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I kind of agree with your idea that we should work to decrease housing prices, but the problems with housing are not as simple as remove zoning and building res
by throwaway1777 5y ago
I kind of agree with your idea that we should work to decrease housing prices, but the problems with housing are not as simple as remove zoning and building restrictions and watch prices fall. One example. Energy prices are the base input to everything including housing, so if you want to make housing cheaper then better energy policy might be a good start.
- philipkglass 5y agoEnergy is a large portion of the cost of aluminum ingots or tanker cars full of ammonia. It is not a large portion of the cost of constructing new housing. I wouldn't start with energy prices if I were trying to figure out how to make housing affordable. I'd try to contrast e.g. Tokyo, where housing is reasonably affordable, against the city of New York, where it is much less affordable. Japan doesn't have cheaper energy than the US.
- AuthorizedCust 5y agoIt’s not just zoning. It’s things like urban growth boundaries, which arbitrarily contain available land and encourage more dense housing, both of which drive up prices. All so that we can “conserve” an extremely plentiful commodity: open land.