Stop the presses! Notify the Pulitzer Committee! The Left Angeles Times has stumbled upon the startling news that "Housing Needs Are Unmet In OC."
The article is basically a lament about how difficult it is for low- and middle-income people to buy a home in Orange County, about the inadequate supply of affordable, blah, blah, blah.
Why doesn't the Times write a story on why that is so? Because it would 1) require that the reporter have some grasp of basic economics and 2) call into question the wisdom of public policy decisions that elevate wildlife above the human need for home ownership -- the latter being an bedrock of stable, civilized society.
It isn't rocket science. There is only so much land upon which to build homes. When that supply dwindles, the value of the remaining land increases -- especially when it is located in an area as dersirable as Orange County. When vast tracts of land are set aside as open space, wildlife corridors, greenbelts, amber waves of grain, whatever -- that diminishes the supply of land on which homes can be built, and at the same time increasing the value of that land.
In other words, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The only thing these NIMBYs who want to "Save The (insert previously ignored natural feature to be exploited to block housing development)" accomplish is to make it harder for young families to enjoy the blessings of home ownership. It's the developers' land, anyway -- right? It doesn't cost the public anything if they are forced to set aside their land for open space, right?
Much as I dislike organized environmentalism as anthithetical to property rights and individual liberty, the fault lies not entirely with the nujobs who jump and scream anytime anyone wants to turn a few hundred scare feet of scrubland...excuse me, "wilderness"...into a home for an actual human being. It lies with the ordinary citizens who support setting aside thousands of acres of perfectly good land as "open space" -- and then complain about high home prices and small lot sizes. [NOTE: when exactly did Americans decide wilderness was something to be preserved instead of tamed?]
It's comical to read quotes from affordable housing activists in articles like this one, calling for more low-cost housing. I agree with their goals -- enabling more families to own their own home -- but shake my head at their child-like belief that government can simply mandate such housing into existence. This, in turn, belies their own ignorance of such immutable factors as the law of supply and demand, the costs imposed by environemntal laws, local government builder fees, the extortion practiced by local governments upon developers, etc.
These activists seem to view developers they same way they view government -- as a bottomless pit of money, organizations upon which endless demands for money can be made, without jeopardizing their solvency.
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