this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024
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Socialism
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All the government has to do is nothing. Just stop actively repressing new housing construction, and market feedback will solve the housing crisis.
People want homes. Markets respond to what people want. The mechanism that’s creating the diff between those two is heavy-handed zoning that artificially suppresses new construction.
The most profitable thing is serving the most people. People produce value, and if you can serve them you can get them to trade that value to you, and get rich. That profit is being denied by zoning rules which specify how many dwellings can be on an acre, for example.
It’s okay to prevent highly polluting industries from existing next to playgrounds. It’s not okay to tell someone they can only build single family homes in a place where it would be more profitable to them to build an apartment building.
That is so naive I thought you were being sarcastic. The markets don't give a single slimy shit about what houseless people want. There are still enough people they can exploit that they don't have to pay attention to those they've already discarded. Density is great, and we need more of it in most cities. Density is not going to help a houseless person magically be able to afford rent in those new buildings. It is not going to stop the building owner from charging exorbitant rents with the exception of just enough units to comply with equal housing laws. Or not offering any lower cost units at all and just paying the fine because it will make them more money in the long run. Sure zoning laws need to be changed, but that alone won't help houseless folks.
Unfortunately, Tina Kotek would rather allow citys to annex farmland to build more suburbs, defeating our urban growth boundary laws, which are a big part of what makes Oregon great.