Reason - Exclusionary zoning regulations that severely restrict housing construction are a major cause of the housing shortages besetting large parts of the United States. The standard explanation for why these rules persist is self-interested voting and lobbying by NIMBY ("not in my backyard") homeowners who want to keep housing prices high in order to protect the value of their own property. But evidence increasingly indicates that much of the political support for exclusionary zoning actually comes from people—both renters and homeowners—who simply don't understand basic economics and therefore do not realize that increasing housing construction is likely to reduce housing costs. Such people are suspicious of developers and tend to believe that additional construction will just benefit only the developers themselves or other wealthy people.
2 comments:
Developers and the rest of the real estate industry forced congress to stop building housing so thagt they could raise the rent. More housing equals lower costs.
Surprised to see this article endorsed here by "generally libertarian, conservative, centrist" Volokh Conspiracy. The push to add more housing usually means more upscale housing that doesn't provide low to medium cost rentals or first home-buyer opportunities. On the contrary, it further drives those folks out of cities, often where they work, as the 'affordable housing' stock is a scant percentage of the high-end development taking place. Just another feature of our ever-increasing inequality and social injustice.
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