Amen to that - more than this, I worry that "we" didn't decide anything, but rather that keeping people in a state of imagined scarcity proved handy for preserving the status quo in terms of concentration of power.
What would a population do if people were able to act freely and do the things they cared about? How many folks would be fighting climate change but are _instead_ doing Dumb Shit That Doesn't Matter (most jobs) because we have to pay bills?
How many people work a job that is at best a net neutral to society, and at worst parasitic, because it personally enriches them, but makes everyone else poorer? How many are doing that only because they decided to buy a house close to work, so now they have a pile of debt, so now they _have_ to spend their time working for the last owner of the house instead of for themselves?
Why do we make it so goddamned hard to live cheap? Want university? That'll be an arm and a leg. Want a house? Expect to pay many, many years of income for it. Decide you're ok with a small home and riding your bike or taking the bus? Screw you, that's illegal, build a damn parking spot and make sure you meet minimum size reqs and oh btw you're not allowed to build in this old neighborhood because the existing homeowners' cartel made it illegal.
You can build a modest home for ~$40,000. It's expensive because we made it (mostly) illegal to build new homes anywhere near jobs. Not only that, instead of putting homes where they're cheap to serve (close to electric, water, etc) we push everyone out to the middle of nowhere where it's massively expensive to provide services. Not to mention that instead of relying on your feet and a $300 bicycle to get around you now need a gigantic money incinerator (a car) for basic mobility.
God help you if you get sick or hurt. A broken wrist could bankrupt plenty of people in the wrong circumstances.
How many people make six figures (yes, that's a lot of money relatively speaking - try leaving SF before sneering) and still manage to somehow worry about money? How the fuck did we decide this was the best way to build a society? Why did we make everything so goddamn expensive?
Building supplies and calories are cheap after all - practically free.
Maybe it's because keeping a population in fear ensures they can't organize to better their situation at the cost of tearing down existing power structures.
Here's another perspective you might not be accounting for. Currently, people who work elite jobs tend to live around people with elite interests. If you're an upper class developer, you'll live in a neighborhood with other developers, lawyers, doctors, white-collar workers.
If somehow housing were made affordable everywhere, how would that pattern be maintained? By definition, there would be nothing stopping "Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel" (from The Simpsons) from moving to Mountain View, CA.
So you end up with a situation where elite software engineers are trying to sleep, because they have work tomorrow, and Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel is keeping them awake by blowing up fireworks or firing his shotgun at 2am. What recourse do you have? You can't kick Cletus out--that would violate all sorts of human rights and so on.
So when you look at it this way, higher price housing is almost inevitable. Before you can have any realistic hope of addressing it, you need to figure out what to do with Cletus!
Thanks for pointing out a motivation for density restrictions that isn't purely cartel-ish. I appreciate the perspective.
I'm not sure what to do about Cletus, to be honest. I'd like to say "enforce the laws about making tons of noise and discharging weapons" but I know that can be a fool's errand in some cases. After all, I was a loud student once.
Ultimately I think that neighborhoods near the core of cities need to grow (densify), as they did for most of history, and the existing homeowners can enjoy the consolation of watching their home become substantially more valuable as a result of somebody wanting to put 10 apartments there instead of one house. It's telling that in many places the most desirable neighbourhoods are the ones built _before_ current laws made them illegal.
'course, I just bought a house in the country, so we'll see how that goes.
Also, Cletus was a caricature... Poor people can be quiet and rich people can be loud.
I've spent a lot of time living in poorer areas and I can tell you from experience, noise ordinances are not effective. It'll take months or years for Cletus to work his way through the court system for noise pollution, and in the meantime, he's not going to be very happy with his neighbors for reporting him. You'd better hope he doesn't do something in retaliation! Oh, and while you're twiddling your thumbs waiting for his eviction, ten more will move in down the street. You know, because you magically made all the houses $40,000.
What would a population do if people were able to act freely and do the things they cared about? How many folks would be fighting climate change but are _instead_ doing Dumb Shit That Doesn't Matter (most jobs) because we have to pay bills?
How many people work a job that is at best a net neutral to society, and at worst parasitic, because it personally enriches them, but makes everyone else poorer? How many are doing that only because they decided to buy a house close to work, so now they have a pile of debt, so now they _have_ to spend their time working for the last owner of the house instead of for themselves?
Why do we make it so goddamned hard to live cheap? Want university? That'll be an arm and a leg. Want a house? Expect to pay many, many years of income for it. Decide you're ok with a small home and riding your bike or taking the bus? Screw you, that's illegal, build a damn parking spot and make sure you meet minimum size reqs and oh btw you're not allowed to build in this old neighborhood because the existing homeowners' cartel made it illegal.
You can build a modest home for ~$40,000. It's expensive because we made it (mostly) illegal to build new homes anywhere near jobs. Not only that, instead of putting homes where they're cheap to serve (close to electric, water, etc) we push everyone out to the middle of nowhere where it's massively expensive to provide services. Not to mention that instead of relying on your feet and a $300 bicycle to get around you now need a gigantic money incinerator (a car) for basic mobility.
God help you if you get sick or hurt. A broken wrist could bankrupt plenty of people in the wrong circumstances.
How many people make six figures (yes, that's a lot of money relatively speaking - try leaving SF before sneering) and still manage to somehow worry about money? How the fuck did we decide this was the best way to build a society? Why did we make everything so goddamn expensive?
Building supplies and calories are cheap after all - practically free.
Maybe it's because keeping a population in fear ensures they can't organize to better their situation at the cost of tearing down existing power structures.