Although most housing experts want more building, few spend much time thinking about how to make this happen. Some pin their hopes on the “” movement—enthusiastic nerds who turn up to planning meetings and shout “yes” not “no” to having more houses “in my back yard”. Buts are few and their power limited. More encouragingly, politicians are waking up to the damage caused by distorted housing markets. In Britain the Conservative government talks a good game on boosting housebuilding.
But is more public housing enough? Few people, including well-off Singaporeans, dream of living in a government-built house. The post-war push in the West to build huge housing projects, meanwhile, ended in failure—when money was tight it was always easy to slash maintenance budgets. The bigger question, then, is what needs to happen to boost private housebuilding.
Reforms are sometimes the outcome of crisis. In normal times homeowners fiercely resist new developments because they worry that property prices will fall. This was less of a concern for Tokyoites after Japan’s property bubble burst in 1992. In other cities the housing market is so dysfunctional that evens recognise something must be done. In San Francisco, where the average house price is 2.4 times New York’s and rough sleeping is rife, there is talk of a more pro-development approach.
Take planners first. In many countries local governments assume this responsibility. They must deal with the downsides of extra houses—the need to provide more school places, for instance. Yet they do not often reap the gains in the form of a bigger tax base, since the majority of taxes in rich countries accrue at the national level. In England, councils that raise extra revenue often see it vanish into the central-government pot. This creates large disincentives to allow housing development.
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