Nowhere To Live: The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis, by James S. Burling, Skyhorse Publishing, 408 pages, $32.99
James Burling, with 40 years’ experience litigating property rights cases for the Pacific Legal Foundation, enriches the housing debate in three ways in his book Nowhere To Live. First, he reminds us of the crucial importance of private property ownership to a free and flourishing society. Second, he reviews a long history of efforts to interfere with the housing market. And third, he offers perspicacious recommendations for sensible and achievable improvements.
Burling’s first service forcefully restates the argument that any “solution” to a housing crisis cannot be allowed to extinguish historic property rights in land. He points out that John Locke’s prescription for a free society requires that we have rights to use, trade, exclude, and bequeath what we own. He recognizes the need for the common law of nuisance: “use your property so as not to injure that of another.” And if the government exercises its power to confiscate privately held land for public use, he reminds us, the government is constitutionally required to pay the owner just compensation…