Low-Density Suburbs Are Not Free-Market Capitalism

[KamaAina]

http://www.onenewspage.com/n/US/74r757f8r/Low-Density-Suburbs-Are-Not-Free-Market-Capitalism.htm

Recently in the Wall Street Journal, transportation consultant Wendell Cox published an op-ed entitled: “California Declares War on Suburbia.” Cox argues that “planners” in California are attacking what he calls “the most popular housing choice,” the single-family detached home, and if they get their way, they will weaken California’s economy, drive up housing prices, and increase traffic congestion.

Actually, the homogenous prevalence of low-density single-family suburban housing is the outcome of the very government “planning” process that Cox decries, as economist Ed Glaeser has noted (see “Triumph of the City”).

Local zoning policies greatly distort housing markets across the country. A recent national survey of land regulations found that 84 percent of jurisdictions forbid the construction of housing units that are smaller than some standard set by the local zoning authority. The average jurisdiction with zoning power has a minimum lot size requirement of 0.4 acres, which is larger than most single-family homes. As a consequence, thousands of jurisdictions—mostly in the suburbs of big cities—effectively prohibit the construction of inexpensive or moderately dense housing, and many neighborhoods within big cities impose similar restrictions. As I’ve found in previous research (using data from a survey by Rolf Pendall and my colleague Robert Puentes), metropolitan areas with the most anti-density restrictions tend to see the largest increase in housing prices, controlling for other factors....

Cox is right to link land regulations in California to higher housing costs, but he is wrong to defend anti-density zoning and other forms of large-lot suburban protectionism. The proposed changes in the Bay Area take a step in the right direction by allowing higher density in their supply-constrained metropolitan areas. Indeed, more suburban governments should free up housing markets from their long-standing anti-density bias and adopt more market-based approaches to housing.