RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
May 25 to May 31 Featured Investigation: The housing affordability crisis is not just an Americans phenomenon, Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox report in the first of two articles on the housing for RealClearInvestigations. From San Francisco to Stockholm to Sydney, restrictive land-use policies, rather than population growth or technical limitations, are the primary drivers of the current housing shortage and price inflation, threatening middle-class prosperity and the foundations of democratic societies. - Housing has become the top financial concern for Americans after inflation, with affordability at historic lows and a third of households spending over 30% of their income on housing. This crisis is not unique to the United States; similar trends are observed in Canada, the UK, Europe, and East Asia, where home prices have far outpaced income growth. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development identifies housing as the main driver of rising middle-class expenditures.
- The principal culprit is the spread of restrictive land-use regulations – especially “urban containment” policies. Originally adopted in postwar Britain, these policies have become widespread, leading to artificial scarcity of developable land and driving up prices in both urban and suburban areas.
- Additional regulations, such as high impact fees and lengthy reviews, further inflate costs. Despite advancements in building technology and tepid population growth, new housing construction lags far behind demand, particularly for single-family homes.
- These policies have also made it increasingly difficult for young people to achieve homeownership, with rates among those under 35 dropping sharply since 1970.
- Contrary to the belief that higher-density development lowers prices, data show a positive correlation between density and higher housing costs. The most affordable markets tend to be those with more single-family homes and lower density.
- Public preference overwhelmingly favors single-family homes in suburbs and exurbs, yet planning policies often ignore these desires, pushing denser development instead.
- Suburban growth is now driven by minorities and immigrants, and most population growth in high-income countries occurs outside urban cores.
- Declining homeownership undermines upward mobility and widens wealth inequality, as property remains the main source of middle-class wealth. The concentration of land and housing among elites resembles a return to feudal patterns, threatening the democratic ideal of a broad property-owning middle class.
Featured Investigation: The affordable housing crisis keeps getting worse in America and much of the developed world because it is dominated by the wrong voices talking about the wrong places. In the second of two report essays on the global housing crisis for RealClearInvestigations, Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox describe how a dramatic policy shift that embraces decentralization, deregulation, and technology can revive the dream of home ownership – especially for young people and families. Kotkin reports: - The YIMBY vs. NIMBY debate has focused on urban centers for years, with advocates seeking to build density for environmental reasons while opponents resist development to preserve property values. Meanwhile, housing prices have continued rising to unsustainable levels, putting homeownership out of reach for many.
- Counter-urbanization is accelerating, not "back to the city" trends. Between 2020 and 2023, metro areas with over 1 million people lost net domestic migrants, while all classifications below 1 million gained them. This marks a major shift in settlement patterns that could help housing prices.
- The exurbs are where the action is. Defined as outside the principal urban area, exurbs have been growing almost twice as fast as the rest of the country. Virtually all the fastest-growing 50 counties are exurban, including areas around Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Atlanta, and Phoenix.
- Technology enables this dispersal. The rise of remote work and the information economy means most software and high-end service firms don't require dense urban cores. Leading tech centers like Silicon Valley, Orange County, Austin, and Raleigh-Durham are primarily suburban in nature.
- Federal land policy could be transformative. The federal government owns one-third of all U.S. property – an area six times that of California. In markets like Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City, federal lands brush up against suburban periphery where growth is constrained and prices are soaring.
- New construction technologies offer promise. Manufactured housing can speed construction by 50% and costs around $124,000 compared to $400,000+ for traditional homes. 3-D printing and AI-enabled robots could further reduce costs if governments allow these innovations.
- The biggest obstacle remains artificial land scarcity. Heavy-handed regulation and urban containment policies have increased land costs and made housing unaffordable. Even progressive advocates now concede that "sprawl" represents an important strategy for solving the crisis, as two-thirds of millennials prefer suburbs and view homeownership as essential to the American dream.
