this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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What are the unintended consequences of this proposal? It is amazing how many people replying to this topic have proposed something without considering what effect it will have. Sure there is a problem, but most solutions have serious negative downsides.
I don't think people care about the downsides for landlords anymore. Real or imagined, perceived greed is what people blame for high rent costs. They're ready to make greedy landlords suffer as they have and I can't say I blame them one bit.
The fundamental misunderstanding in this view, IMO, is that greed is not something that landowners are uniquely equipped with. Rice is cheap as hell; are rice producers simply not greedy, and that's why rice is cheap? No, it's because an absolutely massive amount of rice is produced every day, and there's more than enough around to ensure anyone who wants rice can get it. Slightly more abstractly, there is more than enough supply to meet the demand. And like housing, cheap food is an absolute need. But unlike food, housing has been woefully underproduced for decades now in cities, and government policy has done a lot to cause that. It's illegal to build denser than single-family homes in most urban land, and the aim of policy has been more to protect people's investments rather than have housing be affordable - two goals that are fundamentally at odds with each other.
This isn't a coincidence, of course. A lot of federal housing policy goes back to the 50s and 60s, when you had suburbs that literally banned people of color from living in them. Housing policy was explicitly designed to advantage landowners and penalize renters, which is to say, wealthier white families pursuing The American Dream™ and urban Black families whose neighborhoods were systematically redlined and demolished to build highways for white suburbanites.
Sure, all that's true, but it doesn't invalidate what I'm saying. I think people are angry and ready to get out the pitchforks. There's been decades of policy debate with no actual improvements to the situation. People think politicians and the wealthy are using discussions like the one you're trying to have to delay meaningful change rather than find an agreeable solution for all parties. That's not to say you're wrong but you're assuming people want to avoid punitive action and I don't think that's true.
Totally agree with you; this frustration is a direct and obvious result of decades of policy failures. I just worry that a lot of the ensuing anger is a bit misplaced.
I do think that there's been a sharp acceleration in recent years towards actual concrete steps, even though they're not super flashy and will take more time to see results. There's been real progress towards zoning reform, abolishing parking minimums, and other bits of red tape that have played a huge role in housing costs exploding.
It probably will end with some poor decisions being made but sometimes a bad decision is all you can get. Hopefully it will get more meaningful discussion going at least.
Speaking of which, I appreciate your point of view and your demeanor. Civil discourse seems pretty rare these days.
Same here! It's not often you get a online discussion about economics or housing policy that's civil and productive.
The landlords have much bigger pitchforks. Called the police, and the city government.
and they will fight any and every expansion of the housing market in order to protect their power and further increase housing values.
What downsides? You come out talking about unintended consequences but give no examples.
Look at all the different responses to this post. I've given many different answers to different proposals.