Comment by boringg
8 hours ago
Is there the opposite side of the problem of too much permitting? Unpermitted rapid growth with bad construction controls -- so the supply of stock becomes dilapidated or the building goes bananas and you have an oversupply of junky condos nobody wants?
This is beautiful rage bait of a game.
In an open market, you can only have so much oversupply of any product, before people stop investing in building more, or too little supply before investment increases. There's some lag between demand and production, from the time it takes to produce any given good, but for houses, not counting permitting delays, it only takes a few months to build one.
When zoning regulations first started, it wasn't uncommon for people to drink unfiltered surface water and drain their sewage into an open pit. This heavily limits density, and was what zoning was targeting. There are areas in the US, especially in the south, where permitting and zoning are much weaker than in the rest of the country, but high-quality housing is just as prevalent.
I recommend reading Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. This permitting we have today is in response to very real problems of unrestricted growth in the past. It led to horrible pollution and squalor.
The pendulum has swung so far we cannot build anymore. We can't solve the problems of today because our regulations that are responding to the problems of yesterday. I'm hopeful there's a better way but I haven't seen it yet.
It’s not really a pendulum because it never really swings back.
Yet. I'm sure Rome had a bureaucracy that stifled growth and impeded action, too.
that's counter to recent news about newly-developed never-to-be-developed land all over the U.S. [0]
[0] : https://www.americanprogress.org/article/unprotecting-americ...