ugh - this list moves too fast for me - i can't keep up with all these delicious strawmen just asking to be beat down! ;-)
but let me just squash one quick fallacy that keeps being repeated by several folks here. newsflash: the government *already* regulates lot and house sizes. so, save all your "free market purity" blather for the fictional free market that lives in mailing list hypotheticals and econ textbooks. yeah, that's right - check with your local city and/or talk to a developer - they will tell you that the city and county tells them how big and how small their lots can be, and how large their houses can be. why do these laws exist? to keeps our communities from becoming the ugly byproducts of short-term gain from developers. the local elected officials regulate the local housing development market - weird, huh? developers aren't dumb - they look at the laws, they look at their plot map, pick out the cheapest (but shiny!) materials, do some quick math and optimize to maximize the dollar, and then the realtors come in and advise them on what is most immediately sellable, and not necessarily the most livable place to build, and ta-da! high-density mcmansion housing! my primary complaint is that they are doing a lame job at maintaining these laws, and they should probably revise the current laws on the books to keep up with those greedy (yes, greedy i say - because they sacrifice the common good for money, which i define as greedy jbellis!!) developers that are optimizing their practices against the current laws. -josh /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
