«Conservatives will tend to blame the trends on high taxes and progressive social policies in the blue states. But housing costs are far more important, financially, than taxes for most of the people who move from place to place.
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blue states could just build more houses for the lower-income and middle-income people, canceling out the effect of increased demand.
They don’t. With the exception of Washington state (which, you’ll notice, is not forecast to lose any Congressional seats!), blue states tend to be much more restrictive in terms of how much housing they build….
California and New York are driving people out of the state by refusing to build enough housing, while Texas and Florida are welcoming new people with new cheap houses…..
Nor is housing the only thing that blue states fail to build — anti-development politics is preventing blue states from adopting solar and wind, while red states power ahead. And red states’ willingness to build new factories means that progressive industrial policy is actually benefitting them more.
If blue states are going to thrive in the 21st century, they need to relearn how to build, build, build.
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red states have been beating blue states in the renewables race for years now….
[why?]
One answer that observers typically cite is land use permitting….
In California, meanwhile, “citizen voice” in the form of anti-development lawsuits is allowing local NIMBYs to block solar projects. This NIMBYism is often facilitated by environmental laws like California’s CEQA, and local NIMBYs often ally with — or even masquerade as — conservation groups. ….
Another factor is tax policy. Red states tend to have lower taxes in general, but they also give tax incentives for energy projects that will ultimately return more than they cost in terms of tax revenue…..
I should also mention one more thing that red states build more of: factories. Many analyses show that Biden’s industrial policies — the IRA for green energy and the CHIPS Act for semiconductors — will send a disproportionate amount of subsidies to red states. This is partly because Biden wants to court voters in those states, and partly because of cheaper labor costs, but mainly because those are the states that are willing to build more solar plants, transmission lines, and factories.
The red-state boom is a good thing. Red states tend to be poorer, so they need the boost more; it’s good to spread jobs out across the country instead of sending them all to traditional superstar clusters like San Francisco or Boston. But the fact that blue states largely resist building factories and energy infrastructure is holding back the nation’s economy as a whole. It makes little economic sense to have almost zero new manufacturing investments on either the West Coast or New England….
Yes, it’s important not to destroy natural habitats. Yes, it’s possible for some development projects to disrupt communities. But come on, folks. This has gone way too far. The hordes of people sleeping on the street, the steady drumbeat of people leaving the blue states, and the slowdown of decarbonization are all clear signs that the costs blue states’ love of stasis have become overwhelming. It’s time for them to learn how to build again.»
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