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At least here in the US, we'll need to lose a war on home soil to a more enlightened power before we get land use liberalization.

You don't have to remove the sensible regulations. You need to make enforcement of regulations and the approval process easy, low risk, fast, and cheap - instead of the typical multi-month (or year) bog down that most planning departments in major cities turn into. Removing things like natural spaces, parking, fire safety, and all the other stuff that city planners enforce to keep a city livable is not going to help in any long run situation.

Why is there not more funding for those departments to make approval/revisions a breeze and make building lower risk and cheaper for construction companies? Welp - home owners (and big construction/investment companies) are the ones who vote. I expect politicians know exactly what they're doing, keeping things a complicated swamp.

But without some sort of governing regulation, I fail to see how anyone benefits in the long run with the tragedy of the commons that would ensue.

Agreed on all the rest, especially Georgism.

> Housing can't both be an investment and a basic need.

Yes it can, and it was for large chunks of the 20th century. Imputed rent can have high yields and therefore imply good "investment" income for households with long term stable housing demand.

And for large chunks of the 20th century family farming fed the nation. Not sure what the 20th century has to do with the issue at hand.

My theoretical point that high rental yields can imply houses are a good asset to own without price spirals stands regardless of time period.

The 20th century is relevant because it had long periods of time where homes could be bought at high rental yields because there was lots of new construction in the USA.

I think the general premise is housing can't both be so cheap that people with nearly no net worth can get it, but so valuable that it can serve as a substitute for retirement savings. This is from first principles true, but it's really only a problem in urban areas: my pet theory is that spiking demand for urban housing is driving 100% of this. Americans used to move far more than they do now [move], even when you factor in the pandemic, and they used to be more comfortable living in all kinds of different places, but now people move to cities and stay put. This is for all kinds of reasons, all under the category "it sucks not to live in a city for almost everyone". Economic opportunity is way, way lower [econ]. Racism, misogyny, homo/transphobia, hyper religiosity, and lack of diversity are huge problems. Urban schools dramatically outperform rural schools [schools]. Health care is harder to get [health care]. I think the data bear me out here; in particular general homeownership rates are basically what they were in 1963 [homeownership], but urban homeownership rates are way below the average [urban homeownership].

There are some signs that this trend is reversing, but I think that was entirely a pandemic phenomenon. Big numbers of Americans regret their pandemic moves [regrets], so I think the environment hasn't actually changed.

It's hard to see where this goes. Most other places solve this by becoming very very dense (Hong Kong) or building great mass transit (Tokyo). It really seems like the US won't do either of those things--maaaaaaybe NYC will but that would be all. I tentatively predict that we have to wait for most of the Boomers to die and leave their wealth/houses to Millennials before we know if this is a bona-fide societal crisis or not: if enough Millennials get what they want this way it'll take the oomph out of any kind of policy change (probably reverse the momentum actually--if anyone thinks Millennials will be any better than Boomers they're super mistaken).

But, neither outcome is really good. On the one hand you have the daunting prospect of a dramatic economic reorganization of the most powerful nation on Earth. On the other you have the calcification of the most powerful nation on Earth into something fundamentally unequal, illiberal and corrupt.

[move]: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/de...

[econ]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/six-charts-illustrate-di...

[schools]: https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/education-g...

[health care]: https://www.gao.gov/blog/why-health-care-harder-access-rural...

[homeownership]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

[urban homeownership]: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2016/...

[regrets]:

https://homebay.com/moving-trends/

https://homebay.com/moving-trends-2024/

[flagged]

It's bait, but I'll engage.

What part of Georgism is Anarcho-capitalism ? It is merely a way to reason about land and taxation.

For a country with near-zero historic buildings, the US has some of the most suffocating housing regulations. Making the regulations easier to navigate does not make it anarcho-capitalism.

The US housing crisis is an urban problem. Take California for example. Prop 13 handles land-taxation, which lets you pay pennies on prime real eastate. The Bay-area is the world's tech capital and has the world's most expensive real-estate. Yet you'd struggle to see an 5-floor+ building outside of a small pocket in down-town SF & SJ. Nimbys have practically outlawed any building by exploiting environmental regulations. The troubles associated with the new Apple Campus and the SJ downtown transit extension are recent examples among many.

