
So why should having more of something that everybody needs, like housing, be a problem? For most other goods we see readily available supply as the market working the way it should. In Christchurch, Resource Management Act provisions were effectively suspended after the earthquake, and the Government helped Christchurch City Council shoulder infrastructure costs which ended up with 30 years worth of infrastructure being put down in one year. The year before, developers in Christchurch were struggling to sell terraced houses and prices were being marked down by thousands of dollars. "Whether you're talking to bankers or economists or real estate agents, they're all just saying that we're in a slow steady period of no growth and that's what we're seeing out there," Quotable Value valuer Hamish Collins said at the time. In Christchurch, the question was being asked as recently as 2018: If you look back through our history the issue of too much housing often pops up as a problem. Not surprisingly, the UK is currently in the throes of a debate about whether they should have simpler zoning rules, and yes they too have a lot of people fretting about investors and property developers making all the profits from all the extra houses that might be built. Instead, councillors and planners have a lot more say over what can be built in a neighbourhood. The UK planning system is “discretionary”, and isn’t based on the kinds of zones the Japanese use.
