especially libertarians) commenators would separate political and economic elites. Often their interest align but not always. So that is one way you get Trump….He complains about politicans supporting China outsourcing when it is economic elite (Koch, Apple, etc) that are making the decisions to outsource.
“most people really don’t like living in high rises, or near poor people”
The #1 way to make housing in cities like DC, SF, and NYC more affordable is to remove poor minorities. This wouldn’t even require force (beyond removing squatters that don’t pay their rent), simply take away their welfare and local political machines.
Any look at the real estate and demographic composition of any major city will reveal that immigration and race are intimately tied up in our real estate crises. Instead of tackling that let’s try to destroy the home values of some middle class people.
Realize these cities, NY, SF, LA, and DC are not hit by high crime anymore and the welfare has greatly diminished here. This ain’t the 1970s or 1980s anymore. That said:
1) In the case of LA, removing minorities would be 40 – 50% of the population and really they are the hard working class families in the area. (In the case of SF, the minority population is much more limited and heavily towards Asian-Americans which are heavy in LA area as well.)
2) Doesn’t Texas have a high minority population growth and that state does not have a welfare political machine?
3) Unfortunately this election appears to be the Democrats moving towards minority/college educated voters vs Republicans focusing on white working class voters. (I believe this has been the movement since 2000 but HRC/Democrat and Trump/Republican has accelerated this reality in 2016.)
Crime has come down since the 1970s, but its still a lot higher then 1960. Of course when you breakout real estate values by neighborhood its clear that people are avoiding minority neighborhoods for a reason, they obviously don’t think its safe. Fights over school districting reveal similar knowledge.
IMO, just look at the value of land under NAMs and compare to similar land under whites. The difference in value represents some of the negative externalities of the NAMs. The economic loss is huge. You can run the numbers yourself, the data is out there.
Texas whites have been kind enough to vote 70% Republican, which keeps a lid on things. Also, many of its Hispanics are not yet voting age. Eventually the horde will overtake them and set up machines like the one we see in Baltimore.
The best way to make housing more affordable is to allow new housing construction on the peripheries of cities. Right now, the much-lamented “unaffordable” cities all forbid the construction of new housing– not high-density housing which nobody wants anyway (neither the proposed residents nor the proposed neighbors/victims actually desire high-rise housing), but low- to medium-density housing on peripheral land. Those restrictions are pure rent-seeking. They transfer the value of land outside the urban growth boundaries to land within it, enriching downtown speculators while impoverishing everyone else. The best thing about removing restrictions on suburban growth would be that it wouldn’t harm any existing neighborhoods, so the NIMBY problem would be very small. All “densification” schemes (including TOD, infill, high-rise housing projects, etc.) line the pockets of big developers and their kept politicians while hurting current homeowners.
Then tell me how you are going to convince the voters in Irvine, CA (up scale Orange County suburb with lots of homeowners) that the homeowners should vote for more high rise and increased traffic in their city. I know the citizens in the area and it is just a regulations, politicians and developers but the residents that have been there 10 – 20 years.
I think the real problem is high rise living is more costly. It is cheaper to build up only for a few stories, beyond that too much area has to be devoted to light, air, stairs, elevators, ventilation, piping, structural engineering, mechanical systems, surrounding interfaces, common area maintenance, housekeeping, management. You see this association dues as well as costs, the rarity of demolition and reconstruction, and the relative absence of it where unconstrained and unzoned.
I’m somewhat shocked that economists don’t focus on simplest, most economically obvious reason for the lack of affordable housing development.
McArdle’s analysis is wrong. Elites don’t make housing policy. Long time homeowners don’t make housing policy. Municipalities elect a handful of government officials that decide these things, and these elections are not driven by intense debates about housing policy. Many towns only have a handful of citizens that would even want these jobs.
Once these elected officials are in place, they act like all politicians do. Their true constituents become the town government more than the voters.
Each marginal unit of housing represents a stream of revenue, and each represents a set of obligations, or costs. Established municipalities, under severe budget pressures will look to add housing stock with the highest margins. There is competition, so not every town can get the highest margins, but every town will seek to avoid negative margins. And isn’t that what we are wondering here? Why don’t town’s permit housing where costs exceed revenues?
We don’t have affordable housing because municipal governments have no economic incentive to allow it to be built.