On the money. I think that is the major problem, there is massive disconnect between the people approving the building sprawl and the people having to live in it. If you build they will buy it... which they do.. which then only makes the wealtheir suburbs more alluring as they aren't hellholes of the outer suburbs. Rich get richer, the poor collect over valued assets they trade between themselves.
The issue is broader then just government detachment and extends to general banking practices.... lending inflates prices as more people have access to funds. Take new cars for example, when japan hit the market here and in the US the cost of a new car plummeted in order to compete. However when credit become available to the masses the average cost of a new car started to creep up... it created an artifical floor in pricing as anyone could afford a $50,000 dollar car. So all cares started to be sold at price points based on their target demographic.... the same can be said of housing... there is no cheap housing because money is cheap and even some one on 50K a year can get their hands on truck loads of it. The artificial floor for realestate exists because people, in their imaginations, deem it to be worth it. Now, before anyone goes nuts and says "well dumb ass" this is capitalism and free market".... its not... the traditional model of buyers and sellers arriving at a fair price went out the window when you added a 3rd to the party, buyers, sellers and lenders. the seller knows you can borrow from the lender and so the price remains artificially inflated. the buyer isn't the only one in the market and thus they are no longer competing for buying power but borrowing power.... and that is F**king scary.
