Re:Does Adding Expensive Housing Help the Little Guy?
by kqr2 on Thursday September 28, 2017 @10:23PM
(#15362316)
It comes down to incentives. With the current policies in place, there isn't much incentive for incumbents / existing residents to allow more housing.
If you are a home owner or landlord, reduced supply results in asset appreciation.
If you are a renter with rent control, then building more housing in your neighborhood may not seem like much of a benefit either.
Policy makers are always looking for piecemeal solutions, e.g. let's give teachers a rental subsidy, tweak the % of affordable housing that must be build, etc.
Lawmakers really need to create incentives so incumbents have a reason to want more housing.
To be honest, people like to extol the virtues of Bay Area liberalism, but to me the housing policy in the Bay is one of the most systematic (and regulated) form of prejudice. Cities like SF are losing their minorities, their middle class, all to fatten the paycheck of existing landowners. Almost the entire black population has emptied out of SF. It's one of the most pervasive form of class discrimination I've seen.