Accusing suburbs of being lassez-faire is quite a miss, I think. There is quite a bit of subsidy, there are lobby groups for it, the very act of zoning itself

Accusing suburbs of being lassez-faire is quite a miss, I think. There is quite a bit of subsidy, there are lobby groups for it, the very act of zoning itself is extremely political and the rents exploitation arrangement is quite...vivid. Throw in HOAs ( which are written into deed contracts ) and it's significantly less than free. The George Romney inspired expansion away from the 20% down, 30 year mortgage to what ended in 2008 was an effort to tie people down to a mortgage for reasons of, roughly, social control. If you read Haber & Calomiris "Fragile By Design" - they're quite conservative - you get a better picture of it. I love the suburbs. Because if I play my cards right, I get to be a beneficiary to much of all that.