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There are two basic approaches to housing policy; housing first and profit first.
One prioritises putting a roof over people's heads. Seeing making money out of property development as being socially acceptable only to the degree that it gets more people housed.
The other champions people making money out of developing and selling buildings, and sees providing housing as a byproduct of this market activity.
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In theory there's a third position, market first. But in practice housing markets are regulated (or not) to optimise for providing housing or profit. People who claim to care about "free markets" as an end in themselves are using this as an excuse to optimise markets for profit.
It's particularly relevant to housing that according to what Adam Smith actually wrote, what "free markets" were meant to be free of was rents, not regulations.
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The reckons about housing policy I posted yesterday were inspired by an interview on the Dystopia Now podcast with housing rights advocate and former San Francisco local politician Dean Preston;
https://sites.libsyn.com/566555/the-astroturf-agenda-with-dean-preston
Current Affairs interviewed him back in 2021, a couple of years after he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors;
#podcasts #DystopiaNow #housing #DeanPreston #CurrentAffairs
Dean Preston makes the point that while profit-first housing policy does get stuff built, it's generally luxury housing. Much of which sits empty, housing nobody. Leaving it to The Market (TM) has consistently failed to deliver affordable housing and reduce homelessness. Policies like public housing and vacancy taxes is what we need to ensure everyone has a home.
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