Re: Not always joking, it seems

In article <nCYuj.10454$XI.7665@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
 Jette <bosslady@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> > Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:
> >> Keith F. Lynch <kfl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >>> I'm really baffled by that claim.  In 1967, the average one-income
> >>> family could afford to buy a house.  By 2005, the average
> >>> two-income family could not, even though 20-year mortgages had been
> >>> replaced by 30-year mortgages.  In 1967, nearly everyone could
> >>> afford medical insurance.  By 2005, tens of millions of Americans
> >>> could not.
> > 
> >> House sizes were in general much smaller in 1967, and they didn't
> >> have a lot of modern amenities.
> > 
> > If people today can afford small houses but not large ones with
> > amenities, why have house sizes and amenities increased?  Why isn't
> > the market providing what people can afford?
> >
> 
> A very good question.  Why do developers have to be FORCED (by law if 
> necessary) to provide "affordable housing" options?

Several possibilities, all of which might be true in different places:

1. What you mean by "affordable" is a combination of house and price at 
which the developer loses money. 

2. In some areas, it's effectively illegal because of zoning laws, 
building codes, and the like, which mandate a level of house that isn't 
what you would consider affordable. That might be deliberate--one 
function of zoning laws is to keep poor people from living in places 
where the majority of the current residents don't want them as neighbors.

3. Because new housing can't compete with old housing at the low end of 
the market. Most of the American poor own cars--but I doubt many of them 
bought the cars new. A large minority of the American poor own their own 
houses--but I doubt many of them were bought new either.

-- 
 http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
 Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
 Published by Baen, in bookstores now