I’ve been writing a lot more at Forbes lately. This month has fit that pattern. Yesterday I put up a post there about infrastructure that was based on my thoughts after using bike share on bike lanes here in Seattle. What we’re doing with transportation infrastructure, as a matter of policy, is paying for it with tax dollars. The idea is that if we make it super easy to use other modes besides the car, people won’t drive as much. Part of that policy is freeing up “free” right of way for those alternative modes. As they say, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” So the wider tax paying community is paying for those bike lanes and sidewalks. What about housing? We make buyers and renters pay for infrastructure.

Over the years, many cities have decided to impose impact fees on housing, something that all by itself indicates the way people in these cities see new housing – as an bad thing that needs to be mitigated. Often impact fees are used to pay for “free” use of things like sidewalks, roads, and other infrastructure. What if we didn’t see housing as an impact? 

My point in the post is that if we treated housing like riding bikes in Seattle, we wouldn’t be considering impact fees, we’d be taking away the existing requirement to pay for sidewalks, drainage, sewer capacity, and all the other things that new housing absorbs. Growth should pay for growth? How about we all pay for it and lower housing prices? That would be innovation and it would lower prices.

Read the whole post at Forbes.