So there’s a ton of countries that I’ve heard have had truly unaffordable housing for decades, like:
- The UK
- Ireland
- The Netherlands
And I’ve heard of a ton of countries where the cost of houses was until recently quite affordable where it’s also started getting worse:
- Germany
- Poland
- Czechia
- Hungary
- The US
- Australia
- Canada
- And I’m sure plenty others
- It seems to be a pan-Western bloc thing. Is the cause in all these countries the same?
- We’ve heard of success stories in cities like Vienna where much of the housing stock is municipally owned – but those cities have had it that way for decades. Would their system alleviate the current crisis if established in the aforementioned countries?
- What specific policies should I be demanding of our politicians to make housing affordable again? Is there any silver bullet? Has any country demonstrably managed to reverse this crisis yet?
I was impressed with Singapore when i was there a while back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_and_Development_Board
Yea, the technique of the government simply owning all the land and doing all the development does work. It just can’t really be applied to any western country without a massive revolt when they confiscate all the land from private owners. The government could never afford to pay for all of it, so it would have to be seized without payment.
Downtown Los Angeles has a high rise that was abandoned by the owner/builder. It’s covered in graffiti. They could start there.
Every time I see it i die a little inside
You don’t need to seize it, just tax it enough that land ownership is no longer profitable
I’ve advocated for LVT in the last couple of weeks even.
How could they be coaxed to similary abandon their property like that? What current incentives exist that prevent them from having to do that particular needful?
They couldn’t. The only way this happens is if ownership rates drop well below half the population and renters vote in a political party that can wrest control back from land owners.
Also, hasn’t it been demonstrated that the government directly deciding the allocation of resources leads to massively clumsy solutions? I’m surprised it hasn’t impeded Singapore’s renowned efficiency.
Some governments can do it for some industries.
Public healthcare in most developed countries is generally pretty decent, though obviously not without flaws the allocation is clearly better for society than the US private healthcare system.
For allocation of food, it’s pretty shit. Too many people want too many different things in that scenario and it has never really worked in practice.
True. Although I was refering more to the allocation of commodities (food, land) than of services
Fascinating. I didn’t expect a country known for neoliberalism like Singapore to have fully nationalised land ownership (haven’t read the whole wiki article admittedly)