This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, June 13, 2012.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Over and above the basic necessity for housing,

interventions in housing markets can also serve as a drag on the economy. And the virtues of city... and the

virtues of cities remain virtues

only to the extent that more people can take advantage.

At a Cato Policy Forum today on Housing Policy, Madiglacius of Slate discussed some of the implications

of bad housing policy.

You know, the title of my book on this subject is the rent is too damn high it was obviously

stolen from Jimmy McMillan of the the rent is too damn high party in New York

but the the basic pitch of the book is that you know rather than Jimmy McMillan's point in this is simply that he wants stricter and better enforcement of rent control laws in New York City

But the the point of my book is to try to say that, you know, we need to look not just at the affordability of a house is sort of the ratio between what it costs and what the person

who's living there you know has to spend

obviously a very important concern on an individual level everyone wishes

that the particular place they were living you know might be might be had for less

money but from a social point of view what living, you know, might be had for less money.

But from a social point of view, what's much more important

is actually sort of the abundance of housing

and is the question of can we have a large quantity of people enjoying sort of excellent housing,

housing that's good in quality and good in location.

And the starting point of sort of the inquiry

that I was looking on is to look at population growth

...