The council of Maple County has a concerntowards the possible future skyrocketing of housing price of the county if itwould limit the supply of new housing in order to protect farmland by localcouncil. It consults two opposite outcomes of the constraint policies onhousing development respectively by Chestnut County and Pine County. Theconclusion however, is that the housing price of Maple county will increasesignificantly if the policy would be implemented.
In order to test the validity of this argument,several crucial questions must be answered properly. First, is the internalenvironment of Chestnut comparable or similar to the ones of Pine County, whichafter the adoption of housing restriction policy, facing significant increaseof housing price and thus is clearly a central evidence for the opponent of thepolicy in Maple County? If the circumstances in the two counties differ largely,then the Pine County tragedy will be an insufficient or even irrelevant factorin deciding the housing policy in Maple County. I.e., if Pine County has a muchsmaller existed real estate supply compared with Maple, yet accompanying with relativelybigger housing demand compared with its own supply within its 15 years ofrestriction policy, then the double of housing price of Pine County isunderstandable. However, if Maple County has already a large supply of houses,yet the future demand is smaller than the even restricted supply, then Maple'sincrease of housing price will not be significant, or even non-existed.
Second, similarly, the council by itsconclusion which is prone to the opponents should address why the case ofChestnut County made by the proponents of restriction policy is irrelevant toMaple's situation. If both proponents' case of Chestnut County and opponents'case of Pine County have the similar consultation value for Maple, then theconclusion will not be prone to the opponents, but instead a neutral position.And if the circumstances of Chestnut County instead of Pine County is moresimilar to Maple, then the council of Maple ought to get an opposite conclusioncompared with what they already have.
Thirdly, restriction policy on housingsupply by itself is an encouraging factor for the growth of housing price,according to the demand and supply rationale of economics. However, obviouslywe need to predict whether the housing demand will increase or even exist inthe coming years of Maple. If Maple County locates in a region of economicrecession or political instability, then naturally the demand of housing byinvestors outside the county for Maple's housing market will probably face astalemate or even decrease. The significant increase of any price anywhere mustsatisfy the condition that the demand is much bigger than supply which not onlyin itself being constraint.
Fourthly, the council seems to onlyconsider the "horizontal" aspect of housing development, but ignorethe "vertical aspect". Is enlarging the housing area in sacrifice offarmland the only option to satisfy the housing demand? No. We can transfertransform individual houses into integral department buildings and thereforesustain more population within the same housing area. If this approach would beadopted in the following years in the development of Maple, then the supply ofhousing can still be sufficient under the restriction policy on the land areaof housing development.
In sum, the council of Maple must atleast answer previous four questions which either require the criticalcomparison between the circumstances between Maple and elsewhere, or subscribethe decision makers to consider simple economic truth. If they are answeredproperly, then the argument has a chance to sustain.