The Creeping Horror

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: Which came first, the dead chicken or the rotten egg?

A bit gruesome. Sure. But it's Halloween, no? Trick or Treat time.

Anyway, the subject for today's exploration into contemporary horror is the modern city, so expensive it frightens middle-income earners away.

But wait. It's not all cities. Only some are horror shows.

Particularly, I'm referring to those in "blue" states, the ones run by "liberal" Democrats.

It's been pretty obvious for some time — especially as we witness hordes of everyday folks moving to parts South, particularly to Texas's sprawling cities. But if you needed some statistics and graphs and the like, Derek Thompson provides them over at The Atlantic. His title addresses his basic question: "Why Middle-Class Americans Can't Afford to Live in Liberal Cities." Citing economist Jed Kolko, he notes the most astounding thing about housing in modern cities: "Liberal cities seem to have the worst affordability crises."

Or, as Kolko puts it, "[e]ven after adjusting for differences of income, liberal markets tend to have higher income inequality and worse affordability."

Why? Thompson contemplates the chicken-and-eggness of it all. Do liberal progressives congregate in coastal cities with limited land availability, and just happen to find themselves crunching out home growth, thus raising prices and reducing affordability? Or do they cause it?

Considering the nature of their favored policies, they almost certainly (if inadvertently) cause it.

Big government inevitably yields big bad effects. Support big government? Expect more inequality, not less. Then demand more government to "solve" the problem. Which causes yet more bad effects.

This trick-and-treat trap should horrify big government advocates.

It certainly horrifies me.

This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Paul Jacobs is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America — and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.

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