Sprawl and the Free Market
This piece from The Freeman looks at the debate over sprawl and whether free market economics encourage it or offer a solution.
"The exchanges focus mainly on zoning rather than other interventions that have been identified over the years as factors that abet sprawl. These include federal subsidies to construct the 46,876-mile-long interstate highway system and intra-urban freeway systems, both of which have made living in the less-expensive fringes of cities cheaper for urban commuters — not to mention federal subsidies for the construction of water mains, sewers, telecommunication lines, and, as we all should be well aware of today, direct and indirect subsidies to single-family home ownership via Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and a slew of federal policies intended to promote single-family home ownership, dating back to the Great Depression, including the income-tax deduction for mortgage interest."
The article suggests briefly that the demand curve for sprawl goes down over time, though that assertion is not fully explained.
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Downward Sloping Demand For Sprawl
Downward sloping demand curve is the economist's way of saying that, as price goes up, quantity goes down. He explains it when he says:
"But the bottom line is that the law of demand still holds – other things equal, the cheaper you make something the more of it people will want to buy, and that includes low-density development. You’ll get more of that, too, if those direct and indirect subsidies make it cheaper for people to get it."
Charles Siegel