Back in 2002, Metro — Portland’s regional planning czar — made several additions to the region’s urban-growth boundary. The biggest addition was 18,600 acres — supposedly enough to house 50,000 people — on the east side known as Damascus. Portland’s housing market was booming, and some people predicted a huge land-rush that would lead to windfall gains for Damascus property owners.
Now, more than six years later, nothing has happened and it looks like nothing will happen. Metro blames it on the high cost of infrastructure. The reality is that Metro planners so gummed up the process that no one could develop their property.
The claim that infrastructure is a barrier is a red herring. As the Antiplanner has shown here, developers in the Houston area manage to install sewer, water, and roads themselves and provide land for schools, parks, and other facilities. Developers pass the cost onto home and other property buyers, who pay it off over a 30-year period. Property owners also pay for their own schools, park improvements, and so forth. The financial tools used are interesting but hardly complicated. Under Oregon law, developers or the county could create special service districts to take care of the finances.
Let it work on your nervous system to reduce the feelings of stress. canada cialis 100mg browse that web-site generic cialis in canada If situation persists-it leads to mental changes as well. Optimal sexual function is what cheap viagra no prescription you required for boosting your sexual health. Concurrently, the male sexual organ receives adequate blood canadian pharmacy cialis to make the spongy tissues stiff on sexual stimulation. But before anything could happen in Damascus, Metro planners insisted on having a plan. “Planning for the new city began with a series of neighborhood meetings and informal presentations. Aided by planning money provided by Metro, a concept plan finally was unveiled — to decidedly mixed results. Some property owners who lived on the hillsides and other areas proposed as housing-free greenways heatedly objected, saying their development rights were being impinged.”
In other words, Metro added people’s land to the urban-growth boundary, then wrote a plan taking many of their properties out again. Planners also put so many restrictions on the remaining land that it just wasn’t worth the effort. This is a pattern that has been repeated in other additions to the growth boundary, notably an area called North Bethany.
On top of this, instead of designing a system that would make sure that future homebuyers paid for the infrastructure they used, Metro planners created fears among existing residents that their property taxes would go up to subsidize newcomers. The residents revolted and passed an initiative restricting future tax rates. This leaves local officials feeling that their hands are tied.
Metro leaders shake their heads and conclude that Portland will just have to live with the land that was already in the urban-growth boundary. Naturally, they don’t want to admit that they themselves are the problem.
As Henry David Thoreau said, “government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.” It is time for planners to get out of the way of Oregon’s future.
Dan: “Out of league.” Is that the league which just assumes things aren’t true & is unwilling to learn?
You have typed nothing to refute anything. You do not directly address any points.
Let me repeat a point that made, which you do not seem to comprehend. Housing prices can increase, faster than the CPI, due to several reasons. A main driver for increasing housing prices is restrictions that reduce supply. If you show other reasons, that does not disprove that less land pushes prices higher.
There are certain economic principles, such as supply & demand. Do want me to offer a link to an economic textbook?
I don’t save links on all articles. I searched:
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/pub/hier/2005/HIER2061.pdf
It’s written by 2 economists Edward L. Glaeser Joseph Gyourko. More from them:
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/glaeser/papers_glaeser
There are several articles that explain.
You don’t think that speculation drove prices either. That basically leaves the 3rd main reason: demand pull through easier loans via lower interest rates & loose lending standards. Is that what you believe caused the massive housing price increase?
Or alternative?
We’ve already discussed these papers long ago, Scott. Many times.
Housing prices are not solely subject to supply and demand, which we’ve discussed here ad nauseum. No one is stating restrictions don’t increase prices, but your assertion needs work. I’ve given you a hint as to why, which you didn’t understand – this is telling.
And your attempt to mischaracterize/deliberately misunderstand what I wrote don’t hunt – I never wrote anything about speculation.
I’ve explained all this enough times here, and I see nothing new or novel in your assertions.
Step up your game, lad.
DS
C. P. Zilliacus:“That is no thanks to the current municipal government of the District of Columbia.”
ws:Your statement doesn’t make any sense. How could a “municipal government” that wasn’t even in the District of Columbia (it hadn’t been designed/conceived yet) commission the Frenchman L’Enfant to design DC in the first place? Were they from the future?
Damn you George Washington / founding fathers for wanting a designed and planned city! Buncha anti-American Federalists.
