The government shouldn’t tell people where to live
In her essay “The Homeownership Society Was a Mistake,” Jerusalem Demsas, who covers housing at the Atlantic, traces the politics of treating homes as assets. Housing is often spoken of as a safe investment, but it’s not. Homes rise in price when there are too few of them to go around. The greater the gap between supply and demand, the higher the r
... See moreEzra Klein • Abundance
In the U.S., moving decision making from the hyperlocal level to the state level is the first step to fixing the broken development process. This would ensure that a larger proportion of voters had a say, though an indirect one, in housing, transportation, and renewable-energy policy, because more people vote in these elections than hyperlocal ones... See more
Jerusalem Demas • Community Input Is Bad, Actually
The government’s job is to allow people to choose the life they want, as long as they are paying for the costs of that lifestyle.
Edward Glaeser • Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier
Area-specific policies can be put in place to buttress against the negative effects that gentrification can have on longer-term poor residents. Inclusionary zoning, for example, is an approach that requires developers to set aside 10 to 20 percent of residential units for lower-income people, or to pay a fee that gets placed into an affordable-hous
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