Specifically, when do they vote and on what do they vote?
If you dig into this you eventually end up with the premise of the article.
In a past life I wanted to build dense housing. i.e. more units per square meter.
I went to buy land, and at the same time started going through the bureaucratic process of getting things approved by the government so that I could start building.
I have the necessary know-how to build what I wanted with my own resources, I was willing to apply for all permits necessary. However, I got turned down flat by the government. The only thing I was allowed to build on this land was ONE house. The land could have fit 15+ houses or an apartment building with dozens of units, but no, the city zoning board had decreed that this land was zoned ONLY to single family housing. So the only thing that could be built on this site was one single family house. Guess who the members of the zoning board were that turned me down? Local homeowners, who did not want to see the character of their neighborhood change.
This is the root of the problem. The free market is not allowed to function, because of this process.
And the thing is: this same process exists in every metro area in the US. Zoning boards populated by local homeowners with no desire to change anything.
The economic incentives already exist for denser, more affordable, housing; but developers are not allowed to build anything other than what the land has been zoned for. The people in charge of that zoning have the opposite incentive, they want their beautiful, low-density, neighborhood to never change.
Specifically, when do they vote and on what do they vote? If you dig into this you eventually end up with the premise of the article.
In a past life I wanted to build dense housing. i.e. more units per square meter. I went to buy land, and at the same time started going through the bureaucratic process of getting things approved by the government so that I could start building.
I have the necessary know-how to build what I wanted with my own resources, I was willing to apply for all permits necessary. However, I got turned down flat by the government. The only thing I was allowed to build on this land was ONE house. The land could have fit 15+ houses or an apartment building with dozens of units, but no, the city zoning board had decreed that this land was zoned ONLY to single family housing. So the only thing that could be built on this site was one single family house. Guess who the members of the zoning board were that turned me down? Local homeowners, who did not want to see the character of their neighborhood change.
This is the root of the problem. The free market is not allowed to function, because of this process.
And the thing is: this same process exists in every metro area in the US. Zoning boards populated by local homeowners with no desire to change anything.
The economic incentives already exist for denser, more affordable, housing; but developers are not allowed to build anything other than what the land has been zoned for. The people in charge of that zoning have the opposite incentive, they want their beautiful, low-density, neighborhood to never change.