3 ms·
> "The city council is, after all, composed of wealthy people who own land in the city." I can't speak for your city but in NYC, I'm not certain if any member
by davidf18 10y ago
> "The city council is, after all, composed of wealthy people who own land in the city."
I can't speak for your city but in NYC, I'm not certain if any member of the city council is wealthy. I know my representative is not.
My point regarding anti-trust busting of monopolies is that federal legislation has been enacted before to combat deliberate attempts at market inefficiency and it could be done in the case of zoning density restrictions. In 2002, Japan enacted a federal law that overruled local land-use restrictions and as a result in 2014, Tokyo built 7 times the number of housing units as NYC (140,000 vs. 20,000).
We should do the same in the US as they did in Japan and you'll see more affordable housing.
- Arizhel 10y agoWe can't do that; we don't have the culture they have in Japan. These things are a product of culture. Japan has a culture in which street crime basically never happens; the US does not. The US has a culture where the politicians are thoroughly corrupt, especially at the local level, and the voters like it and re-elect them happily. You can't just will culture to change.