Cities Are No Longer Escalators of Opportunity, MIT Study Finds

bloomberg.com

5 points·dakna··3 comments

The more governments "focus on housing", the more prices rise. Rent control is rife with abuse and pushes prices up elsewhere, and governments tend to heavily restrict zoning and building regulations so that builders can't build.

If someone wanted to build ultra dense skyscrapers in NYC with very small apartments for poor people it would never be allowed.

Compounding the problem, once people "make it" and own a house, they vehemently vote for NIMBY policies to preserve their house's inflated value.

The thing that damns this article the most is the claim that minimum wage improves opportunity, a fact so clearly wrong it's almost as if they're pretending it has never been tried and failed repeatedly.

>governments tend to heavily restrict zoning and building regulations so that builders can't build.

This is 98% of San Francisco's problem. They decided they didn't want high rises. Less room = less supply = prices going up.

Its idiotic to get mad at tech and other companies for providing jobs. I can't believe how utterly incompetent so called "leaders" are with their either ignorance in basic economics or malfeasance in knowing but using the strife to push their political agenda instead of solving problems.

San Francisco voters regularly vote against their own interests. For example, a plurality of renters vote in favor of NIMBY policies.

It transcends party lines for the most part, too. Homeowners vote to preserve their investments by restricting competition. Government complies, every single time.

You can't unfold a lawn chair in NYC without a permit to do so from the Department of Lawn Chairs.

This absolutely decimates the working class, and politicians know it does.

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