Do you even know the history of our Nation’s great capitol?
Dan, I have set up the game & you’re not playing. Please try to pay attention.
You are backtracking & withdrawing statements that you made. You keep changing yout tone in light of the logic that I use & the evidence that I present.
I have discussed 3 main items for housing prices increases: restrictions reducing supply, easier mortgages increasing demand, speculation increasing demand. There are also construction costs of labor & materials which increase the cost of supply. How else do you think prices are increased? And without supply & demand.
I never claimed to be novel or new. Why do you keep fabricating things? The point is that government policies are the main reason driving up prices. Many people don’t accept that, despite the evidence.
Dan, also, your past attempts at refutation provided no real counters, particularly your link to a May post. In fact for the links offered in that post, none supported your view & 3 of the graphs proved that prices increase substantially in restrictive housing prices.
Your rhetoric doesn’t work with me, lad.
How else do you think prices are increased?
Here**. This is basic information, which I’ve discussed numerous times here and no one, including you, can show that UGBs/planning account for all the increases. No one. Including you. Can show. That they account. For all the. Increases.
The point is that government policies are the main reason driving up prices.
Evidence please. Not the Glaeser, as I’ve discussed that already (hence the assertion you have nothing new that we haven’t addressed before). When you understand where these policies come from, we can talk – but no one else here wants to admit it, so I won’t hold my breath.
Again, planning/gummint policy is not the sole reason for increases and often (depending upon the type of restriction) not the major factor. Easier mortgages and speculation have nothing to do with planning, and these factors are major reasons for the housing bubble (contra Randal).
DS
http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=180#comment-18305
Scott,
Gyourko and Glaeser don’t look at quantity of stock nor distribution of that quantity relative to the quantity and distribution of income. In other words, comparing median to median is…fairly meaningless.
If you look at affordability (specifically a cumulative distribution which identifies how many homes are extant and available for x% or less of the population – based on the American Home Survey, accouting for regional and temporal differences in interest and down payments) you will find Seattle and Portland both improved their affordability from the early 90’s to mid 2000. That is, there was more stock relative to the income brackets which required it. If you look at Randal’s beloved Houston through that decade, once you get to the sixtieth percentile of income, there is no additional housing. That is, forty percent of the wealthiest in the city will be competing directly with the lower sixty. That’s the sort of thing a median to median comparison hides.
Let’s look at home value too. The most a home can sell for is tied to income (and capital gains – which isn’t included in the common median income figure, and which are far more common in Gyourko’s superstar cities than in Cleveland and Houston). At the low end of price, one can limit it to the value of outstanding mortgages. Distribute these two across the population and plot the distribution of reported home values between them – and the location of reported values – whether it’s closer to the min or max – will be a reasonable sign of whether a region is overvalued. Guess what? Your superstar cities are quite resaonable because of the distribution of wealth.
But Glaeser and Gyourko might have a point in their superstar cities, but they fail to prove it. Their model there presumes people will be priced out of the city and will choose another city. This is still possible, or at least the evidence doesn’t refute it. But Gyourko et al never even attempt to show that people choose another city.
The current housing bubble has everything to do with too many homes on the market in the first place, propped up by federally backed low-interest loans and risky lending by private banks. It has nothing to do with “Smart Growth” initiatives as Wendell Cox et. al. might have one to think.
Smart Growth acts have the potential for limiting housing supply, but I find these statements by the antiplanner people to simply denounce a cities’ housing affordability by this act alone and other possible forces.
Both markets do not have housing prices much above the housing median.
This is inaccurate, because both Las Vegas and Phoenix had housing prices reasonably above the median prices just a couple of months ago. They have had both a 30% drop.
Las Vegas is kind of a special case because just about all of the undeveloped land surrounding the urbanized area is owned by the BLM. It’s like a de-facto UGB. BTW, Las Vegas is the 6th most dense UA. Both of those areas have had the largest percentage population increases, among large UAs, for many years. It’s possible that the natural market cannot keep up with demand of that magnitude.
1) There’s no housing shortage in Las Vegas. There’s too much on the market as it is. The BLM regularly sells land for development.
I certainly don’t understand your arguments. At one point you say Las Vegas (and Phoenix) doesn’t have housing much above the national median, then you say that the BLM’s magical UGB is restricting land, causing it to be dense (and thus expensive)?
