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Read newspapers from cities across America and you’ll read about local politicians who (a) brag about the rising “value” of residences and (b) complain about the shortage of “affordable housing.” Yet the same politicians who want to create “affordable housing” for everyone, refuse to support the one thing which would stop increasing demand for land and increasing housing costs--a stable population.
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POPULATION & HOUSING
In January, 2002, the National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of Realtors asked recent homebuyers about the factors that influenced their home buying decisions. Here are the percentages of people responding “important” or “very important:”
Houses spread out: 62%; Bigger house: 47%; Bigger lot: 45%; Less developed area: 40%; Away from the city: 39%
Bigger houses spread out on bigger lots in less developed areas away from cities!
Hold on--doesn’t anybody want “Smart Growth?” Oh, sure: Smaller houses (10%) on smaller lots (9%) closer to public transit (13%).
What do these results mean? They mean that over the long run, the cost of housing can go only one direction . . . up. As the supply of suitable land for housing declines, the price of such land goes up.
Incidentally, the cost of food also goes up as farmland is taken over to become residential lots and parking lots and shopping malls and commercial campuses. Likewise, the cost of commuting--in time and in money--goes up as residences are built on land further away from jobs. Finally, the quality of housing goes down as fast-growing areas are unable to obtain required numbers of skilled contractors and tradespeople.
Looking to the future, entire generations of American homebuyers may find themselves paying more to purchase less . . . as their quality of life continues to decline.
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©2010 Californians for Population Stabilization. All Rights Reserved
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