Yup, yup, yup.....and to give an indication of how much of an uphill battle we have here in the Boston metro region I can point to recent pushback against efforts in Cambridge to eliminate single family zoning. Homeowners have raised the battle flag of Property Values in their struggle against housing production. For those of you who don't know, Cambridge is the Loth Lorien of self-righteous liberalism on the East Coast. This means that neighborhood character--which mostly consists of high density housing stock built on swampland--is a sacred trust that must endure for eternity. Property costs have been so high for so long that one institutional landowner made the wise decision of buying huge swathes of land on the other side of the river in Alston to have a blank slate for expansion. But that's a side note compared to the general torpor in Cambridge that shows no sign of abating. The preferred solution for "affordable" housing in all left-wing kingdoms is public housing AND inclusionary zoning mandates for any large scale private developers. The public housing stock is of course in bad shape and large scale development generally has a 20 year planning period.
Yup, yup, yup.....and to give an indication of how much of an uphill battle we have here in the Boston metro region I can point to recent pushback against efforts in Cambridge to eliminate single family zoning. Homeowners have raised the battle flag of Property Values in their struggle against housing production. For those of you who don't know, Cambridge is the Loth Lorien of self-righteous liberalism on the East Coast. This means that neighborhood character--which mostly consists of high density housing stock built on swampland--is a sacred trust that must endure for eternity. Property costs have been so high for so long that one institutional landowner made the wise decision of buying huge swathes of land on the other side of the river in Alston to have a blank slate for expansion. But that's a side note compared to the general torpor in Cambridge that shows no sign of abating. The preferred solution for "affordable" housing in all left-wing kingdoms is public housing AND inclusionary zoning mandates for any large scale private developers. The public housing stock is of course in bad shape and large scale development generally has a 20 year planning period.
This is the agony of being a Kevin Erdmann fan.
You know some truths about the US housing market, a market central to US prosperity and real living standards and much else.
But these truths are never discussed anywhere else, or if so, fleetingly.
Do we want most people to buy into a mostly free-market system? I do.
Can we convince people to buy into a system that delivers lower living standards (after rents, taxes) generation after generation?
Real wages for young men (even before residential rents) are lower now than in the late 1960s.
Why are so many angry, and voting for fringes, or joining incoherent anti-US movements?
Well, a lot of reasons, I know. But housing is in the middle of the mix.