2) Please define “urbanized area”. This very definition makes Los Angeles seem denser than New York (when in fact New York is close to 4 or 5 times denser than LA in many areas):
http://lewis.sppsr.ucla.edu/GIScontest/OsgoogEtAl_LANYDensity_report.pdf
Anything that does not use a map or GIS should be questioned. In regards to density, census track information is important (simply dividing population by sq. miles is often very misleading).
I think the most important thing to do is to address what are “growth restrictions”. There are a lot of things that constitute this. Should growth be restricted due to water concerns, resource availability, etc? (I think so, especially in the south which is relying on outside/upstream water sources). Yes, much of housing costs are “supply and demand”. In Portland, the UGB has been around for years, since the 70s. The simple act of the UGB being placed did not instantly increase the housing costs. What needs to be assessed, on a city by city basis – is the actual amount of housing units available. Portland has a reasonable supply. The Bay Area, however, has a shortage of housing supply for their economy (I believe).
I would say that much of the west coast is a desirable placed to live, which is constituting a large portion of higher housing prices.
Simply saying “x city has growth restrictions therefor it has expensive housing” is innacurate. This says nothing. It does not address industries/cities that may be drawing more talented and higher paying jobs such as San Francisco, Seattle, New York, etc, or possibly cities that are more attractive to people.
There’s a reason why Houston, Cleveland, Detroit has never had affordability issues or housing bubbles in recent years: Nobody’s vying (in terms of highly educated professionals) to live there in the first place. There’s no bubble to even pop.
Here’s also a great link:
A mapping system that contains housing affordability with transportation costs:
http://htaindex.cnt.org/
Something that became important during the summer months, and would still be an issue had the world’s economies not hit a snag.
ws:
Too many houses does not cause a bubble, but rather can burst a bubble of artificially high prices. There is strong correlation between low vacancy rates & higher housing prices.
Perhaps through more reading, you can understand how government restrictions reduce supply &/or make the supply more costly. http://www.demographia.com/
It might be hard to hold your bias towards Cox. Look at the content.
Refraining from ad hominem arguments will help.
There are other reasons that housing prices increase, as mentioned previously, so any examples for non-smart growth areas are irrelevant. Are there any examples of where UGBs or similar have not increased housing prices, eventually? Possibly Tennessee, but the limits there are pretty loose.
An urbanized area (UA) is basically contiguous development with Census tracts at a minimum of 500 persons/sq.mi. Look it up for more specifics. The Census has definitions, and that is where the data comes from.
Yes, the LA UA is more dense than the NYC UA. When you talk about certain areas within, you are only referring to parts, not the whole. BTW, NYC is about 3.5 times as dense as LA. You do understand that means “city,” not UA? If you have a hard time differentiating, again, please read more on the subject. Also, in addition to UA, the term “metropolitan area” has a different meaning. Hint: whole counties are included.
Using a GIS, such as Arcmap, can show certain parts, and you could make a choropleth map. It depends what your purpose is. For analyzing UAs as a whole, you don’t need maps.
You ask “what” are growth restrictions, but then you answer the “why.” The reasons for UGBs & such are important, but why do you go off track to address a new angle?
Of course growth restrictions do not have an immediate effect. There is a delay, with many variables on how soon & how severe the adverse reactions will be.
The Left Coast desirable? Not so true any more, at least for US citizens. Since at least 2000, CA has has negative domestic migration. CA’s annual growth has only been around the national average, ~1%, which is due to immigrants.
You can look at many UAs that have high growth but not high home prices: Atlanta & about any area in TX, except Austin, which has restrictions. Phoenix did not have considerably higher prices. The BLM has stopped selling land in Las Vegas; that is also evident by its high density.
The Bay Area does have a very low vacancy rate, about 3%, compared to nationally of 11%. Their policies of compact growth, affordability requirements, impact fees, limited area for expansion, lengthy permitting process and other restrictions, are responsible for curtailing new construction. Without immigrants, all other things being equal, the Bay Area would have actually declined in population each of the last few years.
Re: Las Vegas, just came across, describes the defacto UGB & the fact that hardly any land is available, which drives up housing prices:
http://demographia.blogspot.com/2009/01/las-vegas-smart-growth-feds-destroy.html
tg:
Median values have a lot of meaning. It would take too much space to explain measures of central tendency and also some economic princilpes.
