There’s also zoning laws. For instance, I live in DC, where there’s a height cap on buildings, which makes it impossible to build towering, cheap, apartment buildings. (much to my sorrow).
That zoning law exists to keep buildings from blocking views of the Capitol, but a lot of other zoning laws exist exactly to prevent cheap apartments, because the people active in the zoning process don’t want to live near the kind of people who would live in cheap apartments.
Robert Moses, from my home state of NY, is particularly famous for this kind of things. In addition to zoning, he also made sure that buses weren’t allowed on some Long Island roads, or that bridge overpasses would be too low to fit buses under, to prevent people who rely on public transportation from traveling to certain neighborhoods and beaches.
There’s also zoning laws. For instance, I live in DC, where there’s a height cap on buildings, which makes it impossible to build towering, cheap, apartment buildings. (much to my sorrow).
That zoning law exists to keep buildings from blocking views of the Capitol, but a lot of other zoning laws exist exactly to prevent cheap apartments, because the people active in the zoning process don’t want to live near the kind of people who would live in cheap apartments.
Robert Moses, from my home state of NY, is particularly famous for this kind of things. In addition to zoning, he also made sure that buses weren’t allowed on some Long Island roads, or that bridge overpasses would be too low to fit buses under, to prevent people who rely on public transportation from traveling to certain neighborhoods and beaches.
Height caps are overrated. Paris is five times denser than DC, but I believe that its height limits were stricter in the 20th century.