I guess the battle over whether basic economics applies to housing will continue. Last week in the Seattle Times John Fox trotted out all the old canards about supply and demand. It’s becoming a little bit repetitive, but people who are worried about the impacts of growth often feel like they have to disprove the principle of supply and demand when it comes to housing. I think you can do both, be opposed growth and not argue with basic economic facts. But that’s not the world we live in. Here’s some refutation of some of Fox’s points.

More housing doesn’t lower price

What lowers price is when vacancy rates start to exceed demand. Fox and the moratorium crowd exploit a basic human problem with science, I call the Gallileo problem. “Look! See all those cranes? And prices are still going up!” There has been good writing lately about why people hold on to views that just aren’t true, and the problem is so prevalent that a science has sprung up trying to explain why people would persist not in an opinion (growth is bad), but in denial of fact.

Our perception of what’s going on around us doesn’t always match the facts. And the facts are that rents recently went down.

But more importantly they change, based on vacancy rates. Fewer units mean higher prices; you can’t alter that fact pattern with a moratorium, since no building means renters competing with renters over increasingly scarce housing choices. And prices will go up. It will simply make things worse for people at all income levels, especially the poor who have less money to spend when prices get bid up.

Average Rents

Fox’s average rent is off because his price tag is for a one bedroom in new constriction. New construction is always more expensive; it’s new! The average is closer to $1,300 (chart from Rent Jungle). And as I’ve pointed out, even that average rent is affordable according to normative standard set by HUD of 35 percent of monthly income including utilities; for a person at 80 percent of area median income that would $1,398 for a one bedroom. The average one bedroom in Seattle rented in April for $1,381, $17 dollars a month less than the HUD standard.

Growth Targets

Growth targets are not ceilings but benchmarks that measure our progress in the city welcoming growth. Growth is more people and jobs, not toxic waste that neighborhoods have to “take.” The more refined advocates of using growth targets generally argue that when the targets are exceeded, that’s the time to invest in more urban infrastructure. That argument makes a lot of sense. The blunter approach is to demand an end to building. That would be the worst thing we could do for housing prices; unless you’re a supply denier like Fox et al.

Demolition and Displacement

Sometimes acknowledging the facts short circuits ideological arguments. Fox argues that lots of low-income people are displaced and we should mandate a one for one replacement of affordable housing. How about this Mr. Fox, we’ll replace all housing demolished at an 8 to 1 ratio.

And not only that, projects like the Stack House, Troy Laundry, and others are leveraging growth to preserve our history. All of this and we can increase diversity in our neighborhoods, also, with more housing. I posted about a study that found that more housing helps a city like ours achieve a more diverse and desegregated city.

Two-Feet High and Rising 

It’s pretty simple; if you believe we should try to impact housing prices you’ll advocate for more housing, not less. If you welcome new people and jobs, you’ll want more housing. If you want all those people and opportunities they bring to go to Bellevue or Burien you’ll be in Mr. Fox’s Camp.

The facts are in: Seattle is the country’s fastest growing city because it is a beautiful, progressive city, with lots of new jobs and economic opportunity. John Fox would slam the door in new people’s faces and tell them to go somewhere else all in the name of keeping things more affordable for the people already here and, oddly, boosting the value of the already wealthy single-family homeowners. His views don’t connect with reality except that it’s true, some people are don’t want growth and change. We should be worried about growth, but not about how to stop it but how to welcome all the new people. We can start by building more housing, lots of it, everywhere, and all types.

I’ve been on a bit of a Johnny Cash listening fest lately, and City leaders should listen to one song that says a lot about growth. The difference between us and the family in Cash’s song is that we have a choice. The growth is coming, we need to welcome it with a plan, not run from it like it’s a disaster.