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"Naugle wants to defeat a proposed city law, on the City Commission table again Tuesday, that would force residential developers to sell or rent new housing at artificially low prices, or kick money into a kitty that middle-class buyers could use to buy or rent homes."

Rent control, which is basically what this proposal is, always hurts far more than it helps.

Markets, not mandates!

Housing is an interesting issue that cannot be fully open to market forces in cities. The most immediate two reasons are zoning and limited amounts of space.

Zoning allows for city planning, which, if you want a city to be a livable and efficient place that doesn't require the constant destruction of streets and homes is a necessity.

The limited space of a city combined with the durable nature of housing requires the decision-making to be based on the allowing for an appropriate mix of workers to live within the confines of a city in order that it might function efficiently and prosperously.

In rapidly growing developing countries, cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, among others, are seeing vast areas of land being used to develop villas for the wealthiest individuals. Although a boon for the construction industry, in the medium and long-term this will not be appropriate for the health of the cities. With the population density of China, most of the cities will have to be skyscraper jungles like Hong-Kong. Thus the housing market does need to be regulated to allow for the maximum benefit of the city.

With regard to the specific incident at hand, my tendency is to agree with the politician that people need to balance their desires and expectations with their ability to afford them. There are a variety of ways to spend less money in exchange for other investments. Smaller cars or houses, fewer luxury items or harder work.

There is nothing wrong with working 40 hours and wanting the spend the time with ones family. In fact, I believe people should spend a lot more time doing that than pursuing ever more stuff to possess. The former is the path of Christ. The latter a much different path. For a Christian country, America is really on the wrong path if a bigger house and a far too large vehicle really are signs of success rather than a cohesive and loving family.