Yesterday, the Mercatus Center released the third edition ofFreedom in the 50 Statesby Will Ruger and Jason Sorens. The authors break down state freedom among regulatory, fiscal, and personal categories. At the study’s website, readers can re-rank the states based on the aspects of freedom that they think are most important, including some variables related to land use and housing. The available variables include local rent control, regulatory takings restrictions, theWharton Residential Land Use Regulatory Index, and an eminent domain index.
Using only these “Property Rights Protection” variables, Kansas ranks as the freest state,followedby Louisiana, Indiana, Missouri, and South Dakota. Texas, sometimes cited as the state without zoning, comes in at 18th. The least free state is New Jersey, with Maryland at 49th, followed by California, New York, and Hawaii. This result — states with some of the most expensive cities being the most regulated — is unsurprising.
In the places with the freest land use regulations, where a developer would be able to build walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods without going through a burdensome entitlement process, there isn’t demand for dense development. This may be one reason why the Piscataquis Village project, an effort to build a traditional city, is happening in a sparsely populated Maine county because new development of this sort is simply not permitted near any population centers.
As Stephen recently pointed out, public opinion in New York tends to see city policies as wildly pro-development:
In spite of the popular impression of New York as a builder-friendly city that’s constantly exceeding the bounds of rational development, the city’s growth over the past half-century has been anemic, and has not kept pace with the natural growth in population.
This ranking of New York near the bottom of the index demonstrates what urban economists already know — new development is not permitted to be built where rents are highest and it’s most needed in spite of perception of pro-development policies. Does anyone have development experience in some of the freest states? Does this ranking match your perception?
Update: For full disclosure I was a project manager on Freedom in the 50 States.
