Yes. Left wing politicians need to remember a rising tide lifts all boats.
We need to stop treating things like zero sum games and that we need to take things away or redistribute finite goods.
Subsidizing things like education, housing, and healthcare.. without corresponding encouraging increases in SUPPLY.. just gives more dollars to the demand side to chase the same stuff.
Yes, typically the market responds, but in highly regulated markets the government needs to make sure they are encouraging rather than discouraging supply.
For example in NYC, an office-to-residential dev was talking about how depending on the neighborhood, there are basically cutoff dates of what construction year is eligible for conversion. In midtown it's something like 1960 whereas downtown it is the 70s or so. That is - nothing built after that date can be converted. And the dates are fixed, not changed in years, have to be renegotiated in zoning law periodically.
There's no fixed reason for this other than setting arbitrary numbers to limit the amount of conversions to residential.. that is.. reduce the ability to build housing!
When asked why, the developer basically said "it's sort of arbitrary but they do it so that a neighborhood doesn't get too much housing when it doesn't have enough schools or markets, etc".
Which is kind of crazy. Build the housing. Build the schools. Just.. build.
Yeah, it's a good thing we have a famously right-wing bastion like Boston to lead the way with good old fashioned conservative policies like more housing and less commercial real estate. /s
Subsidizing things like education, housing, and healthcare.. without corresponding encouraging increases in SUPPLY.. just gives more dollars to the demand side to chase the same stuff.
Yes, typically the market responds, but in highly regulated markets the government needs to make sure they are encouraging rather than discouraging supply.
For example in NYC, an office-to-residential dev was talking about how depending on the neighborhood, there are basically cutoff dates of what construction year is eligible for conversion. In midtown it's something like 1960 whereas downtown it is the 70s or so. That is - nothing built after that date can be converted. And the dates are fixed, not changed in years, have to be renegotiated in zoning law periodically.
There's no fixed reason for this other than setting arbitrary numbers to limit the amount of conversions to residential.. that is.. reduce the ability to build housing!
When asked why, the developer basically said "it's sort of arbitrary but they do it so that a neighborhood doesn't get too much housing when it doesn't have enough schools or markets, etc".
Which is kind of crazy. Build the housing. Build the schools. Just.. build.