No Light Rail in Vancouver!
Light rail costs too much, does too little
Yes, Smart Growth Caused the Mortgage Meltdown
Skeptics probably won’t be persuaded by Cox, simply because his arguments are similar
to those previously made here. “Excessive land-use regulation,” says Cox, led to
artificial housing scarcities. This drove up prices and led people who would otherwise
have been able to afford a mortgage at prime rates to turn to subprime loans. Of
course, the loosening of the credit market contributed, but without smart growth,
we would currently have a “subprime mortgage problem” rather than a full-blown international
economic crisis.
Cox supports these points with data showing that housing prices went up the most
in regions with growth-management planning, but faster than inflation in some regions
without such planning. This is supported by independent estimates of overpriced housing
(see appendix B): the most overpriced housing is in places like Oregon, Washington,
California, and Florida, which have been practicing some form of smart growth or
growth management since before 2000. In contrast, the least overpriced homes are
in Texas, North Carolina, Louisiana, and other states and regions that have avoided
such policies.
Reprinted from The Antiplanner
