The end result of high regulatory limits on house building
The housing shortage in Portland seems to be improving – until you look at why. It’s not because Portland (with some of the most housing unfriendly policies in the country) is building more houses (they are a little bit) but because people are leaving.
What is happening in San Francisco—and in Portland, to a lesser extent—is that the housing shortage is temporarily improving, not because of the construction of new housing but because people are moving away to cheaper places.
In a case study on San Francisco, the Up for Growth report noted an issue that a report from the Common Sense Institute Oregon highlighted earlier this week.
“Household formation in these areas significantly decreased. Driven in no small part by the high cost of housing, households that could have formed in these communities formed somewhere else instead
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