Posted on 01/14/2008 9:01:30 PM PST by jazusamo
It was front-page news on the January 14th issue of the San Francisco Chronicle that blacks by the tens of thousands have left the San Francisco Bay area since the 1990 census.
Since my book "Applied Economics" analyzed this situation a few years ago, it was nice to see that the information has finally reached the San Francisco Chronicle, though they have yet to explain the politics and the economics behind the exodus.
Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not peculiar to the San Francisco Bay Area and blacks are not the only group being forced out of upscale liberal communities in California. It is much the same story in Monterey and Los Angeles, for example.
Skyrocketing housing prices are forcing out families with children, as well as blacks and other people with low or even moderate incomes.
But these runaway housing prices in California did not just happen for no reason.
Prior to 1970, California housing prices were very similar to housing prices in the rest of the country. In more recent times, it has not been uncommon for California homes to cost three times what homes cost nationwide.
What happened in the 1970s was that severe government restrictions on building became common in coastal California. With supply restricted and demand not restricted, it was inevitable that prices would soar beyond many people's ability to pay.
The main impetus behind severe restrictions on building is environmentalist zealots who demand that vast amounts of land be set aside as "open space" on which nothing can be built.
It is not uncommon for substantial proportions of all the land in an entire county — sometimes more than half — to be set aside as "open space."
Environmentalists often talk as if they are trying to save the last few patches of greenery from being paved over, when in fact 90 percent of the land in the United States is undeveloped and forests alone cover more area than all the cities and towns in the country combined.
Behind much of the lofty and pretty talk are some ugly and selfish realities.
People who already own their homes in an upscale community pay no price for making it hard for others to move into their community. On the contrary, the value of the homes they already own shoots up when they restrict the supply of new homes.
In other words, they can keep out the less affluent people — or, as they put it, "preserve the character of the community" — while benefiting themselves economically in the name of green idealism.
"Open space" laws are just one of the weapons in their arsenal. Other legal impediments to building include so-called "smart growth" policies, historical preservation laws, and zoning boards and coastal commissions with arbitrary powers to limit or forbid building.
The financially ruinous powers of delay that these and other laws and institutions can impose on anyone wanting to build anything can be illustrated by a current legal case involving a developer who has for 15 years been prevented from building in the coastal California town of Half Moon Bay.
A judge recently awarded him $36 million in damages but that decision has been appealed. Anyone familiar with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals knows that anything can happen there — including more years of delay.
Someone once said that the ability to tax is the ability to destroy. So is the ability to delay.
When a business sets standards or policies with adverse effects that fall disproportionately on minorities, courts call that a "disparate impact" and equate it with discrimination.
But the same liberals who applaud that approach when it comes to businesses would be appalled if the same standard were applied to their own environmentalist restrictions that force vast numbers of blacks out of their own upscale liberal communities.
Nor do black "leaders" who are quick to cry "discrimination" and "racism" in other contexts. Apparently it all depends on whose ox is gored.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.
We have several counties with 95 percent federal open space and a few at 99 percent federal...
It is not uncommon for substantial proportions of all the land in an entire county — sometimes more than half — to be set aside as “open space.”
Environmentalists often talk as if they are trying to save the last few patches of greenery from being paved over, when in fact 90 percent of the land in the United States is undeveloped and forests alone cover more area than all the cities and towns in the country combined.
Behind much of the lofty and pretty talk are some ugly and selfish realities.
Bump!
> severe government restrictions on building became common in coastal California. With supply restricted and demand not restricted, it was inevitable that prices would soar beyond many people’s ability to pay.
Surprise! Econo 101 - and these blacks stay on the plantation.
They migrate to even poorer parts of the plantation, but they stay on the farm.
One of the contributing reasons behind the growth limits on the California coastal areas is availability of potable water. Recurrent droughts are a problem.
Yep, and one of them is the very wealthy who've got there's and don't want others getting close to them, just like he pointed out. It's the old "I've got mine" line.
Since the government controls most of the water systems, shortages are common. If the government let the market work, there would be no shortages of water anywhere. The price signals of the marketplace do not exist and so shortages arise. Most every so called "problem" is in some way the fault of government.
In the community I live in we have a water shortage because the infrastructure for water intake from a local river is inadequate and the river is silting up.
