"we've seen a myriad of theories thrown out in hopes of fostering affordable housing, which never seem to result in lowered prices, or an easing of our housing crunch"
What this ignores is that it's quite likely that our housing crisis would be *much worse* without those measures in place.
If we free people from government car storage mandates, it's not going to make Bend suddenly affordable, especially for the 'average person' who probably does own a car and wants a spot to put it. This reform will help with the low end.
Also worth noting: Bend did not have these requirements imposed until after WWII, and the part of town built before then is just fine in terms of the amount of car storage space. Indeed, it's a very expensive bit of town to live in.
This article suffers from some bad 'both sides' bias. "There are those that believe ...".
There are "those that believe" that the earth is flat, too. You don't give equal weight to every weird theory out there. You might mention it exists, to be fair, but that current science discredits it.
You know what's even greener than green buildings? Building things close enough together so that people don't have to drive for *everything* in their lives:
Looking at the Google Maps satellite imagery of the area it seems like much ado about nothing: it's a foot bridge, not a four lane highway. The area is already built up on all sides with houses. Encouraging more people to walk or bike across the river rather than drive around via Reed Market seems eminently sensible to me.
The housing crisis is critical to Bend's future. If we don't fix things, Boulder, Colorado, with an average price of over 600,000 dollars is what we can look forward to, and people like teachers and firefighters priced out of the market completely.
However: rent control is a terrible idea. What we need is more supply. This is something that pretty much all economists, whether they lean left or right agree on.
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What this ignores is that it's quite likely that our housing crisis would be *much worse* without those measures in place.
If we free people from government car storage mandates, it's not going to make Bend suddenly affordable, especially for the 'average person' who probably does own a car and wants a spot to put it. This reform will help with the low end.
Also worth noting: Bend did not have these requirements imposed until after WWII, and the part of town built before then is just fine in terms of the amount of car storage space. Indeed, it's a very expensive bit of town to live in.
There are "those that believe" that the earth is flat, too. You don't give equal weight to every weird theory out there. You might mention it exists, to be fair, but that current science discredits it.
https://la.curbed.com/2017/3/28/15098958/h…
Of course that's not for everyone, but if the market will produce it, we should allow it.
However: rent control is a terrible idea. What we need is more supply. This is something that pretty much all economists, whether they lean left or right agree on.
http://marketurbanism.com/2016/08/30/the-a…