Hide table of contents

Hello

I'm also wondering if it's worth doing a project on how Texas has kept its cost of living relatively low. Ezra Klein pointed out that a house in Houston, TX was something like 300,000 USD compared to 1.1 million in San Francisco (middle-class houses, excluding wealthy suburbs that drive up the mean). Partly this is because of more efficient bureaucracies; however, both Gary Stevensons (left-wing) and Rory Sutherland (right-wing) have said that part of this involves land taxes that stop a small proportion of exceptionally wealthy people from buying up all the land. If that could be replicated here, lowering the cost of living, that would also be great. 

1

0
1

Reactions

0
1
New Answer
New Comment

1 Answers sorted by

Housing is cheap in Texas because the regulatory burden of getting permission to build is low, so the price of housing stays near the cost of building more. In San Fransisco it is almost impossible to get permission to build, so the price is bid up by demand to a level far exceeding the physical cost of construction. Land taxes are not a major driver of this.

Comments-1
Sorted by Click to highlight new comments since:
No comments on this post yet.
Be the first to respond.
Curated and popular this week
Relevant opportunities