Washington Can’t Solve a Housing Crisis That Doesn’t Exist
This piece verges on daft or disingenuous. The major problems are major cities (SF, NYC, Seattle, LA, and so on) that have artificially restricted housing since the &#x27;70s (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jakeseliger.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;12&#x2F;27&#x2F;why-did-cities-freeze-in-the-1970s&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jakeseliger.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;12&#x2F;27&#x2F;why-did-cities-freeze-in-...</a>) and yet we&#x27;ve also seen increasing economic returns since then to those superstar cluster cities (<i>The Triumph of the City</i> is a good and readable description: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;02&#x2F;13&#x2F;books&#x2F;review&#x2F;Silver-t.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;02&#x2F;13&#x2F;books&#x2F;review&#x2F;Silver-t.htm...</a>).<p>So yeah, there&#x27;s no housing crisis in Eastern Oregon, but there are also no jobs and none of the economic clustering and spillover effects that one gets from superstar cities. So you can try to live in cities and first-tier suburbs where the jobs are, but where exclusionary zoning has made housing ungodly expensive (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vox.com&#x2F;cards&#x2F;affordable-housing-explained&#x2F;exclusionary-zoning-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vox.com&#x2F;cards&#x2F;affordable-housing-explained&#x2F;exclu...</a>), or you can live in the boonies where there are no jobs but (relatively) cheap housing.<p>Those of you who are going to reply about remote work: remote work is lovely, but it doesn&#x27;t generate knowledge spillovers and has a bunch of other problems as well. See again the Glaeser book. It is not a practical, mass solution, although I&#x27;m glad it works well for you.<p>Part of this problem can and should be solved at the state level, but DC should also tell states and municipalities that, if they don&#x27;t end exclusionary zoning, they&#x27;re also not getting federal highway funding and other federal transit funding. That&#x27;s the stick DC has.