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Comment by ddt | Hacker News Reader

I think she's taking the position that there's inherent value in providing affordable residential property in New York which exceeds the value in extracting maximum tax revenue from every square inch of the city. At the very least, I find that to be a defensible position.

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@moron4hire: It's a good point. But there are side effects of reducing residential property. What happens to the city's economy when everyone's commute is doubled because housing in the city is becoming prohibitively expensive as supply shrinks? Without zoning laws, how do you attract people to move to your city when there's no guarantee their apartment building will still be an apartment building once the lease is up?

To answer the question, I think it's the city government's job to balance the interests of people and businesses that reside in the city. In a perfect world, every side effect and externality would be neatly quantifiable, and municipal leadership would be fair and evenhanded. For now, we have to trust that the feedback loop of election will produce pretty good solutions to problems. I can't think of a better way to approach things in the current system.

Yeah, I get that, but it seems pretty tenuous. All this talk about the "value" of the property with regards to it being used for one thing over another, when price is the way in which we quantify value.

Who gets to decide what the value of a piece of property to The People should be? Should it be elected officials, who probably only represent the interests of the people on even numbered days, or should it be The People themselves, through price movement?

It's a common belief - especially on the internet - that whatever the unfettered free market decides (or would decide) is good and correct. You may believe this, and you may even take it as axiomatic, but you should be aware that very many people disagree, and will reject any argument with this as its foundation.

I forgot to clarify the opposing view. Some people see or foresee a negative outcome of an unfettered market, and want to take steps to prevent it. Then they pass laws or regulations, like hotel zoning. They see the improvement as justification for the burden placed on the market. There are so many of these baked into society that you probably don't notice them. Minimum wage laws, overtime laws, vehicle safety laws, workplace safety laws, noise ordinances, etc.

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