Why Are We Fighting?
Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free.
This week’s newsletter is a response to a recent essay in The Federalist that makes a conservative case against New Urbanism and its “assault” on property rights and the single-family zoning restrictions that protect them.
Contradictory as it may seem, the argument that choice and property rights are best protected by regulations that limit choice and property rights is not uncommon in housing policy discussions.
It’s a byproduct of lots of varying ideologies and urban planning approaches trying to foist a particular vision on everyone else, all with partial success.
The result is a lot of unnecessary arguments about the type of housing people actually want and the regulations necessary to ensure they don’t voluntarily buy or rent something they don’t want.
Why Are We Fighting?
Over at The Federalist yesterday, former first-term Trump administration officials Johnathan and Paige Bronitsky have a broadside attack on the “New Urbanist” plot to “bulldoze the suburban American dream” and the conservatives who’ve been hoodwinked into supporting it.
There are “two faces” of this ideology, they write:
On one end, you have high-density urbanism, where developers — in cahoots with machine politicians — cram as many people as possible into apartment blocks, eliminating cars and personal space under the guise of environmentalism and a sense of community. On the other, you have the faux-traditional, highly regulated enclaves of Seaside and Celebration, Florida, prohibitively expensive and ironically more artificial than the suburban developments they criticize.
Despite their aesthetic differences, both forms of New Urbanism share a common goal: reengineering American life by discouraging homeownership.
Conservatives, the authors continue, have been bamboozled into thinking this dystopia would be a positive improvement by an oddball collection of profit-hungry developers, leftists, and “crony capitalist” libertarians interested only in control and creating a permanent rentier class.
Right-thinking right-wingers need to reject this “high-density, corporatist nightmare” in favor of “spacious, family-friendly suburbs where liberty thrives.”
You can read the whole thing here.
There are plenty of critiques one could make of New Urbanism on free market and property rights grounds. It’s a movement that does indeed have a highly particular vision for how communities should look that is highly critical of post-war suburban sprawl. They’re more than willing to use regulation to set everything right.
Yet, the authors of The Federalist essay can’t decide if they want to criticize New Urbanism for constraining people’s choices or for giving people choices beyond the standard post-war single-family neighborhood.
The result is a contradictory tangle of critiques.
The authors attack New Urbanists for discouraging homeownership. They also attack the New Urbanist–planned community of Seaside, which the Census Bureau reports has a 97 percent homeownership rate—well above Florida’s overall homeownership rate of 67 percent.
To be sure, the authors support affordable communities of single-family owner-occupiers, whereas overregulation in tiny Seaside
Article from Reason.com
The Reason Magazine website is a go-to destination for libertarians seeking cogent analysis, investigative reporting, and thought-provoking commentary. Championing the principles of individual freedom, limited government, and free markets, the site offers a diverse range of articles, videos, and podcasts that challenge conventional wisdom and advocate for libertarian solutions. Whether you’re interested in politics, culture, or technology, Reason provides a unique lens that prioritizes liberty and rational discourse. It’s an essential resource for those who value critical thinking and nuanced debate in the pursuit of a freer society.
