There's no inalienable right to not be cripplingly impoverished. But any ethical countries would try to ameliorate that condition.
Is it ethical for a select few to grow enormously wealthy by driving up the cost of living for the many by deliberately causing a shortage of a basic need?
People need jobs to live. They also need a roof over their heads. The jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in a few metro areas, but the home-owning class constrains the supply of housing and drives up the price of their own assets. Disincentivizing this sort of rent seeking behavior is precisely the kind of thing property taxes accomplish.
> The jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in a few metro areas, but the home-owning class constrains the supply of housing and drives up the price of their own assets. Disincentivizing this sort of rent seeking behavior is precisely the kind of thing property taxes accomplish.
There are two solutions to that problem. Governments could either make it easier to rent in the increasingly concentrated metro areas, or reverse the trend of increasingly concentrated metro areas.
During Covid there were quite a few government created incentives for remote work. If government started to use tax law to further incentivize remote home, maybe we can start to cut out all those officer workers from needing to live in metro areas, only keeping people tied to cities who need to physically be in the city.
The difference of domestic emissions caused by city vs non-city residence is quite minor, about 10% per person looking at UK numbers. In comparison, a single flight by plane can double a person emission.
It also not clear if using existing numbers of rural living makes sense since most people do not work from home. If the norm is to travel to work, the further people live away from said employment the bigger the footprint will be. Existing numbers reflect that culture.
Looking at CO2 per capita, does the very high density cities of japan have better numbers than say India? No. Japan has 10 times higher than India. Of course we all likely know that that wealth influence emissions, which mean it not that simple to just say that concentrated metro areas are better for the environment than sprawl. Emission rates depend on multiple factors.
I think we are both saying the same thing. And 10% difference is not negligible.
My point is that we should do everything we can to keep densification naturally happening, as it is better. This densification is not a permit to allow ourselves to pollute, consume more.
Reversing the trend of jobs concentrating in metro areas is not exactly feasible. How would this be done?
Prohibiting companies from hiring more than X employees? What keeps them from just setting up another company and hiring them as consultants?
Or is there going to be a fixed cap on the number of people who are permitted to be employed? If someone moves to the city, and it's already at it's max number of workers they're just prohibited from working?
Jobs becoming concentrated in certain hubs is natural emergent phenomenon. You're not going to legislate your way out of it, at least not without resorting to oppressive systems like hokou.
One option is building for remote work. Up the definition of "broadband" to include something people can actually use for work, and mandate that employees are allowed to work remotely, with full pay, unless employers can demonstrate the job cannot be done remotely. Workers who have to be local should either get the same tax break, or the company should have to pay those taxes instead. It might also require simplifying (or at least simplifying the administration of) state/local taxes. There are a lot of people, myself included, that live in dense areas for work rather than by choice. My hangup is that I want to live in a nice house, but don't want the risk of buying/building a nice house that I have to sell at a loss because I have to move for work.
Another option is to add population density as a factor on taxes. Raise taxes and then offer a discount for people in low population density areas. Or you could tie the discount to the median income.
Anecdata, but a lot of the people I know don't really want to live in urban areas so much as that they have to because of jobs. We either need to decouple workers from physical proximity, or force companies to disperse. The first option decouples workers, and the second incentivizes companies to disperse.
The first step a government could do is to encourage remote work. Good Internet infrastructure is an essential first building block, one which is slowly start to be a reality even in rural areas.
My government currently have tax reduction programs in place to enable people to commute to work. The same program could be applied to work from home, giving people tax reduction if they do not travel to work and thus lighten wear on the road system and reduces the pressure on mass transport systems.
In the transportation sector there could be government programs to further incentives technologies that enable direct-to-customer delivery. During the pandemic we saw how reducing crowded stores had some very positive effect on reduced transmission rates, how viruses other than covid also saw a strong reduction. It is possible also that by improving direct-to-customer delivery we end up with less waste, fewer middle men, and possible less impulsive purchases.
We don't need to impose quotas. Make it easier, cheaper and convenient to live outside of large cities and a lot of people will jump for the chance to do so.
> Reversing the trend of jobs concentrating in metro areas is not exactly feasible. How would this be done?
Strange question to ask, given we've been seein the decentralization of jobs happening pretty strong for two years now. Jobs are remote now, wheneve possible, and people are moving to areas they want to live instead of being chained to the commute to an office.
Concentrated metros are more economically productive, not to mention environmentally friendly and better for quality of life. Government discentivizing them leads to a less efficient economy that provides for less of people's needs.
>There are two solutions to that problem. Governments could either make it easier to rent in the increasingly concentrated metro areas, or reverse the trend of increasingly concentrated metro areas.
That would require both negative interest rates and a land value tax because both are intended to neutralize liquidity preference. Negative interest rates prevent the build up of financial capital by overproducing "elites" which means people in rural areas will have those earning opportunities instead.
Just to address this from a non US standpoint. While I'm sympathetic toward both the desire to preserve the character and community of a neighbourhood and your antipathy towards rentiers - there absolutely is a housing crisis across Europe (and presumably in the US).
Part of the reason is the lack of social housing provision, with most EU governments reducing or all together abandoning their post war commitments to low cost housing.
Another reason is that, even in this era of remote work, the enormous majority of high paying jobs do require living in a large population centre.
Perhaps the largest reason is the financialisation of housing as an asset class by hedge and other vulture funds. Italy alone seems to have kept the housing crisis / shortage localised to wealthy cities - and it is the only wealthy EU country to have done so. Germany, Ireland, France etc, all have rents and housing costs far higher than their median citizens capacity to comfortably pay, even in very remote and economically depressed areas.
