Thought experiment I discussed with my family at the dinner table:
What if we completely redesign housing: making it a universal right, while keeping market-like mechanisms for creating and improving it?
• Every citizen has the right to live in one home, for free
• All residential land ultimately belongs to the country
• The country must always keep at least 10% of homes/plots available, creating real choice and mobility
• Anyone can take an available plot, pay to build a house on it, and live there for life
• You can spend as much as you want building and improving your home, but you can’t accumulate houses as investments
• When you leave or die, your family gets first preference to use the house
• If nobody wants it, it returns to the public pool
• For desirable homes or plots, anyone can apply during a fixed period. If demand exceeds supply, the new resident is chosen by lottery, regardless of income, wealth or status
• Free use comes with responsibility: whoever occupies a home must keep it in excellent condition and cover its ongoing maintenance costs. If you can’t afford to properly maintain a particular home, you can’t occupy it
• Non-citizens can rent, with the rent flowing back into the system
• Taxes fund the shared housing stock and infrastructure
The interesting part is that markets don’t disappear.
Builders, architects and suppliers still compete. People still spend money building better homes.
What disappears is residential land as an investment.
Capital has to go somewhere else: companies, startups, stocks, infrastructure, commercial real estate.
Instead of competing to own scarce residential land, capital competes to create value.
You can invest unlimited money in the quality of your home. You just can’t invest in the scarcity of someone else’s.
Maybe call it Universal Housing:
Housing is a right. Building remains a market. Scarcity can’t be owned.
Would it work?
And if not, what breaks first?
