EDITORIAL: The urge to 'manage' - Sell off the federal lands, stand aside and watch free market do its work

Las Vegas Review Journal

11/17/04<>

All other things being equal, the best way for a restaurant owner to
maximize his or her return is to build a fancy white-tablecloth joint,
where
diners pay $100 for a meal.

So, do most Las Vegas eateries match this description?

Of course not. Most local eateries tend to be sandwich shops or pizza
places
or taco stands, offering wholesome food that's far more affordable to
the
average worker.

Why? Did some central government "restaurant planning division" require
that
anyone wishing to build a fancy joint also has to build three pizza
parlors
and five hamburger stands? Were local casino owners blamed for
importing
"low-paid workers" who couldn't afford to eat out, and therefore taxed
or
arm-twisted into "stepping up to the plate" and subsidizing more
"affordable" menus?

None of the above. In a free market, hundreds of entrepreneurs, working
independently, tried different pricing structures until they found what
would succeed. This also works fine for grocery stores, car
dealerships,
etc.

But the Clark County Community Growth Task Force has been hearing from
folks
who apparently believe housing follows different rules -- rules dreamed
up
somewhere east of Birmingham, if not Warsaw.

The solution to rising housing costs is not simply to "dump" unoccupied
BLM
land onto the market, participants have been telling the task force.

No, no, no. Developers must instead be massaged with "incentives."
Special
new "zoning ordinances" may be needed. There must be "some strategic
plan to
provide affordable housing." One way to attract nurses and
schoolteachers is
for employers to subsidize housing costs, suggested Home Builders
Research
President Dennis Smith. "Some employers are going to have to step up to
the
plate or workers are going to have to drive an hour and an
hour-and-a-half
to get to work," Mr. Smith warned.

Now, it's no surprise the homebuilders might like someone to subsidize
their
ventures, so they could charge more to consumers who can afford less.
But
that would only perversely encourage people to move into fancier homes
than
they can really afford to maintain.

If there are now too many expensive homes on the market, prices will
fall,
some builders will take losses, and smarter builders will start
building
apartments, or smaller houses with lower price tags.

Planning and zoning codes should have the modest goal of assuring new
home-buyers that a stockyard or steel mill won't show up next door.
They
should be consistently enforced, but otherwise kept free of
rent-seeking
complexities.

Employers are free to offer housing subsidies as a form of compensation
--
or not, as they please. And since prices nearly always drop when a
previously rare commodity is suddenly present in greater supply, the
best
role of government in making housing more "affordable" is precisely to
"dump" all that federally controlled land on the market, as quickly as
possible.

Anyone who says otherwise is really more interested in controlling how
and
where others will live ... than in helping them to "afford" a decent
home.