How do you make a town more affordable:
A. Lower home prices
B. Increase the number of jobs that can pay enough to reside there?
Well what are the ways to lower home prices? The City leadership can
- Bring in more criminality. Choose racial groups that have a disproportionate tendency toward criminality
- Bring in more regulations so that home owners and commercial property owners do not have the liberty to modify their property to make it more suitable for entrepreneurialism
- Increase property taxes
And what are the ways to increase salaries in said town? The City leadership can
- Solve the puzzle of what the town offers. What are the missing ingredients? For my favorite town: It has a railroad transportation hub and world class winter sports and mountainous hiking opportunities. While Walmart is there and some other predominantly low-paying companies, but if we could invest in nuclear power and entice some companies to relocate here, perhaps we could create 100 jobs that pay over $80k and 200 that pay over $40k.
- Deregulate. Let home owners replace a hot water heater with no need for approval. Ditto for contractors who pay hundreds of dollars a year for their certification. Let property owners aggressively advertise and exempt them from the need to put handicap parking, cosmetic features in their parking spot…. Let their profitability spawn their generosity, not the city’s cosmetic preferences.
- lower property taxes
There are often more than one way to solve a problem. Yes, one can make housing prices lower. But, as Thomas Sowell invites us to ask, “At what cost?” Alternatively, a city can make local higher paying jobs more abundant. This latter option could also offer a handsome balloon payment to residents who choose to cash out of the town.
Dr. Pieder Beeli for Ogden City Council 