The faircloth amendment prohibits an increase in public housing stock. Granted amendments can be repealed, but “refusal” is a bit of an oversimplification in the public housing case, it’s literally banned.
How is that not exactly the kind of 'self-own' that I'm talking about? There's nothing technical or geographic that's stopping us here, it's literally just a law we ourselves passed to make the problem worse. The federal government could repeal it at any time but chooses not to.
Also, that's only for federal public housing IIRC, so cities/counties/states could still make their own public housing if they wanted to.
Is public housing the main driver of lower housing prices in comparable economies?
I would have guessed that the HUD being unable to build more housing isn't helping us, but isn't the main reason that prices are skyrocketing in urban areas.
Public housing is important, mostly because private housing growth contracts during economic slowdowns, and the delay in constructing new ones means an eventual crunch when the economy starts needing housing again. If the public housing pipeline is robust it can generate a more even supply.
> Is public housing the main driver of lower housing prices in comparable economies?
Most other Western countries seem to be suffering similar issues, with prices rising and various regulations making it hard to increase the supply of housing.
Vienna seems to be doing better as far as capital cities go, and it has a large amount of social/public housing.
That said, rents in Seoul and Tokyo are fairly reasonable given their size and national importance, and this seems to be because it's just a lot easier to make more housing.
Rent in Seoul is good, but price to income is pretty bad, worse than SF. For some reason South Korea's flavor of property investment prefers rental income (as opposed to China, where a lot of invested property is not even finished let alone sublet)
Vienna has a bit of an advantage in that it has been below its population peak for the past hundred years (since the peak was before WWI when it was an imperial capital)
It’s a prevention of increases above the existing levels that existed at the time of the Faircloth amendment. Pretty much all agencies are well below these levels in 2023.
Also, that's only for federal public housing IIRC, so cities/counties/states could still make their own public housing if they wanted to.