This quillette article claims that the housing market has been distorted for the benefit of the rentier class--that nominally environmental and social goals have had the at-best-unintended consequences of sending housing prices sky-high and making home ownership extremely hard. This hits the middle class hard, and reduces the middle class's relative independence of the elites. It is horrible for the poor, who are already dependent.
You are at liberty to believe the consequences were accidental.
Sometimes the original plan has good (enough) intent, but people rapidly discover who it benefits and seek to perpetuate it.
ReplyDeleteFamily formation is seriously undermined by our housing policies, including the enormous restriction on manufactured and prefabbed housing. What purport to be quality and safety measures from construction industries are often just protectionism
Exactly
ReplyDeleteI seem to remember C. S. Lewis saying something about losing sight of the end in the means being "the subtlest of all snares."
ReplyDelete