The high-volume Joel Kotkin seems to produce a long article a day, so does Victor Davis Hanson, I'm envious. I have to wonder if each is literally a factory, like those of famous renaissance painters and sculptors, where the scut work is done by anonymous apprentices and the great man merely contributes finishing touches, and takes the credit?
Today Kotkin's subject is our failure to produce as much housing as needed, the median person not being able to afford the median home. This is a problem because:
Homeowners are not only more affluent than renters – they are also physically and mentally healthier, vote more often and their children achieve higher levels of education.
These are truths urban planners choose to ignore. They prefer high density, high rise housing clustered around public transport lines.
Think of egg factory hens, living in wire cages, producing egg after egg which roll away, while food and water are provided mechanically and their waste falls through onto a conveyor belt. The urban planner's ideal incorporates much of that ethos for us humans, ignoring that we are not caged chickens.
