Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by xg15 1019 days ago
That sounds a bit like "the reason for this traffic jam is clearly that there are no enough lanes".

Evidently, there are enough buyers/renters around who can afford the higher prices and are able to price out the $30k/year group. So what would prevent rent or prices from rising to the same unaffordable levels in the new development, if there is still demand from this higher-paying group?

I feel if the market rate becomes unaffordable for middle-class fulltime employees, then you have an inequality problem, not a supply problem.

1 comments

Well, the Georgists argue that a LVT plus developer friendly laws would prevent prices from rising too high. LVT taxes the value of the land, not the property, so if you have expensive land (somewhere people want to be), you're incentivized to build densely to earn profit from it.

It's not clear to me that's sufficient. You may also need something like a property profit tax to reduce speculation on housing.