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Originally Posted by Dadhawk
ugm...maybe things are different on the west coast but how do "officials" impact the price of homes? They may have some marginal impact but its primarily driven by market demands, not government.
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The argument I've heard is that legislation mandating that new housing be built to ever increasing standards, sustainable materials, environmental impact reports, minimum allowable sunlight etc. is to blame. I don't really believe that and I think you're right, market demands compounded by local governments resisting adding high and low density residential districts because they're interested in protecting their own property values as well as balancing city budgets due to low tax revenue from residential properties vs. business/industrial. Local governments have a stranglehold on allowing new development.
SF and LA are also geographically constrained by mountains and ocean, there's only so much desirable land available for development before you start introducing a traveling burden between suburbs/economic centers.
I can only be level headed so long before I take potshots at people so I'll just leave this Bloomberg article which notes the following;
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As severe as this sounds, the rest of the country is becoming more—not less—like California. During the longest economic expansion on record, the U.S. has been building far fewer houses than it usually does, pushing prices further out of reach for a vast portion of the population that has barely seen incomes rise.
“California is not alone,” said Chris Herbert, the managing director of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. “It’s just more extreme.”
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https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2...ousing-crisis/