Italy by contrast charges high taxes on 2nd and 3rd properties, effectively blocking the aggregation of empty / underused housing stock. Which has resulted in rural areas and less populous cities being reasonably priced to live in. This is not the case anywhere else in Western Europe.
According to this website [0], the US has the 3rd lowest income/house price ratio in the entire world.
Outside the west coast and parts of the northeast which are geographically limited in building new houses, we basically have infinite land to build housing which is why inflation adjusted price per square foot hasn't really changed in decades [1].
>>Perhaps the largest reason is the financialisation of housing as an asset class by hedge and other vulture funds.
Financialization of housing has had no negative impact on housing affordability in regions of the US, mostly in the South, that allow housing supply to grow, instead of constricting it with zoning restrictions. On the contrary, basic economic theory would dictate that more advanced financial markets that facilitate greater volumes of investment into housing would be good for housing affordability, by expanding housing supply, and by doing so, increase the number of units available for rent relative to people looking to rent.
Consider which city has the highest rental rates in the world: San Francisco. It has the most stringent restrictions on housing development, and housing use by owners, of any city in North America.
Inhibiting the market is what creates shortages, and housing is no exception.
We want housing to be commodified, and mass-produced by collections of profit-motivated individuals. Consider: construction has kept rent in Chongqing, China to $75 a month.
Italy by contrast charges high taxes on 2nd and 3rd properties, effectively blocking the aggregation of empty / underused housing stock.
This is a great policy. Owning land you don't live on is perversity on the scale of deciding a patch of ocean is yours and shooting at any boat that crosses it.
The limited supply is due mostly to regulations and bureaucratic hurdles. Many cities have introduced lengthy approval processes for new developments, laws setting aside large areas for open space, and restrictive zoning policies. All of these kinds of rules prevent and delay new development.
Cities and states have no obligation to set urban policy in a way that is favorable to home owners -- a minority in most urban centers -- while frustrating the major economic benefit of cities. Growth and scale is what makes those places cool and what drives many of the benefits -- variety of restaurants, quality of goods, and so on -- that make them worth visiting and make them attractive to those who live in them. It is what makes them of value to the state and country. The idea that urban homeowners should be able to put brakes on the process is nuts; people who chose to own homes in significant or up-and-coming urban centers knew what they were getting into. It is just people trying to pull the ladder up after themselves, and this is not in the interest of most urban residents, of most people in any state, or of most people in the country. One does not have a "property right" to "the community just as it was when I got here".
> There’s a limited supply in highly desirable locations because they’re highly desirable.
That's literally what a shortage is. This is like saying, "there's no shortage of chips, people just need to buy less electronics."
> Nobody is obligated to destroy their own community to accommodate the interests of rent-seeking land developers and people who don’t live there.
The real rent-seeking behavior is curbing the supply of housing to drive up one's property values. "Rent-seeking behavior" is not very aptly named. A developer that builds a high rise apartment that rents to dozens of households is improving the use of land and expanding housing availability. A homeowner that keeps shooting down development proposals is not improving housing availability. The latter is the real rent-seeking behavior.
> That's literally what a shortage is. This is like saying, "there's no shortage of chips, people just need to buy less electronics."
Not being able to buy a $100k car doesn’t mean there’s a car shortage, and not being able to buy a home in Boulder doesn’t mean there’s a housing shortage.
There’s plenty of housing.
Folks aren’t homeless for lack of affordable housing.
> The latter is the real rent-seeking behavior.
The propaganda coup of real-estate investors is astounding.
They have people like you advocating for their ability to extract rent in perpetuity as if it was a moral imperative.
Meanwhile, you think the individuals that own a home and enjoy being a part of their community are the bad actors.
It’s truly amazing what they’ve managed to convince people like you of.
> Not being able to buy a $100k car doesn’t mean there’s a car shortage, and not being able to buy a home in Boulder doesn’t mean there’s a housing shortage.
It means there's a housing shortage in Boulder. The car analogy is not effective because a Camry does the exact same thing as a BMW. But a house in Oklahoma doesn't help you if your job is in Boulder.
You can do whatever you want with your own home. But when you start criminalizing the victimless act of building a bigger house, that is where a line is crossed.
>There’s no housing shortage. There’s a limited supply in highly desirable locations because they’re highly desirable.
Actually, it is very easy to have enough housing for everyone and yet make it impossible for everyone who could live in that area to actually live there.
Yeah this is exactly right. In my hometown, we have a beautiful view, but people are always pushing for taller more dense housing, because they say it’s unaffordable. However if they win they will destroy what makes this place great in the first place.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to keep a town smaller and more simple. If the residents were there first and exerted their way into the community they have that right.
I don’t really understand any other argument. There are lots of up and coming cities nowadays, you are free to live there, you are also free to be creative and make more money.
The counter argument is simple. The right to property is inalienable and absolute.
If your neighbours can dictate what you can and cannot build on your own land can you even say that you really own it?
The idea that a small cartel of homeowners can just artificially lower supply is anti freedom and anti free market.
Then such "neighbours" are welcome to vacate their houses and move to a communist country of their liking, which has no respect for private property. I am sure they will find a lot of commonality in values. Let everyone else enjoy freedom
Is it ethical for a select few to grow enormously wealthy by driving up the cost of living for the many by deliberately causing a shortage of a basic need?
People need jobs to live. They also need a roof over their heads. The jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in a few metro areas, but the home-owning class constrains the supply of housing and drives up the price of their own assets. Disincentivizing this sort of rent seeking behavior is precisely the kind of thing property taxes accomplish.