This past summer the river bed was found to have grown higher and the river level had dropped due to lack of rain. (This is in southwest Washington, where rainfall is measured in yards, not inches.) It looked for while that our intake pipe was going to start sucking air!
The geology of the surrounding topography makes it impossible to build damns. And all the rivers and streams here contain breeding salmon, which are as holy and sacred as scripture. (I’m being facetious.) And because of the fish sewage has to be treated to the point that it is cleaner when returned to the river than when removed.
All of this is expensive. The costs of the infrastructure is great. Once you build it then your community is committed to a certain population size. Hopefully the commissioners at the city and county level have realistic predictions of growth. If not we’re screwed.
So you can see why I said water tends to circumscribe growth.
The next problem is get working people to provide services to these liberal eco-nuts.
They need middle class folks like plumbers, electricians...plus gardeners, maids, nannies, cooks, etc. who no longer live in the region.
Then these eco-nuts have to build “ affordable “ housing = government housing projects with rent controls and expensive managers.
These new , dense government projects are worse than what the eco-nuts denied previously.
they can keep out the less affluent people — or, as they put it, “preserve the character of the community” — while benefiting themselves economically in the name of green idealism.
“Open space” laws are just one of the weapons in their arsenal. Other legal impediments to building include so-called “smart growth” policies, historical preservation laws, and zoning boards and coastal commissions with arbitrary powers to limit or forbid building.
That's on purpose. Limiting freshwater is the most successful tool anti-growthers have ever discovered. There is unlimited water via desalination, too expensive for farming but cheap enough for most everything else. In Monterey there is a plan for a desalination plant at Moss Landing but the anti-growthers are fighting it from every angle. They LIKE the constant water shortage because it makes it impossible to build anything new. I can see their point though of trying to keep the area a nice place.
The federal government owns most of my state. The feds hate to sell land for private development. My little town doesn't like developers. So we made a deal with Uncle Sam. The original town was 7 square miles. We bought 200 square miles of federal desert around our town real cheap by promising to keep it either for conservation, recreation, or energy production.
Boy oh boy, is private property expensive in my little town now.
yitbos
There are a number of good books that discuss at length these sorts of problems and how the marketplace would provide superior and much less costly solutions. I don't recommend reading such books because after reading them, you will be depressed -- lol. You would then realize if we had the government our Founders intended, we would all be talking about vacations on the moon and such. Instead, we are faced everyday with the negativity of the MSM and government parasites. The waste of human potential at the hands of government is immeasurable. thanks again for your informative post. good night
I used to live on the Presidio of Monterey. Loved the area. Hated the high costs. If I win the Megabucks Lottery when it hits 200million, then I’ll move back.
But I definitely know what you’re saying about people wanting to keep the area as it is.
The next generation may not be able to live in the town that they were raised.
If a family has several kids : who get the house ?
So the next generation moves away as the real estate prices soar. The retirees with money take over the town with no children, schools close, property taxes go up, businesses are squeezed...
The un-intended consequences can be huge.
We had that happen in the city of Mt. Shasta. The fire fighters, nurses and city employees couldn’t afford to live there anymore so they are looking at building “affordable housing” for middle income people.
In other words, they get the plantation house and everyone else gets the slave quarters.
Red Lodge, Montana too.
The real estate prices zoomed and they lost their restaurant, lodging...staffs.
The socialists deny a middle class family permission to build a small home on their acre, but the government can build any huge, tall project plus waive the permit, impact, and tap fees on their acre.
Some people live on an island quite satisfied. Some people build an oasis in the middle of the desert much to their satisfaction.
We have some apartments (with a two year waiting list). Our slow growth charter allows a 5% population growth/year (not achieved in 20 years). Las Vegas is 15 miles away and over a mountain pass. 5 of those miles are in our city limits.
Hoover Dam has 4 small generators dedicated to our cheap power supply and we lease desert to electric generating plants (natural gas and solar). Good bucks to the city there.
Eh, eh. And this was the second federally designed and built city in the nation. The first was Washington, DC. In 1958 an act of congress created our independent municipal government.
My city's property taxes, as a percent of value, are the lowest in the state. The residents are politically very conservative. In a county with 2/3 of the state's population, this little town of 15,000 boasts one state assemblyman, one state senator, one county commissioner and one US congressman, all Republicans.
Ain't America grand!!!
yitbos
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.