The US has a lot of layers of government. Some would say too many. I would say too many. Here in Washington, DC, we mercifully only have a city government and a federal government, but you state-dwellers often have to juggle a state government, a county government, a municipal government, and sometimes school districts and other political entities that sit somewhere between these levels.

This diffusion of responsibility has been a disaster for housing in the US. When an apartment building goes up, that creates substantial benefits to those moving in (they have a home!); significant but more modest benefits to the broader metro area in the form of lower rents than absent construction, and long-run economic growth from geographic clustering of top industries. It also brings some concentrate

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