Housing and the Red State-Blue State Divide
Lance on Oct 10 2007 at 5:07 am | Filed under: Culture, Domestic Politics, Economics, Lance's Page, Society, Urban planning and development, regulation, social science
Virginia Postrel makes a point I will be exploring in more detail over the next few months in her latest essay at The Atlantic, the reasons behind the vast disparities in housing prices in our country. More interestingly she notices something I hadn’t really considered, at least not in the way she does. The cultural and political impact on the country of the divide such a situation creates. That impact is surprising, but seems true. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Tags: economics, ideology, partisanship, politics, housing, Virginia Postrel, land use controls, regulation
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Interesting read Lance (I’ve generally been impressed with Virginia Postrel’s writing over the years). Having lived in Cincinnati, San Francisco, Dallas, Boston and Manhattan over the last 15 years, I’ve definitely noticed this phenomenon myself. Although I agree that a lot of the higher prices are driven by the perceived desirabilityof the locales at the top of the list (i.e., SF, LA, NYC, et al.), I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that they also represent the more socialistic places in the country. The land use restrictions on the west coast are beyond the pale.
Personally Virginia Postrel is a national treasure. “The Future and Its Enemies” is one of my favorite reads. I dearly hope her battle with cancer is successful.