Here is someone arguing against loosening regulations to allow more home building, unless supported by the neighborhood in question:
I would only support upzoning in order to create affordable housing if the zoning changes were supported by the community that they would affect. Currently, our land use process provides inadequate opportunity for substantive community input. I oppose upzoning our City’s historic districts. We can address our city’s affordable housing needs without changing the character of our City’s neighborhoods.
Here’s another example:
Did you know that an advisory panel in San José has recommended the elimination of single-family home zoning on neighborhood streets away from major boulevards and transit? This betrayal of the families in those neighborhoods contravenes the Envision San José 2040 General Plan that was adopted after much civic input. This so-called “Opportunity Housing” concept also contravenes common sense. . . .
[It] is a recipe for neighborhood strife around parking, noise, and privacy. It also goes against the city’s pledge to protect the character of often-historic blocks not on major boulevards or adjacent to transit. Such a move would nuke the neighborhoods that give San José charm, character, and breathing room.
The first statement was made by Maya Wiley, a progressive running for mayor of New York. The second comes from the Santa Clara California Republican Party.
We are frequently told that America is polarized between liberals and conservatives, and there is clearly some truth in that claim. But perhaps we are missing an even bigger polarization, between those who focus on the seen and those who focus on the unseen. (BTW, the title of this post comes from Frederic Bastiat’s brilliant essay on opportunity cost.)
Proponents of NIMBYism on both the left and the right are opposed by those who focus on the unseen effects of zoning restrictions, that is, all the anonymous people who will never be able to live in areas with lots of great jobs because the local residents refuse to allow new construction.
There are many proponents of protectionism in both political parties. They focus on the easily seen impact of imported goods, which is a loss of jobs in import competing industries. They are opposed by people on both sides of the ideological spectrum who focus on the unseen effects of protectionism, such as a loss of jobs in export industries.
A few years ago, a bipartisan group of Congressmen successfully repealed the “Cadillac tax” on health insurance, which aimed to gradually phase out the heavy subsidy that the federal government currently provides to health expenditures made through company insurance plans. They focused on the easily seen consequences on worker paychecks and health care jobs. They were opposed by people on both sides of the ideological spectrum, who worried that the subsidy to health insurance causes costs to explode, thus reducing real wages for future generations.
People on both sides of the ideological spectrum often favor fiscal stimulus. Other people on both sides of the ideological spectrum worry about its unseen effects, such as crowding out.
People on both sides of the political spectrum worry that immigration will reduce wages. Others on both sides of the political spectrum think about future generations of people who are not now but will become American, and who will be better off because they were allowed to immigrate to America in the 2020s.
People on both sides of the political spectrum favor government deposit insurance to protect savers when a bank fails. Other people (including FDR) worried about the less visible moral hazard thereby created, the tendency of insured banks to make riskier loans than uninsured banks.
People on both sides of the political spectrum have advocated that universities fire people who make offensive statements about Israel, or about minority groups. Others worry about the chilling effects of moving away from a tradition of free speech.
Yes, in America we have the Democrats and the Republicans. But perhaps at a deeper level the actual split is between the party of the seen and the party of the unseen.
READER COMMENTS
Philo
Feb 14 2021 at 2:41pm
In a democracy the Party of the Seen is practically certain to dominate. The contrast is really between the easily seen and the hard to see, and nothing hard (intellectually) will ever be popular.
Art K
Feb 14 2021 at 3:43pm
In theory, one would think Republicans should be all for upzoning. Giving people more opportunity to do what they want with their property is capitalism! Saying you can’t do this or that is regulation and government.
Scott Sumner
Feb 14 2021 at 6:59pm
Yes. Republicans insist that people are leaving California because of overregulation. That’s correct. But the regulations that are most likely to cause people to leave are restrictions on homebuilding, which the California GOP seems to favor.
Matthias
Feb 15 2021 at 1:22am
That just shows that Republicans aren’t the anti-government party. Despite the occasional rhetoric (mostly from their detractors).
As another example: there’s an almost universal consensus in the US to keep the government monopoly on mail. Despite many countries in Europe showing that the sky does not fall down after privatisation of that service and repeal of the monopoly.
(Similar, the Tories in the UK are also by and large in favour of the NHS. They have been in power on and off for a while, and never abolished it.
But if you listened to their political opponents, you’d think the end of the NHS is at most one election away.
Perhaps more surprising, Labour has not made any serious moves to nationalise the British rail system again, despite polls constantly showing that the population favours it.)
D.O.
Feb 15 2021 at 2:08am
Just a thought. Maybe we should agree that people living in a neighborhood have a vested interest in the neighborhood’s character, which cannot be simply taken away. But that it can be bought. If a developer or a group of developers want to upzone a neighborhood they should propose to pay sufficiently enough that half of the people leaving there agree to take the money and live with the cosequences or move out. Coase tells us that it should work out just fine. Right?
john hare
Feb 15 2021 at 4:51am
The problem, if I’m reading you correctly, is that there will often be a few hold outs looking to get wealthy off of the new developments.
robc
Feb 15 2021 at 6:30am
Or, they understand it may happen in the first place and they price the risk into their purchase price offer.
D.O.
