Housing and Wealth Inequality
7th June 2015
But the overarching theme is that urban planning and zoning are best viewed as a form of economic warfare by the upper and middle classes against the working and lower classes. While that might not have been the original intent, to judge by the smug attitudes of the beneficiaries of such planning and zoning, they are perfectly happy with the results.
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Long-time Antiplanner readers will know what I have to say next: those surging housing prices only happen in certain regions, specifically those that use planning and zoning to increase urban densities. This includes most of Europe, Australia, much of New Zealand, most coastal states in the United States, and a few Canadian cities including Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, and Montreal.
Housing is also a factor in many developing nations where most land is still owned by the government, or held in trust by the government on behalf of local villages. This includes most of Africa, much of South America, and part of Asia. In such places, the only people who can enjoy the benefits of “surging housing prices” are the few who own their own land, and since land ownership opportunities are limited due to widespread state control, everyone else stays poor. (In the United States, the closest analogues are Nevada, where 90 percent of the land is owned by the government, and Hawai’i, where more than 90 percent of the land is owned by a handful of corporations and trusts that might be willing to sell it for housing, but the state governent won’t let them.)