In the above examples, housing of those who have it, is being protected by the laws as if it is a need. However, it explicitly prices-out those without housing through the same means. The individuals who protect their housing, do so to protect an investment. To me, taking away the ability of NIMBYs to project power outside their own walls limits exclusionary regulation. And standardizing taxation by land value generates the kind of fair-market pressure that keeps supply coming.

Now yes, it fully embraces housings as an investment, and it will inevtiably comes with it's fair share of problems. But first, investments come with well-understood regulations to avoid abuse (cartelization, hoarding). And second, I can't imagine how it would be anywhere close to how bad things are now.

If you have a better solution, then I'm all ears. But, at least don't be condescending if you aren't willing to engage.

> What part of Georgism is Anarcho-capitalism ? It is merely a way to reason about land and taxation.

Sure, but that's not what you espoused. You mentioned it as the best opinionated middle ground, but ultimately concluded, too much regulation was bad--Georgism involves far more regulation than we currently have. Note that Georgism isn't just about land.

> Making the regulations easier to navigate does not make it anarcho-capitalism.

Sure, but "making regulations easier to navigate" is quite a bit different from listing every current regulation you can think of and saying they are the cause of our current problems.

Even if we charitably assume you're genuinely proposing Georgism as the end goal, that's a complicated ideology to implement. What are the steps to get there? It seems like your only concrete solution is to get rid of the too-much-regulation examples you mentioned--the few weak protections we have--and vaguely "implement Georgism". Whether you intend it as such or not, that's a motte-and-bailey fallacy: the end result of this plan is simply to get rid of regulation and then fail to implement Georgism.

I don't share your optimism that land value tax cannot simply be passed on to renters. Closing that massive loophole involves implementing the rest of Georgism, which I'm not convinced you know exists since you've failed to mention it entirely. And ultimately, I am not convinced that loophole is possible to close.

And then there's the separate problem of accurately valuing land in order to tax it.

> The US housing crisis is an urban problem.

No, it's not. Homeless flock to urban areas because it's easier to survive without a home in an urban area, and small-town/suburban cops have a lot more ability to just imprison all the homeless they encounter under some pretext. But a lack of affordable housing in suburban and rural areas is absolutely a cause of homelessness just as much as a lack of housing in urban areas is. If anything, the lack of employment opportunities in suburban/rural areas creates more housing insecurity.

> In the above examples, housing of those who have it, is being protected by the laws as if it is a need.

Is it? I don't think so, and you conveniently talked around zoning laws which are more obviously treating housing as an investment and not a basic need.

These laws presuppose that housing as an investment is a reasonable thing. I suppose that assumption doesn't mutually exclude housing as a basic need, but the laws you mention completely lack the sorts of protections with real effect that regulate investors in other basic needs. If your water company or electric company fail to provide service, they get fined--who gets fined for failing to provide housing? When food supplies became insecure, we subsidized farming at a level that creates a permanent excess of food: who are we subsidizing to create a permanent excess of housing?

> If you have a better solution, then I'm all ears.

Well, housing is a basic need. You keep dropping phrasing like "if housing is a basic need" or "as if it is a basic need", but the statement "Housing is a basic human need" surely is not under debate? So maybe we treat things the way they are. There's no need for an "opinionated middle ground"--there are not two sides to this coin: housing is a basic need. I do not care about investors in housing: people withholding people's basic needs to collect rent are a blight and should be treated as such.

No one should be able to own houses they do not live in. I have no objection to simply giving landlords a year to sell off their rental properties, but realistically this sort of regulation is hard enough to pass without cutting the oligarchy out of their pound of flesh, so some sort of compromise that reimburses landlords somewhat is a reasonable compromise if we can solve homelessness permanently.

The crux is that people can agree that "housing is a basic need" without agreeing that "no one should be able to own houses they do not live in".

Even the most well-intentioned attempts to implement this will probably be more harm than good. There will always be enough loopholes to create many of the same problems while the added restrictions can introduce other problems of their own.

Some people cannot afford to buy, and some would not buy even if they could, preferring flexibility or a different kind of market exposure. For them to have a place to rent, someone else -- be that a company, family, or individual -- has to own a place they don't live in so they can rent it out. There will always be a need for this, you can't just ban it.

Aside: Don't tell me you want state-built housing projects. People seem to forget that the USA already tried that. Even in Russia and China virtually anyone who can afford to move to private housing does and never looks back.

