The seen, the unseen, and the anti-affordabilists

We've been led to believe that the great political division of our times is between conservatives and so-called liberals. Yet both appear united against affordable housing. On one side, for example, you have politicians and NIMBYs adding more and more rules to urban plans (under the guise of making mouldy museum-pieces out of so-called "heritage houses," "community input," "protecting property values," and "we wuzz here first") which make it harder to build anywhere.  And on the other side, you have politicians and activists adding more and more regulations about building (under the guise of "safety," "security," and "warm and dry"), which make it more expensive to build anything.

The nett effect of the discreditable union is that over the last few decades it's been made more expensive to build anything anywhere.

Economist Scott Sumner reckons the real division is those who focus on the seen and those whose interest is in the unseen. We can see the warmer and the drier and the protected and the heritage, but we don't see the folk who will never afford to get themselves on the property ladder:

We are frequently told that America [and elsewhere] is polarised between liberals and conservatives, and there is clearly some truth in that claim. But perhaps we are missing an even bigger polarisation, between those who focus on the seen and those who focus on the unseen. (BTW, the title of this post comes from Frederic Bastiat’s brilliant essay on opportunity cost.)
    Proponents of NIMBYism on both the left and the right are opposed by those who focus on the unseen effects of zoning restrictions, that is, all the anonymous people who will never be able to live in areas with lots of great jobs because the local residents refuse to allow new construction... 

There is a concentration of effect in NIMBYism that works against affordability. NIMBYs arise whenever a new development is announced. These people are seen. But those who will (or would) move into the places when (or if) they're built don't even themselves know (yet) that they will. They are unseen even to themselves! 

This, perhaps, is the real division when it comes to affordable housing.

    Yes, in America we have the Democrats and the Republicans [and here we have the red team and the blue team]. But perhaps at a deeper level the actual split is between the party of the seen and the party of the unseen.

As the great Henry Hazlitt used to say, on this issue rests the best test of a good economist (and one of the biggest hurdles* in seeing our way to any kind of genuinely affordable housing):

In addition to [the] endless pleadings of self-interest, there is a second main factor that spawns new economic fallacies every day. This is the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.
    In this lies almost the whole difference between good economics and bad. The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the 
good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups...
    From this aspect, therefore, the whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence:

  The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

    Nine-tenths of the economic fallacies that are working such dreadful harm in the world today are the result of ignoring this lesson. 

* * * * 

* "one of" ... the other two being a complete ignorance about property rights and common law, and the stimulunacy of the  central bank.