Dean Baker: “The abundance authors also show little interest in widely abused regulations that benefit the rich.”

Ezra Klein is a neoliberal hack. I didn’t expect anything reasonable from him. Even in real estate, the rules regarding zoning often get loosened just to benefit the developer at the expense of the middle class homes that already exist.

In my municipality the builders get around setting aside a certain number of homes/apartments for affordable housing. They pay off the city in a lump sum that they are supposed to use for affordable housing. But somehow, that housing seldom appears. The result: A ton of luxury housing that is RAISING RENTS city-wide. So nothing remotely “affordable” ever happens

As for single family homes, I live in an area with a very high water table. The developers or ultra rich come in and want to build on wetlands or on hilltops and clear cut everything. The result is flooding for the existing homes and zero responsibility from the developer.

My home was declared a disaster by FEMA almost 5 years ago after Hurricane Ida rolled through our area. There was a development above my home by Toll Brothers that created havoc “downstream”. It cost me ~$15,000 to mitigate the initial damage in the late 90s by installing French drains. But after Ida, something happened to the way the water flowed downstream and my house was flooding over and over again. (Like 6 ft of water everytime it rained). I had to scramble and subdivide the property into two lots to prevent financial disaster. It was still a hug mess financially and my retirement is far less secure as a result.