The book “Abundance” berates big city “liberals” for all those building rules, regulations and pesky zoning ordinances that raise the cost of housing. These make it harder for the non-rich to obtain affluence, authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson say. More annoyingly, Klein and Thompson imply that true opportunity knocks in only that only a handful of “superstar” cities. They would be San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and, of course, New York City.
This shrunken worldview by a pair New Yorkers fails to take into account such relevant factors as geography, history and reality. Recent waves of impoverished immigrants have somehow managed to set roots in New York City, and we don’t lack for police, teachers and piano tuners. Perhaps they can’t afford three-bedroom duplexes on Sutton Place. Who can?
The comparisons of these high-cost cities with lower-cost ones are remarkably off-base if not off-the-wall. Example: Houston “is not facing the crises of homelessness and housing affordability seen in the superstar cities of many blue states.” In Houston almost anyone can build almost anywhere. Thus, in 2023, Houston issued almost 70,000 new housing permit, while the Boston metro area issued only 10,500.
“The Austin metro area led the nation in housing permits in 2022,” we are told, “permitting 18 new homes for every thousand residents. Los Angeles’s and San Francisco’s metro areas permitted only 2.5 units per thousand residents.”
Where do we start? The population density of San Francisco is five times that of Austin. Even sprawling Los Angeles has nearly three times as many people per square mile as Austin does.
Boston has nearly 4 times the number of people per square mile as Houston.
Furthermore, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York are all bounded by water. The only borough In New York City that’s not on an island is the Bronx. The Atlantic Ocean would be an impediment to growth, don’t you think? Houston and Austin can expand into big country.
By the way, Austin’s heralded building boom, fueled by the pandemic, is currently over. Austin now suffers from overbuilding. Its vacancy rates are sky-high both for office space and apartments. One reason, offered by The Wall Street Journal, is that tech talent is leaving Austin for, of all places, New York and San Francisco.
Here on the East Side we fight wars over zoning, not to preserve two-acre single-family plats, but to preserve such basics as light. We can defend quality of life without guilt. To which we’ll add, quality of life is the big reason these superstar cities are rich in the first place.
This East Side will have lots more to say about these matters.