Politics: J'accuse!

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
No, I'm advocating for permitting a community of people to enter into a mutually restrictive arrangment that solves a collective action problem, which happens to be accomplished through government rather than private contract, and against a system whereby one group of people imposes welfare obligations upon another group of people. I didn't argue that rent control is unconstitutional--it is, just as is zoning regulation. I argued that rent control is a bad, unfair policy that does not come close to achieving its purported objectives while creating numerous problems for all parties involved. Zoning does none of those things, except for the person who's pissed off that he can't sell his house to a developer.

They are the same thing, rent control and zoning. Rent control got voted in, and hasn't been voted out, and zoning got voted in, and hasn't gotten voted out. Zoning disadvantages some owners and unfairly enriches others. Rent control does the same thing (because people are unwilling to move, there is less available housing, so prices of new and newly available units go up). Zoning changes the economic makeup of neighborhoods, as does rent control. Zoning can give advantages to people who circumvent the rules (e.g., someone who owns a nice house in McMansion land can get more money if he breaks the rules and rents part of the house to another family) just like rent control did to RT's friend. If people don't like the restrictive zoning, they can vote with their feet. Rent control does achieve the objective of letting people stay where they are, and tends to produces economically diverse neighborhoods. However, it also encourages bad behavior, like not keeping up buildings, cheating, etc. Different types of residential zoning does achieve the objective of giving people control over who their neighbors are. However, it also prevents entire areas from becoming economically diverse. In fact, it tends to ensure that certain areas will NEVER become economically diverse.

I know I fuck around with arguments sometimes, but I'm actually serious this time. I am not, however, saying that the effects of zoning have the same degree of distortion on a micro level. I think on a macro level, the effects of differing residential zoning are a lot stronger, if only because it si far more widespread.