What you propose is a very socialist solution. I've read somewhere that in the USSR paying more than 4% of your income to housing was considered criminal (as they calculated that's what housing would cost using cost-based-pricing).
Think also that the program can avoid deficit by not having only low-income tenants, providing more opportunities for social mobility and allowing more consumption which means more VAT taxes, specially if you're smart enough to provide your tenants with supermarkets, bars, etc, which isn't difficult if you pack enough people and provide space for bussiness in the ground floors.
Socialism is a left-wing political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. [0]
Government ownership of housing, as opposed to private ownership, is unambiguously socialist policy, regardless of policy intentions.
> specially if you're smart enough to provide your tenants with supermarkets, bars, etc, which isn't difficult if you pack enough people and provide space for bussiness in the ground floors.
Here's the issue with central planning. How does the government know which services residents will find desirable? This difficulty is known as the local knowledge problem. I don't drink alcohol; why should I be forced to pay for a bar I don't use? And more importantly, why is the government encouraging an activity that causes the death of 140k Americans a year?
I didn't say that government runs the bussiness. The public hoosuing buildings have space at ground level that is rented for businesses.
In many european contries you have supermarkets for the neighborhood in those spaces.
This is not public housing, but the lowest income neighborhood in my city, serves as example of where bussineses can be located. https://www.google.es/maps/place/Gadis/@43.3576146,-8.416073...
Another example: https://www.google.es/maps/place/Eroski+Center/@43.3754534,-...
I misunderstood what you meant as to who would choose which services to provide. Completely agree with you about mixed zoning, it's really beneficial to have the businesses near residents.
The ideal would be to them having everything they need in <5min walk.
Also, maybe you can rent to bussiness at a market rate, since their clients have more disposable income.
Fortunately that was the only criminal activity in the shining beacon of freedom and prosperity that was the USSR.
I don't think this is a useful way to approach any of these problems, and I'm sure neither do you, so why try to score cheap points this way.
My primary intention wasn't to refer directly to the morality of the USSR. Economically speaking, the USSR was a disaster, so I'm skeptical that we should implement the policies that quite literally destroyed a nation.
But yes, the USSR was a murderous state led by men who were happy to kill tens of millions of people for personal gain. I find that morally reprehensible.