So Amazon.com is looking for a second headquarters – and there is some buzz that Northern Nevada should try to be that “HQ2.”  As nice as it would be to become truly known as a tech-business hub instead of Fozzie Bear’s post-career hell, I wouldn’t want our government to give away the kinds of tax “incentives” (read: Other People’s Money Giveaways) that Amazon will probably try to wheedle out of whichever town winds up hosting them.

Plus, I’ve lived in Seattle, and moved away from there for a reason. I worry about absorbing the numbers of people who would work at such a major corporate headquarters, but I’m even more worried about absorbing too much of their culture. You think home prices and rents are out of control now…

~~~

Our housing market is going crazy here in Reno. We just sold our family home, and it was like feeding a legless pig to starving piranhas, but definitely paid more than we would have just a few years ago for new digs. Builders are continuing to build housing developments as fast as they can to keep up, local unemployment is low, and plenty of people are making lots of money.

Enter the government to “fix” things.

Reno City Councilman Paul McKenzie, in a meeting earlier this summer, demanded the city’s lawyers explore legal options for rent control. Some citizens are piling on, determine to stem the “greed” of landlords and housing developers.

Like all ideas of socialists, government price caps sound like a great idea as long as you don’t live in the real world. Rent control is great for renters, but terrible for people who are willing to buy, maintain, manage, and rent out properties to those renters. If owning apartments isn’t profitable, naturally people will neither build nor invest in them, which means fewer apartments to rent, which means fewer options for renters and less incentive to keep apartments that do exist kept up.

Indeed, McKenzie’s mere comments already have (according to McKenzie himself) caused rents to increase (while they still can, apparently), and poured some cold water into the veins of developers.

Oops.

Is there anything more destructive than ill-considered “compassion” from government officials?

~~~

I want affordable housing in my city, and while I hope we continue to grow, develop, and diversify our local economy. But too much government “help” will only make that growth destructive to itself. I don’t want bribes of tax credits to bring in companies our infrastructure can’t sustain, but just as foolish is disincentivizing businesses who (yes, to make money) are creating the goods and services people want and need more of.

To her great credit, Mayor Hillary Schieve seems to understand this, arguing that in a growing city, developers are critical partners to success, not villains to attack to curry favor with voters on the political left. In the long term, letting the free market work creates more wealth, prosperity, and opportunity for all of our citizens (even those struggling to pay rent) than all the price control or forced wealth redistribution in the world.

Let Reno and Northern Nevada grow organically. Government can and should create conditions that foster private development and wealth creation, tearing down unnecessary barriers to production. Let’s build more houses. Keep taxes – and more importantly, regulations – as low as possible (but not less!), so all companies large and small, not just the politically connected who can lobby for special legislation, feel welcomed.

Let’s build public schools faster, without letting union bosses artificially inflate construction costs. Let’s be more ready to approve site plans for schools of all kinds, public, private, and charter, so that these new neighborhoods have neighborhood schools kids can walk to.

Then the Amazons can come be profitable on their own, in a city where their employees – and all the rest of us – can thrive on our own terms.

Orrin Johnson has been writing and commenting on Nevada and national politics since 2007. He started with an independent blog, First Principles, and was a regular columnist for the Reno Gazette-Journal from 2015-2016. By day, he is a deputy district attorney for Carson City. His opinions here are his own. Follow him on Twitter @orrinjohnson, or contact him at [email protected].