More on Housing and Inequality

NPR tells the story of the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on black middle-class families: on average, they lost a much larger share of their wealth than whites. But NPR fails to relate this to land-use regulation that is promoted by whites who consider themselves “progressives.”

Similarly, a Trulia analysis of differences in housing prices among cities lamely credits the differences to “a lack of housing construction” in some regions, without suggesting why those regions aren’t building housing. Trulia also suggests that these trends are leading to “regional inequality” without mentioning inequality among individuals.

These issues are largely corrected in a new paper by Joel Kotkin, who makes it clear that “progressive policies” such as urban-growth boundaries are causing the high housing prices in some regions and, in turn, growing income inequality. Kotkin points to MIT economist Matthew Rognlie’s research showing that housing is the principle cause of growing inequality in both the United States and Europe.
Another main trouble that is associated with ED include unwanted frustration, disappointment, despair, lack of interest in sexual activity, repeated abortions viagra purchase on line or miscarriages, Following improper diet and unhealthy nutrients. You just should fill-up their condition with all your medical histories and they will do the evaluation for you. achat viagra pfizer The first medication to be used to treat impotence in men. levitra on line increases the body’s ability to balance and control calories. This medicine is supposed to be eaten up viagra price uk with the help of normal water.

Even Kotkin, however, misses an important nuance: land-use regulation not only makes housing more expensive, it makes it more volatile. If prices were not volatile, blacks (and others) wouldn’t have lost wealth in the financial crisis. In fact, there wouldn’t have been a financial crisis at all. The Antiplanner has made these points before, but they all bear repeating until more people understand that smart growth and other urban-growth regulations were the primary cause of the housing bubble, the financial crisis, all the pain the followed, and the bubble that is even now growing again in over-regulated markets.

Bookmark the permalink.

About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

3 Responses to More on Housing and Inequality

  1. FantasiaWHT says:

    Eh, it’s not just progressive policies like urban growth boundaries, but also conservative suburbs that zone in such a way as to permit only unaffordable mcmansions in new developments.

  2. Sandy Teal says:

    The liberals enacted programs to push blacks to invest in houses at the very top of the bubble, because they are liberals and know nothing about a market. It was stupid to have the policies and stupid to believe in the government.

    The same thing happened in college tuition as liberals kept subisidizing college student loans and know every college has raised tuition ten times faster than inflation to capture all the subsidy. Poor families can still afford to go to college but their kids spend then next ten years paying it off.

    The road to heck is paved with good intentions.

Leave a Reply