So there’s a ton of countries that I’ve heard have had truly unaffordable housing for decades, like:
- The UK
- Ireland
- The Netherlands
And I’ve heard of a ton of countries where the cost of houses was until recently quite affordable where it’s also started getting worse:
- Germany
- Poland
- Czechia
- Hungary
- The US
- Australia
- Canada
- And I’m sure plenty others
- It seems to be a pan-Western bloc thing. Is the cause in all these countries the same?
- We’ve heard of success stories in cities like Vienna where much of the housing stock is municipally owned – but those cities have had it that way for decades. Would their system alleviate the current crisis if established in the aforementioned countries?
- What specific policies should I be demanding of our politicians to make housing affordable again? Is there any silver bullet? Has any country demonstrably managed to reverse this crisis yet?
What specific policies should I be demanding of our politicians to make housing affordable again?
The answer is Georgism combined with no zoning, but people aren’t ready to hear about that yet.
By Georgism I mean a very high tax (80+%) on the unimproved value of land. It prevents land speculation and returns the value of the land to the public. Houses would be incredibly cheap, because you couldn’t make money by merely owning land. The only reason to own a house would be to live in it, or to provide a true service for people who would actually prefer to rent.
