YESTERDAY I talked to beginning Econ students about the consequences of the price of any good being forced below equilibrium -- which of course is a shortage, and the example I offered was rent control, in New York, San Francisco and Mumbai -- all of which have EXACTLY the same results as you describe in Cairo. Mumbai is a little more colorful, because you get to see people living in condemned buildings. The need is to encourage more building of housing, especially for low-income tenants. Then, OF COURSE, I showed them photos of "Projects" built by the government mostly in the 60s and 70s to solve the problem. They caused another and possibly even worse problem, of creating centers of crime, violence, disorder, hatred of the system, etc. Houston *has* a housing voucher program offered by the Housing Authority (https://housingforhouston.com/residents/housing-choice-voucher/) using Federal HUD money -- naturally now the Waitlist is closed :-(. But even before our Current Sitting President, that program worked badly, with wait times of 2-5 years. It only subsidized rental housing, which effectively shut eligible applicants out from large swathes of (mostly White) upper-income areas, to a significant extent in response to the old Redlining from 1934-68, that withheld mortgages from Black (and Jewish) areas in 239 US cities -- and still has consequences for where owner-occupied housing is built. The solution I offered is a voucher funded at the national level that includes both rental and owner-occupied own homes, with a stipulation that no area can be excluded, with sufficient funding to include all potential tenants below an agreed income level prorated to the cost of housing in each city.
I'm really interested in seeing what sort of policies come out to help those most impacted (low-income tenants, pensioners, and those with limited mobility) beyond just promises to support them. Perhaps Egyptian politicians are held more accountable if they don't keep their promises.
Great article! I think in economic theory we focus too much on markets and less on the agents that make those transactions. Sociology plays a larger factor than we think and the ramifications of a efficient market but one that abandoned their under served what good is it
YESTERDAY I talked to beginning Econ students about the consequences of the price of any good being forced below equilibrium -- which of course is a shortage, and the example I offered was rent control, in New York, San Francisco and Mumbai -- all of which have EXACTLY the same results as you describe in Cairo. Mumbai is a little more colorful, because you get to see people living in condemned buildings. The need is to encourage more building of housing, especially for low-income tenants. Then, OF COURSE, I showed them photos of "Projects" built by the government mostly in the 60s and 70s to solve the problem. They caused another and possibly even worse problem, of creating centers of crime, violence, disorder, hatred of the system, etc. Houston *has* a housing voucher program offered by the Housing Authority (https://housingforhouston.com/residents/housing-choice-voucher/) using Federal HUD money -- naturally now the Waitlist is closed :-(. But even before our Current Sitting President, that program worked badly, with wait times of 2-5 years. It only subsidized rental housing, which effectively shut eligible applicants out from large swathes of (mostly White) upper-income areas, to a significant extent in response to the old Redlining from 1934-68, that withheld mortgages from Black (and Jewish) areas in 239 US cities -- and still has consequences for where owner-occupied housing is built. The solution I offered is a voucher funded at the national level that includes both rental and owner-occupied own homes, with a stipulation that no area can be excluded, with sufficient funding to include all potential tenants below an agreed income level prorated to the cost of housing in each city.
I'm really interested in seeing what sort of policies come out to help those most impacted (low-income tenants, pensioners, and those with limited mobility) beyond just promises to support them. Perhaps Egyptian politicians are held more accountable if they don't keep their promises.
I am interested in learning more. I will be following this rollout.
Great article! I think in economic theory we focus too much on markets and less on the agents that make those transactions. Sociology plays a larger factor than we think and the ramifications of a efficient market but one that abandoned their under served what good is it