I think I am probably over-promising in the headline. As I’ve pointed out before, people who somehow get that prices have something to do with supply but who can’t support people making a living producing it, are all a twitter about what they’ve been reading about Minneapolis. The truth is that what Minneapolis did is adopt a comprehensive plan amendment to allow triplexes in zones currently zoned single-family. This move comes while they are also considering the disastrous policy of Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning (MIZ). In a Facebook thread, someone seemed to get this and said that Minneapolis is about where we were with the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) Committee recommendations — good ideas, but without any implementation. In a rant that followed, I agreed. Here’s the rant. I don’t usually publish at this hour and it’s a really slow time, even on the internets, but I thought it is worth putting on the record. 

I think that is a reasonable analogy I might adopt. Keep in mind that the menace of Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning is being pushed there as well.

There are a number of problems here. Again, this war on single family isn’t bad, but it is a distraction. We don’t need villains, we need solutions. I have long advocated for the abolition of ALL zoning. It is a 20th century solution to a 19th century problem. So I would never oppose an end to single-family zoning.

But declaring war on single-family homeowners is a waste of time. They are rationally defending the value in their homes. Much of my reputation comes from having called this out to their faces for years when most people on this page were saying we should have tea and cookies with the neighbors. At the Roosevelt station I battled for free because it was the right thing to do: it was a 100 year mistake not to allow whatever density the market would carry there.

The problem is the notion that we can somehow adopt the fashion statement of being socialists while having the market as the operating system. You can’t do that. It’s all or nothing folks. When prices go up, let people make lots and lots of money building housing and the price will go down. If you can’t accept that, go into the woods and find your spirit animal or get an exorcism or something. That’s the solution!

What the war on single-famliy does is it gives fashionable socialists a villain, mostly white, that comes to the battle with vitriol and lots of super charged red herrings. They look stupid and sound silly. Look how much better we are than them!

But what you’re seeing is the animal instinct to protect territory. It’s like the monkeys around the water hole in 2001: A Space Odyssey. These single-family homes have those pencil marks where the family measured their kids growth spurts, it’s what they saved for years to buy, it’s what they hope to have and rely on for retirement.

They are a problem but they aren’t THE problem. I see people on this thread and elsewhere patting people like Mike OBrien and Rob Johnson on the back because they’re such nice guys; but they have perpetuated the problem by supporting the notion that we can tax our way out of the problem. See, we just tax all new housing, transfer that money to a vanishingly small number of units, someday, and that way we don’t have to confront the neighbors, the greedy developers pay and we all can say we “solved” the problem.

Meanwhile we’ll flirt with rent control and impact fees.

Folks, it’s time to stop. It’s the end of the year. Take a break. Go for a walk. Think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

We have people who are demanding a utility that has no substitute, housing. If people were starving we would not tax food. If people were starving we would not review the packaging of the food to be sure we were happy with it. We would not declare a crisis and then sweep bodies into mass graves and wonder, “How do we solve the crisis?”

On the other hand, based on what I’ve seen, maybe we would.