Public housing, paranoia and mirages

Jason Dowling in The Age today asked this question...

When did Melbourne become a society of intolerant, closed communities filled with misplaced paranoia about providing public housing for people in desperate need of it?

Its a question well asked. Related to this is a few years ago I was attended a planning consultation for a development in southern end of Coburg. The residents were discussing their objections to this development, mostly on considered planning grounds when a man stood up and told us that he did not want this five storey development near him because of the "people who would live there". By this he meant renters who he perceived as poor and not like him. Its an attitude that annoys greatly.

One of my facebook friends did note that Jason failed to get stuck into the market and real estate agents for over playing the idea that public housing harms housing values. He has a strong point - the root of the problem is our belief that increased housing values increases our overall wealth, though I suspect that in relative terms this is not entirely accurate.

Housing Crisis deserves better

Alan Moran first came to my attention last year when he began to get articles published in Melbourne's daily papers attacking public transport with articles entitled Batchelor plan is driving against the traffic and Car users pay twice as much in taxes as governments spend on roads.

Looking through Moran's ill begotten treasure hoard of citations at the Institute of Public Affairs website you will see he is prolific, crusading against renewable energy, public transport, environmentalism and today, planning.

Moran has latched onto today's and yesterday's articles in the mainstream press about housing affordability to point the finger at Labor state government's. In an analysis that would make Peter Costello blush he ignores the impact if interest rate rises, federal taxation or the scandalous lack of investment in social housing to skeet all the blame home to land supply and over regulation.

Moran's methodology is not new - it is to make a big statement relying on some isolated statistic (the problem is land supply, or public transport is in decline) and hang his whole argument on that crooked hook.

Evidence based public policy looks beyond a statistic and asks why - for example is public transport use in decline since the war - and what choice's have brought this about.

Hopefully The Age won't let Moran's lopsided argument go unanswered - housing affordability is the big sleeper issue of my generation, and we deserve better policy choices then those favoured by the development lobby.