basically by tying it to federal funding to force states to allow more housing to be built, which is how the federal government got the states to all raise their minimum drinking age to 21 in the 1980s.

  • lemmyseizethemeans
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    2 months ago

    It’s not the lack of housing

    It’s the capitalism

    Put a pin in that

    • I mean, it’s both. The capitalism is definitely a problem but ultimately the vacancy rates in most of the US, especially major cities, are too low. There isn’t enough housing in the places it’s needed.

      Just comparing US cities, which all have the capitalism problem, cities with higher vacancy rates have lower rents and lower rates of homelessness.

      • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        Fr. Capitalism incentivizes homeowners to block new housing because they want to “protect their investment” and that’s how we got high rents.

        • lemming934@lemmy.sdf.org
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          2 months ago

          That is not an example of market capitalism. It’s an example of regulatory capture by homeowners: capitalist developers would like to build more housing, but homeowners cause the local government to block this.

          With housing, we are in an unusual circumstance where both less government intervention (let people build more housing) and more government intervention (build public housing) would be better than the status quo.