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free trade & free markets property rights too much government

First, Stop Doing That

If a government’s taxes and regulations are making shelter ever more expensive, what should that government do instead?

Stop pushing the disastrous policies, perhaps?

Unlike some other governors who shall remain nameless (one of them rhymes with “DeSantis”), Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin understands that you don’t make things better by making them worse.

In August, Youngkin bluntly told a state senate committee that Virginia homes are too expensive and that a major cause is government interference with the market: “unnecessary regulations, over-​burdensome and inefficient local governments, restrictive zoning policies, and an ideology of fighting tooth and nail against any new development.”

The many bottlenecks include low-​density zoning rules that permit only a single house per property. Arlington County, Virginia, is one local government working to reform zoning so that more houses can be built on a property.

In November, Youngkin proposed a Make Virginia Home plan to unravel many regulations. City Journal notes that although the plan is “short on details,” it’s a good start.

Under the governor’s plan, the state would streamline environmental reviews, investigate how to liberalize the state’s building codes and land-​use and zoning laws, impose deadlines on local governments to speed up approvals of development, and give local governments incentives to adopt their own market-​liberating reforms.

This agenda is indeed only a beginning. But it does recognize a major cause of sky-​rocketing housing costs and what must be done to begin to reduce those costs.

That’s just Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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national politics & policies property rights

Zoning by “Outsiders”

“In recent years, there’s been a push to move zoning decisions further from the local level,” writes Matt Ray for Mises Wire — engaging in no small understatement. 

“In 2019, Oregon passed House Bill 2001, making it the first statewide law to abolish single-​family zoning in many areas. By expanding the state government’s jurisdiction to include zoning decisions previously handled by local agencies, the law entails an alarming centralization of state power.”

This trend is old, going back at least to the Progressive Era. 

But the trend continues — “progresses” — and Oregon’s centralizing law has been “quickly followed by the introduction of similar bills in Virginia, Washington, Minnesota, and North Carolina,” Matt Ray explains. “Now President Biden is attempting to increase federal influence over local zoning.”

The problem should be obvious. Government land-​use regulation by “zoning” is an awesome expression of rights-abridging power, usually becoming nothing more than what most regulations are: special-​interest protection schemes, helping the in-​crowd at the expense of “outsiders” (you and me, actually).

Most savvy people understand this in specific instances, but not generally, so when they see zoning they don’t like, they might leap to the notion that bad local regulations should be replaced by good state or federal regulators.

Trouble is, we have less ability to ensure that regulators in distant political centers aren’t captured by special interests or malign ideologues. 

The only way out is a general rule-​of-​law approach, limiting all zoning powers. Barring that? Well, no matter how bad your city’s zoning, I wouldn’t trade it for zoning decisions from Washington.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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