So there’s a ton of countries that I’ve heard have had truly unaffordable housing for decades, like:
- The UK
- Ireland
- The Netherlands
And I’ve heard of a ton of countries where the cost of houses was until recently quite affordable where it’s also started getting worse:
- Germany
- Poland
- Czechia
- Hungary
- The US
- Australia
- Canada
- And I’m sure plenty others
- It seems to be a pan-Western bloc thing. Is the cause in all these countries the same?
- We’ve heard of success stories in cities like Vienna where much of the housing stock is municipally owned – but those cities have had it that way for decades. Would their system alleviate the current crisis if established in the aforementioned countries?
- What specific policies should I be demanding of our politicians to make housing affordable again? Is there any silver bullet? Has any country demonstrably managed to reverse this crisis yet?
I was impressed with Singapore when i was there a while back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_and_Development_Board
Yea, the technique of the government simply owning all the land and doing all the development does work. It just can’t really be applied to any western country without a massive revolt when they confiscate all the land from private owners. The government could never afford to pay for all of it, so it would have to be seized without payment.
How could they be coaxed to similary abandon their property like that? What current incentives exist that prevent them from having to do that particular needful?
They couldn’t. The only way this happens is if ownership rates drop well below half the population and renters vote in a political party that can wrest control back from land owners.
