It's more of an everywhere-but-Texas problem. Texas has a great tradition of respecting property rights. Most states are not like this.
And then there's Texas doing it's own thing with its own cost-benefit analysis. As usual. ;)
My mom lives in a little $20k house about 90 minutes north of Dallas. (and it's not necessarily BFE, but in an older part of a 40k city)
So, yes we pay more and have more restrictions, but a better question is is it worth it?
Following the articles car analogy, this is like requiring cars to have airbags for the safety of the people in them, but that comes at a higher cost on the purchase price of the car.
We have minimum lot size restrictions, and restrict lots to one housing unit (R1 zoning). These regulations push up the prices of homes (since it increases the minimum amount of land for a housing unit), and do nothing to save forests and national parks.
In fact, if we keep building low density neighborhoods, more open space will be used up than if our zoning allowed for denser development.
Two words: Eminent Domain. Silicon Valley (and other areas in CA) need to use eminent domain to build high-rises.
The housing crisis can be solved without impacting nature preserves.
On a broader note, while I understand the frustration with NIMBYism, a lot of these discussions about housing here on HN cross the line from anti-NIMBYism to anti-democracy. The United States is not China. The solution to the housing crisis in the US is not and never will be for governments (at any level) to impose solutions contrary to the general will of the American voting public. Any government that tries to do so will find itself replaced. Quickly. And quite rightly so.
Or they could offer the same California salaries to programmers, who would live like kings in a small town but wouldn't have the same conveniences, and still spend the same amount of money.
Moving to the countryside doesn't always make business sense. Sure, costs to have a business in an urban area, but it's easier to find workforce at all needed levels and the trappings of urban civilization keep your workforce occupied and happier in their off hours.
Case-in-point: I work for a cash-strapped startup (for reasons) and sometimes have to live off my savings, but I live in an urban area. I could move to my hometown, where my costs would be about 25% of my current expenses, but then I'd be living in a special kind of hell where there are few good restaurants and the nearest bookstore is 60 miles away.
If Google or Apple moved from the Bay to anywhere else, their workers would follow. Don't doubt that for a second.
Or we could just embrace technology and stop insisting that all your workers have to breathe the same oxygen, and allow remote work. There are huge swathes of the United States that are becoming depopulated because industry died and all of the young people have had to leave to find work. I just got back from a trip home to western Maine, and it's disturbing the number of houses that are just abandoned up there.
It's not just the lack of 5-star restaurants, it's the lack of 2+ star restaurants and everything else that goes with it. If your job relocated to western Maine, how much of a wrench in your life would that be?
> If Google or Apple moved from the Bay to anywhere else, their workers would follow. Don't doubt that for a second.
Only if the pay incentive was great enough, I'm sure. Otherwise, it might be easier to just get a new job in the same area. Google and Apple might be exceptions, considering that they're pretty much both loaded, but any smaller company would have to think long and hard about the expenditures required to get the bulk of their employees moved. People get rooted in their communities, especially if the standard of living is higher than where they're expected to move.
> Or we could just embrace technology and stop insisting that all your workers have to breathe the same oxygen, and allow remote work.
And someday pigs might fly, but not this century.
I'd be fucking stoked. Cheap land, low population density, mountains. But I'm originally a redneck from that area to begin with, so my expectations of amenities and services are very low.
Something about property rights?