Reply to Wes Moore Wants to Destroy Your Neighborhood

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Someone will have to explain to me how the "conservative," "let the markets work" people are also the people who want to make the whole dang state an HOA.[/quote]

Markets work better when the goods are relatively known quantities.  (Stable) zoning improves the certainty about that which one is buying.

Location matters, and location considerations include the surrounds in which one lives, both immediate (e.g., the homes next door & in the neighborhood), and relatively proximate (e.g., the immediate-area infrastructure, like schools, parks & roads/transportation).

A decision to live in a particular home is among the most consequential one makes.  Moreso when buying than renting, of course, but each not only involves a major outlay of personal funds, but also is highly impactful -- time & stress, in addition to that money -- with each move.

Adding to churn by suggesting that people should move if they don't like a proposed or enacted zoning change then presents huge personal, and collectively societal, inefficiency.  Comparisons with the housing choices available to those already having decided to move, either to the region or within it, would be asymmetric, and arguments along these lines would need to take that asymmetry well into account.

There is a public cost associated with the government/society adopting rules/practices that afford the relative certaintly that make markets work well.  The associated benefit, of course, tends to accrue to the players in the market, and these tend to be the wealthy (shocker!).  This often is ignored by conservatives, who equally, if not more, often ignore that the "great hand" is not some beneficent entity, but a dispassionate collective mechanic that, itself, moves towards that which the market environment, including any conditions established by the government, tends to dictate.  We can change the conditions to the good, but it would be important to have some consensus about that good rather than adopt a position of hubris in thinking that we independently know what is best for others.

-- Not a conservative[/quote]

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