Increasingly restrictive land-use regulations are driving up housing prices in many of America’s biggest, most productive cities. In Manhattan, San Francisco, and San Jose, for example, this “regulatory tax” accounts for an estimated 50 percent of housing prices. In addition to exacerbating problems of housing affordability at the local level, these regulations are undermining economic growth at the national level via a growing misallocation of the work force. Specifically, U.S. GDP is lower than it could be because people are being priced out of moving to those metro areas that disproportionately produce GDP. In addition, income inequality across metro areas and regions of the country is higher than it would be if people were free to move to where jobs and opportunities are most plentiful.
Blog posts about Land Use Regulation
This Week in Land Use Regulation, December 11th
News and Commentary Montgomery County, Maryland has ended its housing moratorium in areas with overcrowded schools after forecasting substantial housing supply shortage writes [...]
This Week in Land Use Regulation, November 6th
News and Commentary Larry Eichel and Octavia Howell discuss the findings of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ new report “The State of Housing Affordability [...]
This Week in Land-Use Regulation, October 30th
News and Commentary Alby Gallun explains that the President may be out of touch with current suburban attitudes towards low income housing in [...]
This Week in Land Use Regulation, October 23rd
News and Commentary Liberty Towers affordable housing development faces zoning map, text, and permit barriers to construction in St. George, Staten Island, writes [...]
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