Local Governments Are The Source Of Housing Inequality

The Federalist ^ | JULY 27, 2015 | Chuck DeVore

[george76]

Wealth inequality? Blame local government, whose meddling in property rights causes artificial scarcity in housing.

...

Matthew Rognlie, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral student in economics .. makes an interesting insight; housing prices are going up because of artificial scarcity caused by land-use regulation. Put another way, the concentration of wealth is not an issue of the “1 percent” winning while the rest of us lose—it’s an issue of homeowners benefitting from government restrictions on property rights that prevent a free market in homebuilding, restricting supply and driving up prices.

...

If Rognlie is correct (and the data suggests he is), then the liberal prescription to address growing wealth inequality misses the mark. Further, it complicates the Left’s attempt to capitalize on Occupy populist outrage. Going after homeowners is a much different electoral and rhetorical proposition (especially if you’re still living in your parent’s basement) than going after the vilified “1 percent.”

Government Is the Problem, Not the Market.

As for affordable housing, liberals see high housing costs as a phenomenon caused by capitalism. Rather than address government-induced artificial scarcity in housing head-on, the Left proposes additional government intervention

...

Liberals Are Making Housing More Expensive.

...

The problem with central planning is that most people don’t want to live in crowded conditions.

[familyop]

I was one of several who each attended commissioners’ meetings in various rural locales, took notes and wrote reports for several years. Some of us did so during the ‘90s, others after 2000.

We found that working in coordination with local special interests would not be feasible very soon except for individual permits for particular projects where needed for the overall plan. There were also state and local code changes where most likely to succeed as models for other locales in the future (compressed earth blocks in one state, a utility in another, etc.).

In the past, we desperately needed more engineers (licensed engineers). Now, we are very grateful for yet more engineers. More genuinely interested lawyers are also more than welcome, though it’s a volunteer effort with everyone being thoroughly screened by professionals, administrators and communities for genuine interest.

[familyop]

We also have several car production efforts going with various levels of cooperation with government (three projects include expensive crash tests). Only problem so far is that they all want to design and build either teeny, tiny electric/hybrid rides, cheap sports cars or expensive sports cars.

[mrsmith]

There are “local special interests” and there are “community interests” and there are combinations of the two.
In rural areas it’s very easy to do things that won’t affect neighbors. Very hard to do things that will, of course.