Wednesday 7 November 2018

QotD: On the profession most responsible for the housing crisis: "Planning is, in its effect, a highly regressive form of indirect taxation"


"Planning in our society ... is in essence the attempt to inject a radical technology into a conservative and highly inegalitarian economy. The impact of [town] planning on this society is rather like that of the [state] educational system on the same society: is least onerous and most advantageous to those who are already well off or powerful, and it is most onerous and least advantageous to those who are relatively powerless or relatively poor. Planning is, in its effect, a highly regressive form of indirect taxation." 
        ~ John Gower Davies, from his 1972 book The Evangelistic Bureaucrat .

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