Waste of the Day by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books $750 Billion Annual Fraud, RCI Redundant Baltimore School Jobs ,RCI Military Owns 100+ Golf Courses, RCI Throwback Thursday: Subsidized Pancakes, RCI Steak Dinners for Nebraska Board, RCI Trump 2.0 and the Beltway Washington Post The Trump administration is moving to dismantle one of the federal government’s largest and longest-standing affirmative action programs by settling a case brought by two white-owned contracting businesses that challenged its constitutionality. In a motion filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, the Justice Department said that a Transportation Department program that has carved out an estimated $37 billion for minority- and women-owned businesses violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution. If a judge approves the proposed settlement, the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program (DBE) will be prohibited from awarding contracts based on race and sex, effectively ending its founding mission. This article reports that the settlement is still subject to challenge by a coalition of businesses that intervened in the case after President Donald Trump took office, arguing that the program is essential to removing entrenched barriers that minorities and women face in the $759 billion contracting sector. Some government contracting experts said the settlement, if approved, leaves room for the program to continue in some fashion, allowing, for example, preferences to be based on economic disadvantage instead of race or gender. Other Trump 2.0 and the Beltway Trump's Clemency Blitz , New York Times Trump Pardoned Man After Mother Attended $1M Dinner, New York Times Presidency Spinning Further into Lawlessness, Tablet DC Bar Skirted Rules to Target Trump Official, Federalist Poll: Unprecedented Number Believe U.S. on Right Track, Legal Insurrection Obama World Loses Shine in Hurting Democratic Party, NBC News Federal Reserve Disbands Climate Study Groups, Bloomberg Trump Rattles Government Contractors, Politico Military Spends $2B Per Years to Recruit and Retain Troops, AP The Conversations Doctors Should Be Having with Trump, Atlantic Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Since George Floyd’s Murder, Police Killings Keep Rising New York Times From the Annals of Burying the Lead, this article reports that five years after the death of an unarmed black man named George Floyd ignited a national protest movement demanding police reforms, “the number of people killed by the police continues to rise each year, and Black Americans still die in disproportionate numbers.” A Times analysis found that police killed at least 1,226 people, an 18 percent increase over 2019, the year before Floyd’s death. It is only some 20 paragraphs into the article that readers learn: Even as police killings have risen in the years since the killing of Mr. Floyd, killings of unarmed people have become less frequent. The numbers have fluctuated over the years, but have dropped significantly since 2015, when 152 people killed by the police were unarmed. In 2020, that number was 95, and last year, it dropped to 53. The number of people killed while wielding replica weapons, fake guns that look like the real thing, has also dropped. Which is to say, the number of unarmed people killed by police was already falling dramatically before Floyd’s death and those numbers continued to drop after the protest movements. Los Angeles Times The ranks of the “disappeared” in Mexico – now estimated to be about 120,000 people – have soared with the proliferation of drug cartels. In response, this article reports, search groups, or collectives, typically founded by mothers and other relatives of the disappeared, have spread throughout the country as people despair of official inaction. The searchers have become key actors in civil society, seeking out clandestine graves and putting pressure on the government to find the missing. In March, a series of tips and rumors led activists to the isolated site known as Rancho Izaguirre, on the outskirts of Teuchitlán, an agricultural town of some 10,000 residents less than 35 miles outside Guadalajara. … Activists from a group known as the Warrior Searchers of Jalisco were out seeking remains when they arrived at Rancho Izaguirre. They found what they described as crude crematoria and charred bones – the basis for the "Mexican Auschwitz" narrative that went viral once the searchers posted photos of their grisly finds, including what appeared to be crude cremation pits. Authorities insist the ranch was never a place of extermination or the large-scale disposal of bodies but rather served as a cartel training grounds – apparently one of many such clandestine sites scattered across Mexico. This article reports that Mexican organized crime and confederates in local governments and police forces aren't happy about bothersome civilians shedding light on their activities. More than two dozen searchers have been slain in recent years, according to Mexican human rights groups. NPR China is in phase two of its great lending spree – collecting the debts it owed by many of the world’s poorest nations. This article reports the shift from giving to taking threatens to undermine poverty reduction efforts and fuel instability, according to a new report by Australia's Lowy Institute. As of 2023, more than a quarter of the external debt in developing countries was owed to China, the report says. Collectively, those countries are expected to pay at least $35 billion to Beijing this year alone. These include nations throughout Africa, South America and the Pacific Islands, as well as South, Central and Southeast Asia … [or many countries] debt servicing is now "crowding out the development spending," according to the report. A 2023 Associated Press analysis of the dozen countries most indebted to China — including Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia, Laos and Mongolia — found debt servicing payments were consuming vitally needed tax revenue for schools, electricity, food and fuel. This article report that cuts in U.S. foreign aid are adding to the burden – where American foreign assistance has come by way of grants, China's assistance is almost entirely in the form of loans. Guardian By 2024 Exactech had recalled more than 650,000 medical devices – including knee replacement implants. This article reports that many of the 2,500 patients who have sued the company claiming they suffered debilitating harm faced new difficulties getting compensation after Exactech declared bankruptcy. Although Exactech was owned by one of the largest private equity companies in the world, TPG, courts have ruled the parent company is not responsible for its problems. In March 2024, a New York district judge dismissed TPG from personal injury lawsuits related to the alleged defects in Exactech’s implants, ruling plaintiffs has not shown that TPG had “requisite control” over Exactech. A Guardian investigation found that legal claims [brought] against private-equity-backed healthcare companies are increasingly being delayed or obstructed in bankruptcy court. Bankruptcies among private-equity-backed healthcare companies have spiked in recent years. As a result, experts say, private equity firms may be able to avoid liability for healthcare investments. … Bankruptcies automatically freeze all lawsuits against the defendant filing for bankruptcy protection, and can also limit how much money goes to settle legal claims. Between 2023 and 2024, at least 25 private-equity-backed health companies filed for bankruptcy in the US while facing lawsuits in federal court, according to the Guardian’s analysis of S&P Global data and federal court records. That was more than such filings from 2010 to 2022 combined. CNN Segregated graduation ceremonies have become popular in recent years at some colleges and universities. Off limits to whites, these so-called “affinity” graduations were created to “honor Black, Hispanic, Asian, first-generation and LGBTQ+ students.” But, this article reports, Harvard is among several universities across the country that have canceled affinity graduations amid threats from President Donald Trump regarding DEI practices. Students say the events are significant because they honor the music, apparel, food, history, language and traditions unique to their identity. … One expert said graduations celebrating students’ ethnic identities are important because most main commencement celebrations have European roots. Antar Tichavakunda, an assistant professor of race and higher education at the University of California, Santa Barbara, pointed out that “Pomp and Circumstance” — a song commonly played at graduations — is by English composer Edward Elgar. He also noted that the tradition of wearing graduation gowns originated in Europe during medieval times. Tichavakunda said universities’ withdrawal of support from affinity groups signals to students that they should consider schools that fully embrace their identity and offer programs to help them navigate college. For black students, he recommended considering HBCUs. |
