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> Addressing homelessness requires compassion and funds. If you're talking about working people being priced out of homes in stupidly low-density cities (which
by gottorf 3y ago
> Addressing homelessness requires compassion and funds.
If you're talking about working people being priced out of homes in stupidly low-density cities (which places like Seattle and Portland are), the greater part of the solution is just building more so that supply rises to match demand.
Artificially suppressing the supply of homes via government action (restrictive zoning) then helping the people who lost homes as a result via government action (social services funded by redistributive taxation) is just so wasteful that I don't even know where to begin.
- staringback 3y ago> the greater part of the solution is just building more so that supply rises to match demand. Just like building more lanes to match the demand of traffic, yeah?
- gottorf 3y agoI'm not sure what point you're trying to make? Expanding roadways are an example of induced demand, which means that for some class of things, as it gets cheaper (or qualitatively better/less costly, as in the example of traffic), more people consume it by shifting preferences from alternatives, and in the end it's just as pricey (or qualitatively poor) as before. Is your point that as housing gets cheaper in a place, more people will be housed and eventually the equilibrium goes back higher? If so, isn't that the goal? More people are still housed than before.