For those that haven't seen it, here's the Editorial - (A LINK WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE, Mr. N-R)

Green lies

By Thomas Sowell

Jan 5, 2006

Not often do Rush Limbaugh and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman agree on anything but recently both of them pointed out the same pattern in the prices of housing -- and both were correct.

The pattern is this: Despite hysteria over high home prices, in most parts of the United States housing is quite affordable. But in some places housing prices are astronomical -- three times the national average in much of California, for example.

Despite the old rule of thumb that housing should cost no more than one fourth of your income, there are parts of California where tenants and new home buyers pay at least half their incomes for housing.

This can be a serious problem in such places because it means that only the other half of people's income is available to pay for such frills as food and clothing.

These dire situations are more likely to be featured in the media, partly because bad news sells newspapers and gets higher television ratings. Moreover, media elites are more likely to be living in the places where housing prices are out of sight -- places like Manhattan, coastal California, and the posh suburbs around Washington or various other cities.

It is a very different story in most of the rest of the country. A scholarly study published in the October 2005 issue of the Journal of Law and Economics concluded: "In the sprawling cities of the American heartland, land remains cheap, real construction costs are falling, and expanding supply keeps housing costs low."

In some cities, housing prices have actually declined as the housing supply has expanded. None of this is rocket science. It is supply and demand.

Why then are there particular places where housing costs have skyrocketed?

In those places, much of the land is prevented by law from being used to build housing. These land use restrictions are seldom called land use restrictions.

They are called by much prettier names, like "open space" laws, laws to "preserve farmland" or prevent "sprawl," "greenbelt" laws -- or whatever else will sell politically.

People who already own their own homes don't worry about whether such laws will drive housing prices sky high. Somebody else will have to pay those prices while existing homeowners see the value of their property rise by leaps and bounds.

Meanwhile, land that might otherwise provide homes for others becomes in effect free park land for themselves, while such upscale communities use "open space" laws to keep out the masses. The crowning touch is that such self-interest is depicted as idealism.

A famous economist named Joseph Schumpeter once said that the first thing someone will do for his ideals is lie. Some people distinguish little white lies from black lies but the biggest lies of all are green lies.

To hear environmental zealots tell it, they are just trying to save the last few patches of greenery from being paved over. But in fact the land area of the United States covered by forests is more than three times as large as the land area covered by all the cities and towns across the nation.

Only about 5 percent of the land is urban. In other words, you could double the size of every city and town in America and still nine-tenths of the land would be undeveloped.

Some of the biggest hysteria about "saving" land is found in places where most of the land is already off-limits to building. Some of the biggest crocodile tears about a need to "preserve farmland" come from people who are not farmers, and who know little and care less about farming.

Chronic agricultural surpluses that cost the taxpayers billions show that there is too much farmland producing more than the market can absorb, while the growing of these surplus crops puts all sorts of chemicals into the ground, water, and air. But the green liars don't mention that.

Their real agenda is keeping out other people. Home builders who would enable other people to move into their community are called selfish and greedy. Green liars consider themselves morally far superior to "developers."

Few would dispute the growth of housing in this country, often on Former Family Farmland because it was at one time relatively close to the city, and it always saddens me to see the farm-lifestyle go the way of the horse lead carriage.

My only though is Sowell is known for being inflamatory - and using the term "Green Liars" is typical of him - demonize your opponent at all times.

"A famous economist named Joseph Schumpeter once said that the first thing someone will do for his ideals is lie."

Boy if that's not the pot calling the Kettle Black.

"Some people distinguish little white lies from black lies but the biggest lies of all are green lies."

Sowell can fag the Environmentalists - but he's wrong.

HEY MR. N-R: How about a study to see how many subscribers Sowell beings in? Perhaps simply being an inflamatory ass sells papers, but I rarely find his rhetoric worthy of my lunch time reading.

From a source even the environmental wakos can't dispute:
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ksgnews/PressReleases/010506_rappaport_study.htm

Interesting link on Realtors going "green

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060118/NEWS01/60117021

In the WNC mountains this is basically a new trend. I found it hilarious however that one from Beverly Hanks Realty would be involved since BH has been one of the developers who built anywhere a dime could be made, which perhaps is the real meaning of realtors going "green".
WNC, particularly Asheville and Buncombe Co. area has the highest housing cost in the state. Why? It is not because of the "new green" thing but because of the influx of people moving here , having sold an overpriced home in another part of the country, especially Fla and a few northern states and willing to pay any price for a house in NC, no matter how over priced it may be. Also developers from out of state, Fla. for the most part are flocking here to take advantage of the influx of money and demand for overpriced homes which they gladly develope on postage stamp size
lots. Of course this also appeals to the "granola's" and new eco nuts who think this is saving land.
The developers will leave as soon as they have built all their houses and can no longer find a ridge line to build on and when the houses begin to fall apart in a few years they will be no where to be found.

To the letter writer, there is no such thing as land use rules in Asheville. Oh yes on paper but when it comes to reality they are ignored. Maybe Sowell had a point on some things.

If i read Neo's link correctly .. it says that housing prices are higher because local officials are requiring higher minimum lot sizes, holding down local population densities, and telling folks they can't build in wetlands.

Part of that story might be perc' testing .. you need to get rid of your personal stuff that flows down hill and the ground needs to absorb it and often that dictates lot size minimums. The alternative is a public septic system, which is government involvement but with Neo and Dan screaming about taxes being stolen from them we can only assume that is not a viable option.

The other driver for large lot sizes is it adds value to the house, which ties into the SUV discussion we had the otherday, i.e., if you can afford it, why not .. but that is totally off the Sowell's diss' of Granola Crunchers.

There is also the issue of dense-housing related higher-school-populations + lowered property tax stream from lower preperty values = less funding for education = reduced education of our future. But we won't mention that.

We also won't mention that the rapid rise in Home Values is one of the bitches expressed recently when it comes to the Death Tax ... you can't have it both ways.

The other element is protection of the Wet Lands, which we should all be in favor of .. just ask the folk in New Orleans how much they would have appreciated the wet land not being reduced to a fraction of their original size - a result mostly of the alterations to the Mississippi River to accomodate large ship traffic.

Having a viable buffer in the form of a wet-land would have mitigated billions of your-money-dollars currently going in to rebuild the area.

All I'm really saying is this is a very complex issue - and that Sowell is an ass for oversimplifying and trying to place blame on "green" thinkers.

This is not the first or last time Sowell's column was, well, off base.