Progressives often argue that conservatives are anti-science because many conservatives deny the reality and seriousness of climate change, and some religious conservatives reject the theory of evolution.
But some progressives are as skeptical of the conventional wisdom of economics as conservatives are of evolutionary biology or climate science. In particular, one basic tenet of economics is the law of supply and demand: if you raise the supply of X enough, the prices go down. If you lower the supply, the prices go up.
But some progressives seem to believe that this law does not apply to housing. For example, an article some months ago in the New York Times (probably the most leftist among major U.S. news sources) quoted an official at an affordable housing advocacy group as follows: “Increasing the supply is not going to increase the number of affordable units; that is a complete and utter fallacy.” The Times then supplied absolutely no rebuttal or response to this point of view, implicitly treating it as gospel.* Similarly, numerous leftist housing advocates in San Francisco are supply-and-demand denialists.
In reality, cities where lots of housing gets built tend to have lower housing prices than cities where it is hard to build. (See for example the “Home Prices and New Construction” chart in this article). So why is denialism so widespread? Denialists make several major arguments. Continue reading