I imagine others have read Darren Tobia’s recent piece about a Rutgers study by Rutgers law professor David Troutt. Tobia’s piece is highly tendentious in a way one wouldn't expect from a website that is primarily about promoting real estate developments. I wish he would present a more balanced picture that takes account the complexities of the situation. Tobia doesn't provide a link to the study he's reporting, and I cannot find the study to dig into its results more thoroughly.

But the upside of the article is Tobia’s assertion that significant residential investment in Newark is making the city less affordable, and thus making home ownership more difficult for those of more modest means. This is true in a technical sense, but it completely misses the main culprit.

If the shelves at the store are bare, I could point a finger at early customers as the cause of my inability to buy what I want. If others hadn't purchased what I wanted, then I would still be able to buy those items. But placing the blame squarely with customers requires, I would think most would concede, a kind of tunnel vision. I could just as easily ask why didn't the store produce sufficient goods to meet demand?

Like so much thinking on the issue, Tobia’s piece assumes an essentially fixed pie, where more for some necessarily means less for others. Wealth is generated on the backs of other people. And then he touts low-income housing lotteries, which are a laughably inadequate solution to the problem.

The policy issue to tackle is the insufficient supply of housing in the region. When the price of housing rises as much as it has in Newark over the last few years, there should be proportional increases in new construction. The city and state governments should be focused on lowering the cost of new construction, not passing laws to deter investment in low income areas.