Thomas Sowell: “nobody has done more to make housing unaffordable than [government officials proclaiming a desire to make housing affordable].”
“A recent survey,” says Sowell, “showed that the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco was just over $3,500. Some people are paying $1,800 a month just to rent a bunk bed in a San Francisco apartment.”
Government “planning” and construction restrictions have caused the unaffordability problem. “When a growing population creates a growing demand for housing, and the government blocks housing from being built, the price of existing housing goes up.” “[L]ocal government laws and policies severely restricted, or banned outright, the building of anything on vast areas of land. This is called preserving “open space.”
