alt Hacker NewsIt’s not a free market construction issue at all, it’s a regulatory zoning and permitting issue.
Read the article and the peer comments here; Austin’s boom came about from reducing regulatory constraints.
Nationally remove the artificial restrictions and the supply side will fix itself.
Replies
seanmcdirmid • today at 12:56 AM
Did Austin really have any constraints holding it back? It’s still Texas. People still look at Houston as the canonical example of a city with no artificial constraints.
Seems like a free market issue, any profit resulting from development is a free market issue. Your profit margins mean worse quality housing for people, and we can see what actual public housing programs look like with Singapore and Vienna where rents can typically cost less than 20% of median salaries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVuCZMLeWko
As renown corporate welfare recipient Bezos would say: "your margin is [our] opportunity."
If the only thing stopping development is that rich developers want to make more money, then maybe we should get rid of the rich developers and let the public decide what to build. It couldn't be worse and it'd be 20-60% cheaper too.