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The California model.
I just got back from a brief trip to California that didn't include the parts where the violent drug zombies live. It was a lovely vacation. California is absolutely beautiful.
Let me introduce the secrets to California's success.
Be blessed with the most amazing geography and weather anywhere in the U.S. and maybe the world
Be the center of the world tech and entertainment industries
Make a deal that baby boomers get to live out their natural lives in splendor and grace while a complete population replacement happens beneath them
As a wealthy tourist, it was all very nice. Whereas the coast of Florida is loaded with aggressive traffic and people, the coast of California is dotted with pleasant beach communities. All the houses cost like $3 million dollars so no one can afford to live there. Despite the best weather and scenery on the planet, the population is going DOWN. People are friendly and nice. The restaurants are full of white retirees, still paying $1000 in annual property tax on their $4 million house they bought for $200,000 in 1981. 95% of the workers are Hispanic. I have no idea where they actually live. But the quality of service was very high and prices were reasonable (at least compared to Seattle).
A quick 5 minute drive from Santa Cruz and you're in a beautiful redwood forest. No houses or people here. Just a beautiful state park with miles of trails. I saw a school group with an earnest white teacher explaining tree rings to a group of about 20 young students. 100% of the students were Hispanic.
People are actually leaving this state, the state that has everything, that was dealt a hand of aces. Productive citizens are taxed at eye-popping rates to prop up the seniors and the underclass. It works for now. It seems kind of similar to what's happening in Europe and where the rest of the U.S. is headed as well.
In any case, I had a wonderful time. I highly recommend California as a tourist destination.
Reactionary politicians in the US rarely talk about housing. It's certainly not a big part of Trump's rhetoric. In the US, talking a lot about housing problems is more associated with the economic left, people like Bernie Sanders.
So even putting aside the fact that California Democrats tend to view Trump as being nearly Hitler-esque, and the fact that reactionary politicians are unlikely to actually do anything about these problems if elected (as you correctly point out elsewhere, this does not explain why people don't vote for them more), the fact of the matter is that addressing housing problems is just not something that US reactionary politicians emphasize. So it is not surprising that this is not a big factor in how many people vote for reactionary politicians in the US.
Greg Abbott has a propaganda push about trying to reduce housing prices. Someone immersed in Texas politics- or heavily into the YIMBY scene- would probably be aware of it.
In practice a lot of the actual programs he’d point to are populist signaling, but Austin is the only major city with declining apartment rents while the city grows.
I think Texas has it right with the high property taxes. 2% or whatever it is a year forces average old people who suddenly find themselves with a house worth a few million to sell quickly and downsize, that money typically makes its way in part to children and grandchildren or is just spent, all of which are good.
New Jersey has high property taxes and is still a dump, but that may be just a consequence of proximity to NYC and an uncommonly high (for America) level of corruption rivalled only by Illinois and the Deep South.
Our high property taxes are also correlated with—if not the cause of—our unusually good schools.
Our schools actually spend way less than the national average, in a way that’s not particularly correlated with performance. High property tax revenue is probably not a contributing factor.
Wait, really?
Maybe I’m just making assumptions from my time in the schools here.
Yes. Texas’s schools underspend the national average by a lot and the better districts tend to be on the low side of the average, except for highland-park level eyepoppingly wealthy areas. And even in those cases, the extra money usually goes to athletics.
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