The Universe of Discourse

Stuff I wanted to say to the historic district people but didn't

[ Thanks to John Wiersba for noticing that I forgot to publish this. ]

A few weeks ago I wrote a letter to my neighbors about why I thought it was a bad idea to oppose building more housing in our neighborhood.

I didn't write this paragraph:

In the past it has often happened that a group of wealthy landowners conspired to hold onto what they had and keep anyone else from sharing it. I don't think anyone has ever looked back and said “Yep, those people had the right idea.”

But I wanted to.

Also, I omitted a long and detailed fantasy about how local landlords will have to lower rents and fix up their properties because of competition pressure from new apartment buildings.

“I wanted to raise rents this year, but I couldn't because all the rich Penn students moved into that new luxury apartment building. ”

“It was hard to find tenants this year, and I found out it was because Joe up the street fixed up all his bathrooms. If I wanna stay in business I'm gonna have to fix up all my bathrooms too!”

I left out any expression of my idea that if we really want to stick it to those greedy landlords, we should hit them where it really hurts, by expanding the supply of housing and breaking their monopoly.

And I didn't cite the literature that says that even building expensive apartment buildings tends to lower everyone else's rent:

The supply of new market rate units triggers moving chains that quickly reach middle- and low-income neighborhoods and individuals. Thus, new market-rate construction loosens the housing market in middle- and low-income areas even in the short run. Market-rate supply is likely to improve affordability outside the sub-markets where new construction occurs and to benefit low-income people.

(City-wide effects of new housing supply: Evidence from moving chains)

And I didn't vent my rage about Philadelphia's recent cash grants to people waiting for federal housing subsidies, which is an almost direct transfer of cash from the public purse into the pockets of landlords.

Ugh, housing policy is so messed up.

(I did later go to the public meeting about it, and what a fucking fuckhole of fucked-up fuckery that was. Fuck.)

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