You seem to have a preoccupation with housing value distribution. You can break up housing prices into deciles, and the incomes too, you will see the same conclusions–that government controls drive up prices. It is true that each percentile of income, cannot buy the equivalent percentile of home. That partially explains why slightly over 1/3 (national average) of homes are renter-occupied, higher in urban cores.
Homes were selling more than they should have, relative to income. A home used to normally be about 3 times income. When it’s larger than that, it’s beyond what’s considered the “affordable” range, yet people still devoted larger shares of their income to a mortgage. And of course the banks lowered their standards in granting loans, in addition to the low interest (put some blame on Greenspan).
Here’s another report, by William Fischel, an economist from Dartmouth.
http://www.mi.vt.edu/data/files/hpd%2013(1)/hpd%2013(1)_fischel.pdf
Scott,
I see that you know how to wiki “median†in order to write something about, while simultaneously writing nothing at all.
If you conduct yourself according to information based on the median without reference to dispersion or population size, I am deeply worried for you bloodline.
Take note:
Scenario 1:
There are 10 apples.
Median Price: $1.00
Distribution: 0.85, 0.86, 0.88, 0.89, 0.98, 1.02, 1.03, 1.14, 1.14, 1.18
There are 5 people.
Median Wallet Wealth: $1.00
Distribution: 0.86, 0.88, 1.00, 1.02, 1.05
Median Price : Median Income = 1:1
Assuming no downward pressure – there are affordable apples for all.
Scenario 2:
There are 5 oranges.
Median Price: $1.00
Distribution: 0.99, 0.99, 1.00, 1.45, 1.55
There are 10 people.
Median Wallet Wealth: $1.00
Distribution: 0.85, 0.86, 0.88, 0.89, 0.98, 1.02, 1.03, 1.14, 1.14, 1.18
Median Price : Median Income = 1:1
Assuming no downward pressure (unlikely in this case) –
50% of the population can’t even afford to eat.
70% of the population will not be able to eat.
The scale is obviously exaggerated but the edifying necessity should excuse it. Comparisons of medians (or any central tendency) between time and place without accounting for dispersion and population size are MEANINGLESS. And if you look at the data (American Housing Survey, population and home value distribution) these differences are significant. What’s more if you don’t account for regional and temporal differences in capital gains (which as I’ve written are wildly variant across the country and astoundingly consequential) and regional and temporal differences in the cost of money (interest rates) then you are not merely comparing apples to oranges, but comparing the Russian thistle to manhole covers.
Scott,
I want to add that Gyourko et al may be on the right track, but haven’t proven it. What the evidence shows is that Seattle and San Fransisco etc are only having a housing crisis for people who want to move there from Houston and can’t command a $150,000 a year salary. The data show that there is plenty of affordable housing for the people who already live there.
Every place I have lived (with the exception of McCarthy, Alaska) has a neighborhood that operates on the same self-selecting tendency. I’d like to know why it is the supposed libertarians are arguing people shouldn’t be allowed to spend 20% of their income on their homes.
Oh, that’s the little bit all these anti-planners forget to mention. If you look at the actual ratio of mortgage payment to income, Seattle is doing better than Houston. How? Because there ain’t any money to be made in Houston. Oh, what? That’s not what the Price to Income figures show? Cause price ain’t a mortgage payment. While Houston and Cleveland were year by year declining their down payments (thus increasing their mortgage payments), the Superstar Cities were increasing theirs.
t g,
Your shortcomings are evident when you have to resort to accusations & insults. If you cannot win by content, attack the person. Typical leftist, ignorant responses.
When a housing price median for a certain market (ie CA) is double the national median, you can roughly guess that 90% of those homes are above the national median. Even if the standard deviation is very small, that range of homes priced around the more expensive median is still considerably higher than the national median.
Income levels are far from being proportionally higher in more expensive home markets.
Some data that I looked at recently: CA has incomes of 25% higher than TX, yet the homes are 2-3 times pricier.
Looking at some extremes, the home price median in SF (San Francisco) is over 5 times more than that of Detroit. Do you think distribution or income will make homes equally affordable?
I don’t know why you get the idea that spending only 20% of income on housing would be bad. Unfortunately that is hardly an option for most people, mostly due to government policies.
