NCW Real Estate Blog

Tracy Warner wrote an editorial I really enjoyed yesterday.  He talked about a study done out of the University of Pennsylvania that compared what was happening in the post-war 1950s in housing compared to today.  It is an excellent editorial and is available here.

The gist of the study is that it isn’t developers or even construction costs that have driven up the cost of housing, but it is the cost of “serviced” land.  That would be land with infrastructure to support development.

The rage in politics these days is “development must pay for development.”  From a local government standpoint, with the funding options available, that mantra may be more of a practical approach than something that is philosophically derived.  I doubt local governments have much choice today.

While I’m too young, barely, to remember back to the post-war 1950s, it is clear that somehow our priorities have shifted since that time frame, or even the 1960s.  From what I can glean from the study, it sounds like cities, counties and the public did not mind “investing” in their area and their future.  That investment sounds like it included building some infrastructure so their area could benefit from an influx of productive, hard working, home owning families and individuals that they may have realized would contribute far greater value to their community.  I suppose much of what has happened since is a rebellion against the suburban dwellings that sprung up so easily in the post-war era.

Since then, I suppose the world has become more crowded.  Maybe people really are more self focused.  Have we somehow come around to thinking the state and federal government should take our taxes and provide the solutions to these problems which may have been handled much more economically and efficiently in the past?  Tracy Warner’s column got me thinking, which is what it is all about.  Maybe high property costs and taxes just create a fog of nostalgia for the problems with those typically bland developments.  If those types of things have you wondering, his column is well worth a read and please feel free to comment here. 

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