Friday, October 23, 2009

I guest post at Paul Romer's charter city blog

The post begins:

Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea experienced great economic success: all have per capita GDP that is at least seven times higher than in 1960 (see Penn World Table for more information). All three economies also came to be relatively well housed. While we cannot draw a uniform lesson from their experiences, it is worthwhile to examine each case for clues about successful housing development...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Public housing can work, but only if special interest groups don't wreck it with expensive demands. Also crime must be kept under control. Singapore, for example, is very strict on crime.

The Korean model of removing restrictions to free market working may be better here. Public housing has been tried domestically in the past, with disastrous outcomes. We simply don't have Singapore's strict anti crime policy. For public housing to work, central control must be so strong that it limits some freedom. Americans don't generally accept the degree of control Singapore citizens do.

Singapore public housing is safe, clean, and vandalism free. US public housing is high crime, regularly vandalized, and prohibitively expensive.

The Korean experiment of a true free market in housing should be tried. People who own their own low cost homes, with easily defensible boundaries, is better suited to the freedom of action in the US.

Anonymous said...

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