[nattaggart]

It sounds like you are suggesting a rather perverse sort of inheritance where the "right" to San Francisco stock is granted to those who are born into it irregardless of that man's wealth, merit, or ability.

Allocating resources this way would be bad enough if housing stock was a public good, but it's not. It's owned by landlords who are then required to subsidize the lifestyle of the beneficiaries of this "right".

[MrMorden]

If TPTB wanted affordable housing, they'd get out of the way, ditch rent control, let developers build more of it, and subsidize rental for the poor.

There's one showstopper problem with a more free-market approach--the overriding purpose of rent control is to subsidize rich parasites like Charlie Rangel. It would be a lot harder for such people to have their housing paid for by others if subsidies were explicit and means-tested. Sure, poor people wouldn't come out worse, but they're not the ones making the rules.

[eli_gottlieb]

It sounds like you are suggesting a rather perverse sort of inheritance where the "right" to San Francisco stock is granted to those who are born into it irregardless of that man's wealth, merit, or ability.

Hmm... owning a city as a cooperative? I don't see why not. There are certainly institutional frameworks in which it can and would work.

Further, you could take inheritance tax from the value of the urban citizenship when someone inherits it by coming of age as a citizen/resident of the city. If someone couldn't pay the tax (which could be charged as a portion the market price of rent/purchase in that city), they would be forced out of the city, as today. However, when their citizenship/residency right would be outright sold, the tax would be less than 100%, so they would at least partially recoup on a financial level the loss of their home.

Sounds like a bizarrely good idea. Thanks for thinking of it.