I’m not familiar with your Seattle to Houston data. It’s doubtful. It could be based upon the mean, including homes purchased years ago. The markets on the Left Coast spend a larger percent of income on their homes. I’ve seen numerous data on that. Don’t have links off-hand.
Scott:Yes, the LA UA is more dense than the NYC UA. When you talk about certain areas within, you are only referring to parts, not the whole. BTW, NYC is about 3.5 times as dense as LA. You do understand that means “city,†not UA? If you have a hard time differentiating, again, please read more on the subject. Also, in addition to UA, the term “metropolitan area†has a different meaning. Hint: whole counties are included.
ws: Things that are not mapped for spatial visualization are largely suspect to me. You can do a lot with tweaking maps to make them look one way, but you can also do a lot more with numbers, graphs, stats, etc.
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics; and Wendell Cox does not do an effective job at displaying accurate information. No ad hominem attacks needed. I’ve read some of his articles and the bias of them is terrible. I cannot rely on anything he says as being factual. He still has data on his website from 1996 regarding Portland’s mass transit service.
Scott:The Bay Area does have a very low vacancy rate, about 3%, compared to nationally of 11%. Their policies of compact growth, affordability requirements, impact fees, limited area for expansion, lengthy permitting process and other restrictions, are responsible for curtailing new construction.
ws:While the Bay Area has a housing issue, it’s important to understand that length permitting processes are necessary when you’re living in a highly seismic area, that is limited geographically in what/were you can build.
Scott:“The markets on the Left Coast spend a larger percent of income on their homes”
ws:Yes, and people in traditionally sprawled cities, such as Houston and Atlanta, spend a larger portion of their incomes on transportation costs (more money is spent on transportation than food in America, which is another correlation to our nation’s heath issues). The cost of gas is not going to stay as low as it is, and is only doing so due to economic downturns. Building developments that are only serviced by the automobile is not going to help the millions who cannot afford a car or are disabled.
I don’t know how you can accuse other people of “insults” in this thread, but calling it the “left coast” is not exactly scoring you any points in regards to facilitating a worthy discussion.
Property rights is a strange thing.
The Civil War was fought over property rights.
From the way most of you hypocrital so called libertarians(including Mr.O’Toole) say it, Mr.Obama shouldn’t be allowed to president of the USA but he should be some one else’s property?
The folks at American Dream Coalition, Cato, Reason(sic), etc. aren’t that much different than members of the KKK.
All you want is power/control and means to dictate others.
Re: above,
That’s way off.
A person being the property of another?
Organizations that promote liberty, freedom, choice, & knowledge being equated with the KKK?
WTF?
I see why you have hard time understanding, making proper causality & connections is difficult for you.
Re: ws @65,
What’s your point in mapping density?
Most LA County cities are pretty dense, above 6,000ppl/sq.mi. To have high ridership there needs to be a large area (core) above 10,000ppl/sq.mi. & a high concentration of jobs in the CBD. There are about 5 US urban areas that fit that pattern, all developed over a century ago.
Increasing density to a high level reduces QofL & increases congestion.
If you don’t understand certain data, perhaps more reading & dispensing with biases will help.
For the Bay, the earthquake chances is not the reason for lengthy processes. I’m guessing you agree with or are unfamiliar with all the other reasons that policies push prices.
Many people do not rate transportation as a priority, otherwise they would locate a job & home closer together. Or locate each along a transit route, which severely limits choices.
Do leftists see being labeled as such an insult? Sounds like they cannot back up their views or realize that leftism involves ignorance.
Scott:What’s your point in mapping density?
ws: It’s the most effective way of visualizing density. Like I said, there’s so much to skew with just numbers. My example was regarding LA and New York. Simply stating the numbers is misleading.
Scott:Increasing density to a high level reduces QofL & increases congestion.
ws: Any facts to back this up besides Cox’s assertations? I have not seen any, though I have seen the opposite studies cases. If so, then the most dense cities in the world have the worst traffic? Certainly a rural area does not have much traffic – as it is not urbanized, but what about developed areas? At what level of density does traffic start to become congested?
Why do cities, such as Atlanta, have some of the worst congestion travel times in the nation while at the same time being one of the least dense?
Scott:For the Bay, the earthquake chances is not the reason for lengthy processes. I’m guessing you agree with or are unfamiliar with all the other reasons that policies push prices.
ws: I’m assuming it’s one of many. Care to share what they are?
