Does this preserve the land values of currently-economical exurban plots? It seems like some of this kind of policymaking, explicitly or not, involves the metro region as a whole, no? Would these putative land value increases accrue to individual property owners or to the developers that have the capital to build MFDs and rent them out?

I’m not sure how helpful a mental model of “shit location [of] poor-ass republicans” is: last I checked those suburban and exurban landholdings contribute a fair chunk to the state and county property tax bases. Though I’ll grant that I don’t know the nuances, and I don’t know how to think about how to tease out the housing component of urban-dwellers’ land-tax-related contributions, as distinct from those buildings’ commercial functions.

Anyway, your “shit” “poor-asses” certainly are able to muster political opposition to measures that devalue them, even if they are “poor-ass” relative to their, uh, “betters” like you. In fact, your “shit” “poor”s who have accepted an iffy location in order to invest in a home they can afford… those might be even more sensitive to losses affecting their life’s biggest investment, and more likely to think of it as the anchor of their financial security.

For that matter casually condescending attitudes like the one you display here seem to have a lot to do with those constituencies’ political potency, and their reflexive opposition to YIMBY sorts of ideas…

> Does this preserve the land values of currently-economical exurban plots?

Probably not, but those people are not powerful enough on their own to stop it.

The dense suburbs are vastly more powerful. Once they realize densifying makes them richer, it's game-over.

> For that matter casually condescending attitudes like the one you display here seem to have a lot to do with those constituencies’ political potency, and their reflexive opposition to YIMBY sorts of ideas…

A lot of people say shit like this, but how can you look at the last 15 years and think that pandering and fake-magnanimity wins elections? I'll be honest in my condescension that exurbs are bad, thank you.

> Please get this right, because telling people they need to loose wealth to fix society is a horrible place to be in.

This is often the reality. Massive wealth inequality won't be fixed by making everyone billionaires, it'll be fixed by getting rid of billionaires

Even if it is the reality in other ways, it is not the reality on housing in high-demand urban areas.

Unless you tell the fed to run inflation at 20% for a few decades and tie everything else (wages, pensions, welfare, etc) to that rate. It is called fiscal repression and it has it's drawbacks, but it would serve to end inequality by making everyone billionaires. (The price of a coffee might end up at £1m though..)