Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
What has caused housing costs to skyrocket? In 1906, an earthquake and the fires that followed destroyed half of San Francisco's homes, and the city essentially shrugged it off. Forty years later, a far smaller shock turned into a full-blown crisis. Same city, similar shocks, opposite results. That difference explains almost everything about why housing is unaffordable today.
In this video, we walk through what history, the data, and basic economic reasoning actually say about why homes cost what they do. We’ll discuss why it isn't greed or corporate landlords, why prices are signals we keep jamming, what economists mean by the "regulatory tax," and why the fix is simpler than the headlines suggest.
Topics covered:
- The two San Franciscos — 1906 vs. 1946, and what rent control changed
- How the price-to-income ratio climbed from 3x to 5x in a generation
- The overpopulation panic that quietly shaped today's building rules
- The thicket: zoning, minimum lot sizes, parking mandates, impact fees, permitting
- Glaeser & Gyourko's "regulatory tax" — the gap between what a home costs to build and what it sells for
- How far rents could actually fall if cities deregulated
- Why public housing — and the Soviet kommunalka — isn't the answer
-Why rent control keeps failing for the same reason it failed in 1946
Sources & further reading:
- Milton Friedman & George Stigler, Roofs or Ceilings?: fee.org/ebooks/roofs-or-ceilings-the-current-housing-problem/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fee-online
- Edward Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko on the regulatory tax in housing
- Kevin Corinth & Amelia Irvine (2021) on deregulation and rents
- Diamond, McQuade & Qian on San Francisco rent control
- Bryan Caplan & Ady Branzei, Build, Baby, Build
- Cato Institute, Housing Affordability Handbook
- Addison Del Mastro in The Freeman
- Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, State of the Nation's Housing
Chapters:
00:00 - The Compassionate Trap: Why Rent Control Feels Right 🏠
02:26 - Econ 101: How Price Ceilings Actually Create Shortages 🧱
04:27 - The Misallocation Problem: Why No One Can Move 📉
06:10 - A Slow-Motion Catastrophe: Historical Lessons from NYC & SF 🍎🌉
08:51 - Winners vs. Losers: How Regulations Favor the "Inside Circle" 👥
10:23 - The Economic Consensus: Why Left and Right Actually Agree 🤝
10:55 - The Real Solution: More Freedom, More Housing 🛠️
11:14 - Enter the $1,000,000 Contest at 🔗 milliondollarquestion.org/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social_fee&utm_campaign=initial_launch
Please Subscribe: youtube.com/@FEEonline
Follow us everywhere:
FEE on Instagram: instagram.com/feeonline
FEE on Facebook: facebook.com/feeonline
FEE on X: https://x.com/feeonline
FEE on TikTok: tiktok.com/@feeonline
Credits:
Written by Sergio Martínez
Produced by Daphne Posadas
Edited by Luis Linares
Project Management by Abby Richardson
Thumbnail Design by Yorel Ktech
#economics #history #historylessons #affordabilitycrisis #economy
What has caused housing costs to skyrocket? In 1906, an earthquake and the fires that followed destroyed half of San Francisco's homes, and the city essentially shrugged it off. Forty years later, a far smaller shock turned into a full-blown crisis. Same city, similar shocks, opposite results. That difference explains almost everything about why housing is unaffordable today.
In this video, we walk through what history, the data, and basic economic reasoning actually say about why homes cost what they do. We’ll discuss why it isn't greed or corporate landlords, why prices are signals we keep jamming, what economists mean by the "regulatory tax," and why the fix is simpler than the headlines suggest.
Topics covered:
- The two San Franciscos — 1906 vs. 1946, and what rent control changed
- How the price-to-income ratio climbed from 3x to 5x in a generation
- The overpopulation panic that quietly shaped today's building rules
- The thicket: zoning, minimum lot sizes, parking mandates, impact fees, permitting
- Glaeser & Gyourko's "regulatory tax" — the gap between what a home costs to build and what it sells for
- How far rents could actually fall if cities deregulated
- Why public housing — and the Soviet kommunalka — isn't the answer
-Why rent control keeps failing for the same reason it failed in 1946
Sources & further reading:
- Milton Friedman & George Stigler, Roofs or Ceilings?: fee.org/ebooks/roofs-or-ceilings-the-current-housing-problem/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fee-online
- Edward Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko on the regulatory tax in housing
- Kevin Corinth & Amelia Irvine (2021) on deregulation and rents
- Diamond, McQuade & Qian on San Francisco rent control
- Bryan Caplan & Ady Branzei, Build, Baby, Build
- Cato Institute, Housing Affordability Handbook
- Addison Del Mastro in The Freeman
- Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, State of the Nation's Housing
Chapters:
00:00 - The Compassionate Trap: Why Rent Control Feels Right 🏠
02:26 - Econ 101: How Price Ceilings Actually Create Shortages 🧱
04:27 - The Misallocation Problem: Why No One Can Move 📉
06:10 - A Slow-Motion Catastrophe: Historical Lessons from NYC & SF 🍎🌉
08:51 - Winners vs. Losers: How Regulations Favor the "Inside Circle" 👥
10:23 - The Economic Consensus: Why Left and Right Actually Agree 🤝
10:55 - The Real Solution: More Freedom, More Housing 🛠️
11:14 - Enter the $1,000,000 Contest at 🔗 milliondollarquestion.org/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social_fee&utm_campaign=initial_launch
Please Subscribe: youtube.com/@FEEonline
Follow us everywhere:
FEE on Instagram: instagram.com/feeonline
FEE on Facebook: facebook.com/feeonline
FEE on X: https://x.com/feeonline
FEE on TikTok: tiktok.com/@feeonline
Credits:
Written by Sergio Martínez
Produced by Daphne Posadas
Edited by Luis Linares
Project Management by Abby Richardson
Thumbnail Design by Yorel Ktech
#economics #history #historylessons #affordabilitycrisis #economy
