The Zoning Theory of Everything

There is a really good article at Reason today by Christian Britschgi, titled “The Zoning Theory of Everything”.

This echoes recent work at “Works in Progress”.

Britschgi points out that, coming out of the Great Recession, both the right-wing Tea Party and the left-wing Occupy Wall Street agreed that our problem was some version of too many homes with too enthusiastic mortgage borrowers or mortgage lenders. And, he has one question for them. “HOW’S THAT WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA?”

He makes extensive use of a 2020 paper I co-authored with Scott Sumner, and the identification of our central problem of “closed access” cities.

The movement is building. The truth is becoming clear.

Some of you have probably seen a version of this analogy from me before.

If you go to the doctor because you’ve had trouble concentrating, or blurred vision, or numbness, you could have a hundred different problems, and it will be a difficult puzzle to solve for your medical team. Everything should be up for discussion. But, if the doctors then discover you’ve got a carotid artery blockage, then everything becomes really simple.

Saying that the housing problem basically is at the root of everything right now is not reductive. It is a wholistic description of a problem. Sometimes, the scale of the problem can simplify the understanding of solutions. Now is not the time to say, “I agree that the artery is clogged, and I would be happy to help surgically correct it if the patient will first fix their diet and exercise regimens.” Now is the time to fix the problem we know needs to be fixed.

We had a long way to go to get here, because we started with the left and the right essentially agreeing that our arteries were getting too much blood to our head.

It’s good to see Reason and increasingly many others lining up on the right side of this. Things are going to change for the better.