Scott:Many people do not rate transportation as a priority, otherwise they would locate a job & home closer together. Or locate each along a transit route, which severely limits choices.
ws: a) quality transit is in limited areas of the country. We’ve had 50 years of sprawl development to where anyone’s reasonable choice is either a downtown environment or sprawl.
b) automobiles are not having to pay their fair market share of transportation. It’s easy to live far away from work/services when you are not paying the true, market cost of automobile transportation.
Scott:Do leftists see being labeled as such an insult? Sounds like they cannot back up their views or realize that leftism involves ignorance.
I don’t know. I don’t consider myself a true “leftist”. I have some leanings, however. Why are you so rude?
Dear Scott,
My deepest apologies for hurting your feelings.
In true leftist fashion, I shouldn’t have expected you to approach this issue rationally, and I shouldn’t have expected you to be concerned for your offspring. On both accounts, I should have expected you, being the leftist I am (nevermind I’m a registered Repubican and have voted Libertarian), that you would expect someone else, preferably the state, to take care of both your thinking and your children.
Sorry for not behaving in true leftist fashion. Please continue neglecting your children so the state can take care of them.
Thuyf thioklsfs djresa lklswww nah f kje am. Yuoid ader geref.
One must presume that my reply being ignored (the one indicating Scott’s pat ideological talking points aren’t operative) means that there is no there there for certain ideological arguments.
DS
Dan,
Why do you wait til I’m out of the yard before you shut the gate? I always tell my buddy not to talk to creationists. You can’t argue crazy. Shut me up sooner, Dan.
Tytgse juidt lkse a hyst erjus.
Sorry, t g , went outta town to enjoy the mountains in wintertime & spend some quality time with my dream girl. I’ll do my best, sir.
DS
Dan –> Lucky man!
:o)
We went to Winter Park and had ~ 2ft of snow, mostly while we slept. Wonderful snowshoeing.
DS
ws, As for mapping densities, your answer was circular or a re-statement of the question: ~”With mapping, you can visualize density.” That doesn’t explain the point or the purpose. Visualize, see, interpret, read, or look at data.
Shall I restate: What will a density choropleth map show, accomplish, prove?
Denser cities, on average (a trend), have more congestion, as well as stress, crime, pollution, higher housing prices, noise etc.
It is true that Atlanta UA is low density & high congestion. It’s like the one of a few exceptions to the correlation. I have 2 guesses (speculations) why. It has grown fast, at least 100,000/decade. Only 2 or 3 other UAs have grown that fast. So, it has not built roads fast enough. There might be leapfrog development, with many spots of open space between built areas where people have to drive through.
For the SF Bay Area price pushers, I listed several in the last paragraph @59.
Cars not paying fair share? Ridiculous. Check out the facts. I have many sources & bookmarks, but don’t care to find. Here is some data that I got from the DOT & FHA for 2004:
.
. . billions spent _____portion user fee/tax
. . . Transit: $40__________28%
. . . Roads: $148___________68%
.
So, the money spent on highways is about 3.5 times that spent on transit, yet highways have over 16 times as much usage. The road users pay over 2/3 for “their usage”, while transit riders pay less then 1/3.
Regardless of user taxes. When more than 80% of adults drive, and all benefit from roads (commerce, deliveries, etc) it doesn’t matter if general taxes are used.
Fair share? To use that standard, transit fairs should at least triple.
Why should the whole population pay about 3/4 of the cost for the <4% who ride transit?
Rudeness? Forgive me, but I don’t see where. I made reference to Left Coast. A liberal should not see that as insulting. Although their awful polices are being seen: highest state for housing costs, a $12 billion deficit (Arnie is a RINO & has a leftist Legislature), CA domestic migration has been negative for years, few new businesses want to locate there.
Leftists usually are against property rights, including earned money (ie massive taxes on the rich, “spread the wealth”–BO), and for more state control. They often don’t realize that, but that’s how their policies work.
Hey tg, re: 70,
I’m not sure why you think my feelings would be hurt, but thank you for the concern. I appreciate it.
It sounds like you agree that leftist don’t look at issues, problems & policies in a rational approach. Yes, leftists do leave out/ignore many facts, consequences, externalizes & such. Leftist do rely too much on gov, forgetting how much business does & how individual responsibility, motivation & education is very important.
I have no idea what “neglecting my children” is making a reference to. I wish for this country to be better for all. Limited government & fewer restrictions will help that route.
