I would agree that many regulations should be liberalised. Taking and relaxing those, especially those that directly affect density, should be a top priority. (California is trying, with ... limited success.)
I think what you'll find though is that even that step is ferociously resisted. A key reason for this is actually market-based, though it's not the transactional market but the asset market: scarcity increases value.
And this works for numerous established players within the system: individual homeowners, yes, but far more so, institutional property-holders and the financial institutions with asset portfolios based on real estate holdings.
Land-value tax advocates will argue that you can solve this problem by taxing land. The obvious problem is obvious: the same interests violently resist any asset tax increases as well. In some jurisdictions, most famously California, property taxes are constitutionally limited (by 1977's Proposition 13).
I've been thinking of possible end-runs around this, and have been thinking of the possibilities of related taxes or regulations which might have similar effects.
Vacant-property / second-property taxes (or fees, to get around the tax limitation) are one possibility. Direct taxation, or changes in asset valuation toward reserve holdings for banks and financial institutions, might be another. Requiring mortgages to be held over time, or limiting resale/bundling could have a strong impact, perhaps. All of this would reduce returns or increase holding costs of real-estate-based assets, should act as a land tax, and would tend to increase the pressures to make more intensive utilisation of land for housing, which is of course what will solve the problem.
I strongly recommend reading Shane Phillips, The Affordable City. He's been thinking about this for a while and studying the problem far more closely than I. The book is a set of suggestions / actions for improving the housing situation.
I fully agree, the housing is scarce seemingly because many want it to be scarce.
I do think it is a political issue. Thus my support for full regulation removal: if ones press for it, the actual consensus may be closer to liberalization.
Thanks also for sending the links. I have not read those, and so I don't feel I can keep a productive discussion before I read the books.
It's absolutely a political issue, and a long standing one.
If it makes you feel better, I've skimmed Phillips's book briefly but not read it in depth. It's an instruction manual.
What's required here really is some sort of political engineering.
Another insightful source, and one I've read (and re-typed), is Bernhard J. Stern's "Resistances to the Adoption of Technological Innovations". It's from 1937, but neatly captures numerous instances of, and the dynamics driving, such resistance.
I can send a PDF or ePub if you'd prefer, username <at> Protonmail. Content is not copyrighted to the best of my knowledge (US government publication, no copyright notice).
I think what you'll find though is that even that step is ferociously resisted. A key reason for this is actually market-based, though it's not the transactional market but the asset market: scarcity increases value.
And this works for numerous established players within the system: individual homeowners, yes, but far more so, institutional property-holders and the financial institutions with asset portfolios based on real estate holdings.
Land-value tax advocates will argue that you can solve this problem by taxing land. The obvious problem is obvious: the same interests violently resist any asset tax increases as well. In some jurisdictions, most famously California, property taxes are constitutionally limited (by 1977's Proposition 13).
I've been thinking of possible end-runs around this, and have been thinking of the possibilities of related taxes or regulations which might have similar effects.
Vacant-property / second-property taxes (or fees, to get around the tax limitation) are one possibility. Direct taxation, or changes in asset valuation toward reserve holdings for banks and financial institutions, might be another. Requiring mortgages to be held over time, or limiting resale/bundling could have a strong impact, perhaps. All of this would reduce returns or increase holding costs of real-estate-based assets, should act as a land tax, and would tend to increase the pressures to make more intensive utilisation of land for housing, which is of course what will solve the problem.
I strongly recommend reading Shane Phillips, The Affordable City. He's been thinking about this for a while and studying the problem far more closely than I. The book is a set of suggestions / actions for improving the housing situation.
https://www.worldcat.org/title/affordable-city-strategies-fo...
https://islandpress.org/books/affordable-city
Ultimately, though, I think what this will take is a weakening of the forces opposing more housing, and that's likely to be difficult.