3 ms·

Because there's a societal need to ensure that the housing stock is safe and effective. We invest (or should) a lot of our taxes into local amenities to ensure

by rswail 5y ago

Because there's a societal need to ensure that the housing stock is safe and effective. We invest (or should) a lot of our taxes into local amenities to ensure that housing is provided the best environment. Transport, schooling, roads, etc. That housing should also be up to a similar standard in terms of its externalities like pollution and energy efficiency etc. We have regulations for air travel, for car emissions and efficiency, why should housing be any different?

abernard1 5y ago
> Because there's a societal need to ensure that the housing stock is safe and effective. And this is accomplished via building codes, which are rigorous and applied almost uniformly in the U.S. > We invest (or should) a lot of our taxes into local amenities to ensure that housing is provided the best environment. Transport, schooling, roads, etc. And this is the model that has made blue cities unaffordable for the poor. They're not environmentally friendly either, their schools are awful, amenities poor, and transportation lacking. It would be hard to find one single issue where there is even parity of centrally planned quality-of-life concerns in blue cities vs red cities. The question is not "regulations" persay. There is no magical regulation slider bar that can be adjusted to optimal result. It's what those regulations seek to accomplish. In many U.S. urban metros, those regulations are targeted to what city policy thinks the owners should do with their property, and not what they want to do with it. It's not clear those regulations have had their intended effect.
rufus_foreman 5y ago
We have regulations for air travel, and that raises the price for air travel, which means some people can't afford air travel. We have regulations for car emissions, and that raises the price for cars, which means some people can't afford cars. We have regulations for housing, and that raises the price for housing, which means some people can't afford housing. How many people should not be able to afford housing? Is the number of people who currently can't afford housing too low, or too high? Should we increase regulations for housing, or decrease them? Are we making the right trade-offs?

by rswail 5y ago

abernard1 5y ago

> Because there's a societal need to ensure that the housing stock is safe and effective. And this is accomplished via building codes, which are rigorous and applied almost uniformly in the U.S. > We invest (or should) a lot of our taxes into local amenities to ensure that housing is provided the best environment. Transport, schooling, roads, etc. And this is the model that has made blue cities unaffordable for the poor. They're not environmentally friendly either, their schools are awful, amenities poor, and transportation lacking. It would be hard to find one single issue where there is even parity of centrally planned quality-of-life concerns in blue cities vs red cities. The question is not "regulations" persay. There is no magical regulation slider bar that can be adjusted to optimal result. It's what those regulations seek to accomplish. In many U.S. urban metros, those regulations are targeted to what city policy thinks the owners should do with their property, and not what they want to do with it. It's not clear those regulations have had their intended effect.

rufus_foreman 5y ago

We have regulations for air travel, and that raises the price for air travel, which means some people can't afford air travel. We have regulations for car emissions, and that raises the price for cars, which means some people can't afford cars. We have regulations for housing, and that raises the price for housing, which means some people can't afford housing. How many people should not be able to afford housing? Is the number of people who currently can't afford housing too low, or too high? Should we increase regulations for housing, or decrease them? Are we making the right trade-offs?