However, now with the recession, there are tough choices. Keynesian spending hardly works. And BO is (or will) messing up so many things, or going to make it even worse, especially on security. Don’t take the terrorist enemies as prisoners? You know that a guy released from ClubGitmo was re-captured later as a big AlQaeda guy?
BTW McCain was not a good choice, any other R (from the primaries) would have been better, or Bob Barr.
I’m digressing, sorry.
Keep in mind, or maybe just learn about, the fact that gov policies (w/mentality of CAVE BANANA & NIMBY) pushed housing prices up. That was the beginning that has caused this mess.
Here http://dallasfed.org/research/houston/2008/hb0801.html is a good article that sheds some light on that, written by an economist that works for Federal Reserve Bank.
Hey Dan, re: 55,
The contention is not that policies created all of the housing increase. Yes, easier loans did add to that. It can be seen that the loans were a small part though, otherwise housing increases would have been fairly uniform across the country. Population growth is not that much of a factor.
Housing (as all products) has a certain amount of elasticity, which can apply to each demand & supply. When housing ownership demand went up (renting demand went down), the developers try to respond by building (adding to supply). When that supply is restricted (usually via policy), prices go up. The availability of housing supply can easily be checked by finding out the vacancy rate. There is a strong correlation with low vacancy & higher housing prices. Check out the data; American Factfinder/Census has that.
I don’t see how this meets my request for evidence to back your assertion. I am quite familiar with land use history and environmental history and urban economics, as I am a planner by profession.
DS
What’s the contention?
That gov action or inaction can restrict supply or make it more expensive?
Housing prices vary by market.
Do you not think that most of that difference is explained by gov policy?
Geography is a factor, but usually workable to allow for growth.
The most expensive markets have restrictive polices.
CA also has set itself up for new construction to cost more because of prop 13, which limits increases in property taxes. Property taxes for new construction or just bought property is 1%, yet the average paid is 0.6%. And raising the cost of new construction, raises the cost of existing.
Do you not think that most of that difference is explained by gov policy?
No.
This is basic knowledge for the particulars as to why (hint: I explained it in my links). Plus, your Glaeser told you why in the NE, but apparently you didn’t understand the reason they explained.
DS
Dan, I have given evidence showing that policy pushes prices.
When answering “no”, it is customary to offer reasons.
When you cannot back up your assertion, you fail in making your point.
You also appear to look foolish & uneducated, especially when trying to defend big government that is coercive.
Let me mention that a proper answer, rather than blindly following faith, would include alternative reasons as to why prices have risen.
Perhaps you don’t understand Glaeser.
When you cannot back up your assertion, you fail in making your point.
You are cherry-picking what I say, as about 9 words later I wrote I already provided this info. Why do you have to make sh*t up to have an argument?
You also appear to look foolish & uneducated
You appear to not know my education level, which is likely far higher than yours.
especially when trying to defend big government that is coercive.
Now you’re making sh*t up.
…a proper answer…would include alternative reasons as to why prices have risen.
Like I did above. How quickly the ideologues “forget”!
Perhaps you don’t understand Glaeser
Like the part of his paper that doesn’t support ideologue’s assertions, as I point out above, maybe?
Step up your game, son. I typed this with one hand tied behind my back.
DS
Dan, pretend you’re watching me froth at the mouth dealing with Karlock…what would you tell me?
You can’t argue crazy!
gaaaah.
You’re right. Too bad Greasemonkey isn’t here yet…
DS
Dan,
You should use both hands to type, since you make no sense.
You have typed nothing concrete, nothing to counter anything I’ve said.
I expected of that of you, having this non-sequitor pattern that does not address the points at hand.
Why do you even bother typing if you are not willing to participate in a discussion.
What stuff do you think I’m making up? What are your assertions, which you did not state? I looked at one previous post that you mentioned & it did not have proof.
As for having more education, I highly doubt that you have a PhD. Why do act like you are working on a GED?
OK, t g, you are correct. You can’t argue crazy.
[ignore]
DS
What’s crazy?
Please refrain from juvenile attempts at countering. You have not rebutted anything.
You cannot argue–with valid points.
You lose Dan. You have not rebutted anything. I will run circles around your ignorance. I feel sorry for your ineptitude & the municipality that pays you.
Scott, no one fucking cares!