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To: Robohogs who wrote (62734)	4/25/2005 1:58:57 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Respond to of 74559

Land use restrictions don't necessarily reduce the amount of land available for housing. The land use restrictions in Germany maintain a farm belt around each village. In combination with high-speed rail transportation this has not limited the land for available for homes - it has just kept it dispersed rather than concentrated. Compare this with California. Most land where homes are now standing was previously farmland. Rather than intersperse the cities with farmland, as in Germany, each use is concentrated into large blocks. When I drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco, to visit may parents, it takes me: a.) 2 hours of driving to get out of the city of Los Angeles; b.) followed by 3 hours of driving through non-stop farmland; c.) followed by 1.5 hours of driving through city to reach San Francisco. Segregating the state into large blocks of housing/city and farming, as in California, does not provide any more or less housing than interspersing these uses, as in Germany. Any supply curve shifting occurs only in the imagination of the observer. By the way I used to fly between these cities, but after 9/11 the time sved by flying has been greatly reduced. Of course in Germany you would have taken Die Bahn high-speed train. .