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Except this is exactly what Prop 13 does in California, and it is incredibly damaging to housing and rental prices.
by higginsc 8y ago
Except this is exactly what Prop 13 does in California, and it is incredibly damaging to housing and rental prices.
- wahern 8y agoAll market interventions have some cost. The idea is that the benefits exceed the costs. The notion that benefits can never exceed costs is wrong on its face but somehow its what everybody assumes. We live in very cynical times. Prop 13 wouldn't be so damaging if it were easier to build. Unfortunately Prop 13 incentives and/or minimizes the consequences of communities restricting development, so it had this weird feedback effect. Regulations have unintended consequences and so we should be rightly wary of them. But that reality shouldn't be dispositive on whether we should attempt them. Market dynamics are like gravity: you can't ignore gravity but gravity doesn't make human flight impossible, it just constrains the solution space. Arguing that we shouldn't attempt market interventions is like arguing that we shouldn't have attempted human flight because God didn't equip us with wings or that we should've waited around until we evolved wings.