3 ms·
The Build-Nothing Country
- ryzvonusef 4y ago> In Berkeley, a plan to build student housing was just blocked by a court, which demanded that the university study whether students themselves constitute an environmental hazard > That state has mounted an aggressive push to build more housing, enforcing old affordable housing planning requirements with newfound zeal and threatening non-compliant cities with a condition called the “Builder’s Remedy” that suspends zoning regulations. But CEQA, California’s extra-strict environmental review law, will provide a strong last line of defense against these efforts, and can only be reformed through legislation. Nor is it the only such environmental law being abused by local supporters of physical stasis. > All of these are versions of the same basic story. For decades, I’ve heard progressives, including my friends and relatives, bemoan America’s unwillingness to spend money on things like transit and green energy. But now America is spending all the money, and things still aren’t getting built, because of the country’s broken system of permitting, land use, and development. > If you’re one of the roughly 2/3 of Americans who owns a home, you can raise your wealth — at least on paper — by going to local government meetings and arguing to restrict the local housing supply. But perhaps just as importantly, you can preserve the built environment around you in exactly the form you’re used to. > This is a form of subsidy from the government to the people of America. It seems like a costless subsidy, because it doesn’t involve writing checks to people. But the costs are real, and Americans pay the costs. They pay them in the higher tax bills that citizens pay to fund infrastructure. And eventually they pay the cost of a weak country that doesn’t have the economic strength to stand up to rivals like China.