THE MORNING RANT: Housing Affordability Requires Vast Swaths of Virtually Uninhabitable Urban Areas Be Reclaimed

An issue I have periodically revisited is the need for “municipal conservatism” as an alternative to Democrat-administered destruction of our cities. In a 2024 piece at The Blaze, I wrote “Republicans need to offer our struggling cities an agenda focused on delivering excellent city services, including effective policing, cleanliness, anti-vagrancy measures, public safety, reliable utilities, and family-friendly parks. This agenda should promote a political climate that supports small businesses, primary education, churches, families, and patriotism. Democrat-run cities have grown hostile to these foundational elements of urban civilization, creating an enormous opportunity for Republicans.” This is not “small government conservatism.” It is “civil order conservatism.”

Hampton Prescott, one of my favorite follows on Twitter/X (@HamptonPrezcott), is a real estate professional in Atlanta who is heavily focused on this exact issue. (He also covers architectural trends, commenting on the correlation of bad commercial architecture with the state of urban environments.)

Because I want to keep fueling discussion about the importance of municipal conservatism, I invited Mr. Prescott to provide me an essay as to his thoughts on the subject. He kindly obliged. Here it is:

Donald Trump’s second term has coincided with an increase in use and application of the phrase “you can just do things.” Whether it is taking out the Ayatollah after 50 years of western appeasement, shutting the southern border after hearing all kinds of “reasons why we can’t do anything about it” by the leftist/libertarian industrial complexes, or eliminating discriminatory hiring practices after decades of conservative apathy (or enabling), the age of dismantling stale orthodoxies is firmly upon us. I’d like to talk about another example of something justified for decades as “just the way things are” - abysmal governance of major cities and the idea that there is no hope for right-leaning leadership that efficiently and effectively provides safety and security for citizens.

Even many left-leaning folks will admit, our major cities are disaster zones. Capital flight, out of control vagrancy, serial criminals let loose by a malignant justice system, expensive services that underperform in quality (to put it charitably) - our major cities may be experiencing the roughest stretch since the dark days of the late 1970’s. Now the median conservative may look at this sad state of affairs and remark to himself, “not my circus, but maybe this will provide fodder for an attack ad come election season.” I’m here to tell that this is the height of loser attitude, and is a set of common wisdom that is commonly wrong. A few reasons why people are looking at this issue the wrong way:

• Yes, while a statewide or national GOP candidate likely won’t be winning over 50% of a major metro’s vote anytime soon, you need to look at the gross numbers involved. For example, Metro Atlanta has 6.4 million people in it as of 2024. If you apply the standard 65% turnout rate and assume that the GOP candidate is going to lose by 10 points, that is still 1.84 million potential voters that could be in your camp. Therefore, politicians ignoring the concerns of urban right-leaning voters or simply those longing for public safety may end up costing them the election. Having a tailored candidate at the local level, that delivers on their simplified promises (see later in the post for my proposed three-point pledge) would filter up to benefit these statewide and national candidates (granted they tailor their message to these urban voters!)

• A dynamic of municipal elections that is often overlooked - turnout is generally absolutely abysmal. To wit, the 2021 Atlanta Mayoral Election (which saw multiple competitive candidates) had a whopping turnout of 25% of active registered voters. Even the 2024 NYC mayoral election, likely the most ballyhooed municipal race in recent memory, saw turnout come out to a ho-hum 43% of registered voters.

• The GOP has made housing affordability a huge priority for their governance platform. As anyone who follows my X account knows, proponents of housing affordability are missing the absolute largest driver of the problem - the only way you can materially help with housing affordability is to reclaim the vast swaths of buildable land surrounding job centers that were abandoned to crime and disorder over the past few decades. Further straining affordability, city dwellers are also effectively forced to pay twice for services like education - their taxes pay for dysfunctional schools which in turn force them to pay tuition, with prices reflecting inelastic demand, for private school. Solving this issue at the local level would filter up to substantial improvements on a national scale, another factor that should interest the GOP.

Of course, a “national GOP” style of message at the local, urban level is a guarantee of failure. Talking about fiscal conservatism, tax cuts, and reducing municipal services is not going to motivate and inspire your average urban voter. (Probably not even affluent voters.) A candidate that follows the spirit of the ideas posited here would need to prioritize safety and municipal order above all else. I highlight these issues as they are the absolute prerequisites for quite literally anything in an urban ecosystem to work. As a real estate professional, I am always amused at the relative lack of attention paid amongst industry luminaries towards something that is absolutely core to any success in the industry. There is almost a learned helplessness to the issue, as if the move is to perpetually be in retreat as destructive, pro-crime forces destroy more and more of the built environment. Those who remain spend their political capital seeking out tax breaks (which won’t matter as long as a neighborhood feels unsafe and is seeing its productive populace flee.) This approach, of course, is absolute nonsense.

The real estate community, as generational leadership turnover occurs, is a natural ally in this endeavor. They need to get organized on the front end, defining simple goals for candidates to support, such as:

1. Effectively address crime and disorder.
2. Utilize the Walt Disney approach to cleanliness.
3. Manage but don’t cut services, which will benefit tremendously from effectuating #1.

Getting voter turnout in municipal elections above its current anemic levels would yield tremendous ROI - for the cities themselves, and for their own business interests.

Look no further than the value appreciation seen in Florida cities benefiting from strong messaging and action on crime and disorder. (And for the inverse, look no further than the value destruction in formerly high-flying cities such as Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland and Denver).

This is an exciting time where long-held, indefensible orthodoxies are being discarded. “You can just do things” is the ethos of our time. Taking back our cities and making the apathy that has dominated for so long a relic of a bygone era is an opportunity waiting there for the taking.

[Hampton Presoctt]

Thank you, Hampton, for this much appreciated contribution. Here is a link to his Twitter/X page if you would like to read more from Mr. Prescott.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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