How Elite Environmentalists Impoverish Blue-Collar Americans

Joel Kotkin reports:

In the new scarcity politics, access to land also may be sharply limited. New land regulation, ostensibly for climate-change reasons – already in place in California and being discussed as well in Washington state – could force almost all new development to follow a high-density, multi-family pattern. Over time, single-family homes – the preference of a vast majority of Americans – will become once again, as they were in the past, the privilege only of the upper classes in some metropolitan regions.

By embracing the politics of scarcity, the Obama administration seems committed to imposing a regime that could slow any sustained recovery from the current recession. Although these ideas might appear plausible at a Harvard Law Review bull session, their real consequences for millions of Americans could prove very ugly indeed.

Ouch! Yet,another great one from Joel Kotkin.