Evening Must-Read: Alon Levy: Zoning and Market Pricing of Housing

Alon Levy: Zoning and Market Pricing of Housing: “The question of the effects of the supply restrictions…

…in zoning on housing prices has erupted among leftist urbanist bloggers again. On the side saying that US urban housing prices are rising because of zoning…. On the side saying that zoning doesn’t matter and the problem is demand (and by implication demand needs to be curbed)…. This is not a post about why rising prices really are a matter of supply. I will briefly explain why they are, but the bulk of this post is about why, given that this is the case, cities need to apportion the bulk of their housing via market pricing and not rent controls, as a matter of good political economy. Few do, which is also explainable in terms of political economy…