Australia's state housing projects may have kept some people off the streets but have not prevented runaway housing prices for everyone else. One could argue they took up valuable land that could have helped with the supply side.

It's not "anarcho-capitalist" to recognize that many laws and regulations have had paradoxical effects once implemented. Even the most die-hard planned economy maximalist has to acknowledge that the plan can function differently in practice to how it was imagined by the committee. History is full of examples of well-intentioned plans functioning far worse for both the collective and the individual.

> Some people cannot afford to buy,

...and crashing housing prices drastically would solve this.

> and some would not buy even if they could, preferring flexibility or a different kind of market exposure.

A lack of flexibility in home ownership means a lack of liquidity in the market. A more liquid market is the solution here, not rent.

Paying rent is not market exposure. It's explicitly excluding renters from any market appreciation. No one chooses to rent so they can "gain exposure" to monetary loss. This is an absurd argument.

> Aside: Don't tell me you want state-built housing projects. People seem to forget that the USA already tried that.

People who hate government housing love to point to urban projects built in primarily black neighborhoods before the civil rights movement, and conveniently forget that postwar housing programs built much nicer housing in primarily white neighborhoods. I grew up in one such house.

> Even in Russia and China virtually anyone who can afford to move to private housing does and never looks back.

Imagine seeing people who would otherwise be homeless become stable enough to move into nicer private homes and seeing that as a failure of public housing.

My guy, people are sleeping on cardboard outside in 10 degree weather here. Grow a sense of perspective. Yes, I also support improving quality of housing, but if your criticism is that my solution doesn't result in perfect housing, I'll point out that your opposition to all real solutions doesn't result in housing.

> Australia's state housing projects may have kept some people off the streets but have not prevented runaway housing prices for everyone else.

Sorry, what was that first part?

Australia's state housing projects couldn't meet the demands of investor greed, because corporate greed is limitless. It should be unsurprising that as long as investment is allowed in housing, housing can't be cheap.

> It's not "anarcho-capitalist" to recognize that many laws and regulations have had paradoxical effects once implemented.

True. It becomes anarcho-capitalist when you see the complexity of regulation and use it as an excuse to oppose any and all regulation.

> History is full of examples of well-intentioned plans functioning far worse for both the collective and the individual.

History is also full of examples of well-intentioned plans functioning quite well. You like working no more than 40 hours a week? You like that your boss can't lock you in your office and let you burn to death if the place catches fire? You like that your food has to be inspected for foodborne illness?

Many of the regulations we have were written in blood and there are many people still suffering because regulations have not yet been written. Your free market ideology brought us sweatshops, cars that explode when rear-ended, paychecks paid in company store credit, black lung disease, prison slavery, Chromium-related cancer clusters, opiods, microplastics, kitchen grease fires--the list is endless, and in every one of these cases people knew what they were doing was harmful, did it anyway, and walked away with the profits of, in some of these cases, literal murder, because people like you are too blinded by ideology to prioritize human lives over freedom of the market and regulate before untrustworthy corporations cause harms that they obviously will.

e: if you don't agree with my idea, please comment why instead of down voting.

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> Housing can't both be an investment and a basic need.

Housing as investment is a beautiful solution to how many people fail to properly save for retirement. For many people entering retirement, their home is a huge part of the investment portfolio, because they always made sure to make that payment.

If properties didn't appreciate, old people would not have the assets to retire on, then what?

> if properties didn't appreciate, old people would not have the assets to retire on, then what?

The younger generations will find that out.

Not exactly sure what you're implying, but I'm assuming you're saying that Grandma moves in with you and now you can't afford to have kids and take care of grandma (which is the current situation of several of my friends).

No I'm saying that when the younger generations (who don't own property) get old we'll see what happens.

ah, my hypothesis there is the younger generations will think they are getting their parent's house, but for many families, mom & dad will sell their house to pay for long term care facilities when they can't take care of themselves or walk up the stairs, leaving the kids with nothing.

Families have 1.9 children in the US, so all children inheriting suburban middle class homes from their dying parents is already off the table unless their parents divorced and or have some other reason to own two homes.

Let's say half of families divorce. But we then factor in your "long term care costs" and the liens those people will have requiring home sales rather than gifting and we're probably right back at half (at best) of kids possibly inheriting housing when they're in their 60s and their parents kick the bucket.