News just in - freer markets work

Pew is not one of those right wing and free market organisations over in the US. We’d put it, in British terms, somewhere between the Labour Party and Novara Media - that range between wrong but not mad and wrong but….well, you understand.

They have just found out that:

Pew has examined several jurisdictions that updated their zoning codes to allow more housing and found that this flexibility helped these jurisdictions add new housing stock faster than new households were being formed. And while rent remains detrimentally high in many communities throughout the country, this research shows that communities updating their zoning laws in this manner kept rent growth to less than 7 percent over the most recent six-year period, even as rents rose by 31 percent nationally.

The solution to rising rents, to the price of housing more generally, is to build more housing.

Note that the US doesn’t have anything - not of any size - even vaguely comparable to council or social housing. Not since they reformed HUD they don’t - they have Section 8 vouchers, akin to our Housing Benefit. The finding here is that building more housing - of any kind - moderates the price of housing.

As, obviously is going to be true, increasing supply does that. Even if half this country is adamant that it won’t.

But, there we have it. If we liberate planning so that more houses are built then the price of housing will moderate. So, why don’t we liberate planning?

Blow up the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. Proper blow up, kablooie.

Let’s house the nation, eh?