Limits On Building Permits = Higher Home Prices

In a sample of 120 metropolitan areas, the housing stock expanded 40 percent in the 1950s. In the 1990s, it rose only 14 percent.

1 minute read

August 23, 2005, 8:00 AM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen

"Cities have changed from 'urban growth machines to homeowners' cooperatives,'... Developers probably are less able to 'bribe' or otherwise get city officials to grant them zoning changes or permits for unpopular new housing. More affluent, more educated residents use their political clout to block such developments, which could damage their own house values or the beauty and convenience of their district.

In what Princeton University economist Paul Krugman has called the 'flatland' (the Midwest), it is easier for builders to turn farms into housing than in the 'zoned zone' (heavily zoned areas on the coasts), where it is generally hard to obtain land to build on. So home prices are far lower in flatland."

Thanks to Chris Steins

FULL STORY: Limits on building permits = higher home prices

Monday, August 22, 2005 in The Christian Science Monitor

Housing United States

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