From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Sat Sep 09 2000 - 15:48:13 MDT
Brian Atkins wrote:
> Hey Spike is it true that the shortage of housing there is really caused
> by anti-growth laws that prevent a lot of development?
Very true methinks. Makes sense, does it not? Are not elections
controlled by landowners? Do not landowners have a vested interest
in limiting the total amount of that asset which they already own?
> I just don't understand
> why on one hand you've got a housing shortage, and on the other hand there
> aren't buttloads of high rise condos going up? It seems awfully artificial.
Ja, intentional and artificial. Do you suppose any landowner wants
low cost housing anywhere near her back yard? Nyet, she wants
*unaffordable* housing across the street, high cost housing to
replace low cost housing. As it turns out, this is exactly what
has happened, without any actual physical changes occurring
to the structures themselves. The rich young technocrats have
displaced many long-time valley residents, and the property
values responded as you might expect.
I have mixed feelings about it. We will lose a lot of low cost
services, yet on the other hand, the neighborhoods get a lot
safer, and in many ways more interesting to live in. Extropian
notions are common in a technocrat neighborhood, for instance.
spike
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