Affordable housing is essential to modern cities
For our cities to prosper, they need affordable housing.
For affordable housing to be sustainable, government must be involved.
I think both postulates can be proven.
The need for government-subsidized sustainable affordable housing is an integral part and inevitable byproduct of any modern urban environment. (Rural is different: if land is free or virtually free, self-build becomes viable.) In the zoned conurbation, what the urban planners call the ‘built environment’, self-build is usually infeasible (minimum property or habitability standards) and always unaffordable (high land costs).
As economies drive demand, and zoning restricts supply, land and the right to build becomes valuable in themselves. These clear at a market price, and markets are defined by averages or medians. So, because very low income people can never afford market housing, they can never afford housing in the healthy urban environment. Thus they either cluster in slums, the economically rational response, or they migrate to the periphery, where land costs are lower.
Under the law of economic gravity, economic forces inexorably drive out affordability. In economic nature, low-income customers must choose from among these three unpalatable options:
- Live in too little housing.
- Live too far away (and spend four or more hours a day commuting).
- Pay too much (more than they can afford).
Choose one.
We can group these choices another way, by their impact on people and on cities:
The trio of ‘economic’ urban housing choices
|
Choice |
Impact on people |
Impact on cities |
|
1. Live in too small housing |
Slums, disease, families in stress |
Crime, high security costs |
|
2. Live too far away |
Families in stress |
Traffic gridlock (cf. fusion-countries) |
|
3. Pay too much for housing |
Homelessness |
Shortage of service workers |
Ready to choose?
Both for families and for cities, the pure economic solutions have negative externalities and stress the ecosystem. Affordable housing is therefore essential to a healthy community, and for it to exist, government must come to the party, bearing its two gifts: programs and the four kinds of money.
“We’re from the government and we’re here to help you.”
