Marginal Revolution points to a new paper on US housing for the poor:
This study analyzes patterns of housing consumption and expenditures among social safety net recipients since 1985. For safety net recipients, including Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and cash welfare (AFDC/TANF), monthly housing expenditures have risen from $692 to $1,341. However, these increased expenditures partially reflect housing quantity improvements, including more square footage, more rooms, and larger lot sizes. The data also show a marked improvement in housing quality, such as fewer sagging roofs, broken appliances, rodents, and peeling paint. The housing quality for social safety net recipients improved across 35 indicators. These quality improvements equate to a 35 to 44 percent increase in housing consumption and suggest that a typical safety net recipient in 2021 experiences housing consumption equivalent to the average national household in 1985. Though relative housing consumption has remained similar for safety net recipients, this “rising tide” of housing quality may have additional benefits for the health and well being of families and children living in better housing.
US housing is as unequal as it was but at the low end the quality has risen to the population average of 40 years ago. It’s possible to say that’s not good enough but it’s certainly better than it was. Can we say the same about British housing?
By at least one of those measures - the space available to a household - of course entirely the opposite is true. Britain now produces the smallest new housing in Europe at something like 76 square meters. That’s a result of all that lovely planning and Green Belt and social housing that we do - instead of the American system of having something more akin to a free market in housing.
Given that British housing has got worse with planning, American housing - even at that bottom end - without it, perhaps we should be reconsidering our devotion to the planning of housing? On the fairly simple grounds that planning makes things worse?