Feb 15 2021 at 11:53am
That’s not what I meant. Developers still have to buy property on which they want to build from the owners. What I am proposing is that the factual right to upzone the neighborhood can be bought from all the citizens of the neighborhood. The decision would be democratic, half of the people living there must approve, but everyone then will get an agreed upon payment. For now, the formal right belongs to the municipality and the process of upzoning is purely political and if any money is involved, it is some sort of bribe.
robc
Feb 15 2021 at 1:17pm
I know it is not what you meant.
My first preference would be to end zoning altogether. That takes the decision out of the hands of the municipality, just like you want to do, but I want to put it in the hand of the property owners, while you still want it to be collectivized, just on a more local level.
If there was no power to zone, property owners would price the risk of their neighbor doing something awful (but non-infringing on your property rights) into their purchase price. Coasean bargaining could still be used with your neighbors, it just reverses your direction. And in a way that minimizes transactions cost, which is Coase approved (property rights should be defined to minimize transaction costs)!
If you want your neighbor to not build up, you just have to buy that property right from them, no need for voting or democracy or any of that overhead.
Of course, if properly done, you have have to pay property tax on the value of the right you own (this is one of my problems with deed restrictions today).
Scott Sumner
Feb 15 2021 at 6:37pm
You said:
“Maybe we should agree that people living in a neighborhood have a vested interest in the neighborhood’s character, which cannot be simply taken away.”
It’s also true that US steelmakers have a vested interest in keeping out steel imports. I’m more interested in what’s in the national interest.
D.O.
Feb 15 2021 at 10:46pm
This is not a moral or philosophical question for me. Clearly, what we have now doesn’t work. Maybe we should try something that has a chance. And most cities have a lot of neighborhoods. Let them decide who wants to build more.
I’m not sure that AOC driving Amazon out of Queens was supported by the residents. If the norm of making such decisions democratically was established, the most she would have done is to put the question on the ballot. Isn’t it a normal practice in Switzerland?
Phil H
Feb 15 2021 at 9:46am
Honestly, I think you’re overcomplicating things. It is the haves vs the have-nots, or the ins vs the outs. In this case, the message of the haves is voiced through their political proxies, but still rich people fending off others and pulling up the drawbridge. To recast naked class warfare as an intellectual disagreement just seems to miss the point.
Mark Z
Feb 15 2021 at 3:19pm
Many of the most militant opponents of new housing in my city are poor people or people their self-appointed vicars in government who want to preserve the ‘character of their neighborhoods.’ Maybe it’s ‘false consciousness’ but I don’t doubt the sincerity of the anti-development camp.
Scott Sumner
Feb 15 2021 at 6:38pm
I agree with Mark.
Thomas Hutcheson
Feb 15 2021 at 10:25am
There are two ways to be “unseen.” There may be a asymmetry between concentrated/dispersed costs/benefits as with free trade versus protectionism. Or costs or benefits may be invisible because there is no market in the good or service as with CO2 emissions or neighborhood amenities.
Ew Pemakin
Feb 15 2021 at 11:14am
People who appreciate the unseen have to be relatively small (the majority of people trained in economics and a few other STEM grads, maybe). They are not likely to be much swayed by politics on any given issue. It seems to me that politicians will almost always focus on appeals in the seen space. The only exception I can think of was trickle-down economics, which was a disappointment.
robc
Feb 15 2021 at 1:17pm
Which is a good reason to minimize the power of politicians and to preach about the unseen as much as freaking possible.
Michael Rulle
Feb 15 2021 at 3:17pm
Opportunity Cost is one of the most applicable ideas in life. It is relatively easy to learn—an 8th grader—-certainly a 12th grader can easily learn it. It should be its own subject, as it is a form of logic or thinking applicable to virtually, if not literally, every decision. Yet it is confined to economics, which few take—and as far as public policy is concerned it is rarely considered–except by “eggheads”.
I am convinced that great coaches in sports, as well as great business people, implicitly think in terms of opportunity costs. But politicians have no incentive to–as far as I can see.
If only this idea could be used to create corruption it might become popular. But the corruption seems to flow in the opposite direction.
Michael Sandifer
Feb 15 2021 at 10:28pm
The real question is what to do to change such bad NIMBY policies? Unfortunately, NIMBY policices are often very popular with the people in cities who actually vote.
Economists have known for a long time that all of the protectionist policies mentioned here are bad policies, often huring the poor the most. It’s easy in this case to develop better policies.
Perhaps taxation is an approach that can begin to make a difference.
MarkW
Feb 16 2021 at 3:46pm
People have been operating under the assumption (correct until recently) that living in a zoned neighborhood is like a light version of living in a subdivision with an HOA. Should we disallow the former, but permit the latter? Should we permit owners of existing homes in a neighborhood to voluntarily form a new HOA to take the place of zoning? Not wanting an apartment block in one’s back yard is, after all, a legitimate desire — what avenues should remain open to people who prefer that arrangement?
On a separate note, the need to live in a place (SF, NYC) to have access to good jobs seems to be breaking down before our eyes. Should we factor that into our thoughts about zoning?
Mark Brophy
Feb 16 2021 at 5:07pm
It would be most accurate to say that there’s very little competition in politics because both parties mostly want the same socialist policies such as the CARES Act that passed the Senate 95-0.
Comments are closed.