Speaking of housing (as the Antiplanner was doing yesterday), San Jose State University economist Edward Stringham gave a great lecture at the Preserving the American Dream conference in San Jose a couple of weeks ago. Dr. Stringham’s presentation (3.7MB PowerPoint file) focused on inclusionary zoning, which is the traditional urban planning solution to high housing prices.
Keep in mind that urban planning is usually the reason why prices are high in the first place (though there are a few exceptions, such as Las Vegas, where land shortages are the result of the government owning most of the land in Nevada). But the planners try to deflect the blame to greedy developers. Their solution is to require those developers to sell or rent a fixed share — usually 15 percent — of new homes at below-market prices to low- or moderate-income families.
