[Schroedingersat]

> It is the most economically viable product, which is why they dominate.

It's the only legal product.

Very different.

If you ban shoes that aren't made of gold, everyone is going to have terrible, expensive shoes. This would not be evidence that gold shoes were economically viable. Especially if every locale that adopted this rule was deeply in debt.

[xienze]

> It's the only legal product.

Where’d this nonsense that the only thing you can build in the US is SFH come from? All over the US, in the same areas where there are SFH, there are apartment complexes, condos, and townhouses. The reason there’s so much SFH in the US is because, believe it or not, many people prefer living in a detached home with some semblance of a yard.

[scythe]

>Where’d this nonsense that the only thing you can build in the US is SFH come from? All over the US, in the same areas where there are SFH, there are apartment complexes, condos, and townhouses.

Because it's very often true. Many neighborhoods that have apartments and townhomes mixed with SFH are full of grandfathered-in buildings that would be illegal to build under current zoning codes, due to setback/lot-fill/height/unit-count requirements etc. In fact, one reform idea I'm particularly fond of is allowing (e.g. at state level) any property to be rebuilt to the existing use (so that people aren't living in decaying, unhealthy buildings).

[bombcar]

It’s also the single easiest thing to get loans on, subsidized by the government.

I walk into the bank and permit office for a loan to build a single family, and they barely even wake up before shoving the money at me.

If I dare to go above a duplex, all hell breaks loose.