Planning policy has caused "massive economic harm"

Great article from Sam Dumitriu at CapX:

By ignoring land prices, planners have tried to restrict the expansion of major cities, causing massive economic harm. There is an assumption by planners that large cities grow at the expense of smaller towns and create regional imbalances. This approach is mistaken because it fails to understand why people move to cities in the first place.

As Bertaud put it in a recent interview: “Sometimes when I read the papers of my fellow urban planners, I get the sense that they think cities are Disneyland or Club Med. Cities are labour markets. People go to cities to find a good job.”

Sam's core argument is that planning is a less effective means of determining and meeting housing need than a market. It's true that we've decided there are other considerations (primarily environmental) but, by placing restrictions on the ability of large urban areas to meet the housing needs of workers, all we have done is harmed the economy and made living in those cities a deal more unpleasant.

One concern, however, lies in the economics only view of housing supply as mere dormitaries for workers. I see this quite often from admirable campaign groups like the YIMBY movements. We really do - as happened with the growth of suburbs in the 1890s, 1930s and 1950s - need to allow for family life not merely pile up boxes for 21st century urban peons.

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