> (2) it will hurt people who would prefer low quality and lower price.
Uh... poverty isn't a preference. Sure, at the margins people can choose to spend the money they have on different things, but you're positing an equivalence here between things that aren't remotely equal. It's not like suburban professionals simply choose to spend their money on expensive housing and infrastructure where their inner city compatriots have different priorities. Poor neighborhoods are poor because the people there HAVE LESS MONEY.
You fix that by fixing the inequity, not imagining a fantasy resident who decides to put all her money into bitcoin or whatever.
To be fair, I know at least a handful of people who are not in poverty but seem to prefer low quality / low price options to those that are more expensive.
I would assume that the preference is not for low quality, but low price. That is, if better quality housing was available for the same price, I don't see why one wouldn't choose that option. But it is certainly true that some prefer to spend less of their budget on housing.
Uh... poverty isn't a preference. Sure, at the margins people can choose to spend the money they have on different things, but you're positing an equivalence here between things that aren't remotely equal. It's not like suburban professionals simply choose to spend their money on expensive housing and infrastructure where their inner city compatriots have different priorities. Poor neighborhoods are poor because the people there HAVE LESS MONEY.
You fix that by fixing the inequity, not imagining a fantasy resident who decides to put all her money into bitcoin or whatever.