Affordability Destoyed by Smart Growth/Growth Management in Seattle
Demographia/PublicPurpose/RentalCarTour Updates
A weak foundation for supporting the American Dream
Editor, The Times:
"Don't blame growth management for higher housing prices" [Times, guest
commentary, Jan. 5] could not be more wrong. Growth management is why
housing affordability has been destroyed in Seattle.
Rationing raises prices, whether of gasoline or land for residential
development. Seattle-like hyper-inflation in housing can only be found
in urban areas that have shortages of land for development, principally
the result of "smart growth" policies.
>From Sydney to Portland, Auckland, London and Seattle, the story is the
same. Housing affordability is incompatible with growth management as
it is being practiced. Where liberal land regulations exist, housing
remains affordable.
For example, Dallas-Fort Worth is growing more quickly than Seattle and
the median house price is approximately $150,000. If the entire nation
were to see prices rise to Seattle levels, homeownership rates would
descend to 20 percent, from the present nearly 70 percent.
This is not just an economic problem, but a social one as well. The
evidence has become so overwhelming that even the British, the
originators of "sky is falling" urban planning, are officially
questioning it.
It is not the "law of demand" that determines prices; it is the "law of
supply and demand."
- Wendell Cox, co-author, Demographia International Housing
Affordability Survey, O'Fallon, Ill.