Kenny, do you have a reason to think that housing construction and rental is a situation where you would expect good outcomes from the government running it?
You might get a bunch of these, and the ones I have seen were somewhat shoddily constructed.
Consider this. There is a ‘model’ free market solution, with Tokyo a model example. In 3 sentences:
The national government handles the rules for permitting, and any developer with plans that meet the codes, which allow extremely high density, will get a permit. Neighbors and local city governments get very little say in large areas, so replacing older homes with new can’t be blocked. The outcome of this policy is that the housing in Tokyo is inexpensive, high density, and most of it is recently constructed. Here’s a video on it.
I think “government running” housing construction and rental management could work – see Singapore for an example in that direction.
But generally, no, I would expect governments to generally lack strong incentives to do as good of a job as private enterprises.
I also am aware of the ‘Tokyo model’ and support something similar (or even mostly the same) in other places (e.g. the U.S.).
Practically tho, it seems like the areas in, e.g. the U.S., where housing is most expensive are stuck in ‘inadequate equilibriums’. Basically, everyone is ‘trapped’ in the status quo. Any significant change is likely to hurt large numbers of people, e.g. repealing or rolling-back rent control and rent stabilization.
I also suspect that it’s a victim of a more general problem whereby it’s extremely useful for political coalitions to ‘covertly’ sustain the problems they’re nominally against and loudly proclaim to want to solve. Were they to actually and effectively solve those problems, they’d suffer politically, because of the loss of a strong plank in their platform. (Charitably, I don’t think anyone believes that about their own causes.)
Kenny, do you have a reason to think that housing construction and rental is a situation where you would expect good outcomes from the government running it?
You might get a bunch of these, and the ones I have seen were somewhat shoddily constructed.
Consider this. There is a ‘model’ free market solution, with Tokyo a model example. In 3 sentences:
The national government handles the rules for permitting, and any developer with plans that meet the codes, which allow extremely high density, will get a permit. Neighbors and local city governments get very little say in large areas, so replacing older homes with new can’t be blocked. The outcome of this policy is that the housing in Tokyo is inexpensive, high density, and most of it is recently constructed. Here’s a video on it.
I think “government running” housing construction and rental management could work – see Singapore for an example in that direction.
But generally, no, I would expect governments to generally lack strong incentives to do as good of a job as private enterprises.
I also am aware of the ‘Tokyo model’ and support something similar (or even mostly the same) in other places (e.g. the U.S.).
Practically tho, it seems like the areas in, e.g. the U.S., where housing is most expensive are stuck in ‘inadequate equilibriums’. Basically, everyone is ‘trapped’ in the status quo. Any significant change is likely to hurt large numbers of people, e.g. repealing or rolling-back rent control and rent stabilization.
I also suspect that it’s a victim of a more general problem whereby it’s extremely useful for political coalitions to ‘covertly’ sustain the problems they’re nominally against and loudly proclaim to want to solve. Were they to actually and effectively solve those problems, they’d suffer politically, because of the loss of a strong plank in their platform. (Charitably, I don’t think anyone believes that about their own causes.)