Editorial ignores Econ 101
Your Saturday editorial, “Pricing out the working class: Liberal havens fare poorly in survey,” is despicable. The cities you mentioned are indeed expensive, but it’s for one reason that you conveniently omitted: simple economics. It’s Econ 101.
Prices are controlled by supply and demand. Logically speaking, the “liberal policies” in these places ought to be driving people out, reducing demand and thus depressing the cost of living. That’s obviously not happening. In fact, these places are expensive because the supply is limited (they’re all coastal cities with limited land availability) and the demand is high because they’re attractive places to live and wealthy people are willing to pay the price to live there.
You cite Fort Worth as an example of an affordable city. Fort Worth is affordable precisely because supply is high and demand is low. Fort Worth is landlocked, driving down demand, and the virtually unlimited land to build on increases supply.
I’m tired of seeing everything in this country cast in terms of liberal versus conservative. What is the point? How about trying to find some common ground once in a while instead of constantly tearing this country apart?
