I think any appeal to economics isn't going to work with this sort of comment. I think your analogy of housing to a ladder works a little better. It's important to understand that calm, rational arguments based on free market theory just seems like 'blah, blah, blah' to a lot of folks who are furious about the way housing has become totally unaffordable.
I'm no expert about this, but I think any message that's going to have traction has to model anger against the status quo and blame aimed at whatever element of society is viewed as the reason why things are bad. To that end, simply supporting new housing may be good policy---but blaming boomer NIMBYs for refusing to allow their neighbourhoods to get more density sounds like good politics to me. (One of the lessons I learned from politics is people don't usually respond to what you say, but how you say it. Passion is extremely important!)
That is, unless your voting base is overwhelmingly boomer NIMBYs. At that point, I think the move is pivot and then mention that people's children need a place to live that's near their parents. This won't 'connect' with all boomers---but if you can peel off some of them, that will help electorally.
I think any appeal to economics isn't going to work with this sort of comment. I think your analogy of housing to a ladder works a little better. It's important to understand that calm, rational arguments based on free market theory just seems like 'blah, blah, blah' to a lot of folks who are furious about the way housing has become totally unaffordable.
I'm no expert about this, but I think any message that's going to have traction has to model anger against the status quo and blame aimed at whatever element of society is viewed as the reason why things are bad. To that end, simply supporting new housing may be good policy---but blaming boomer NIMBYs for refusing to allow their neighbourhoods to get more density sounds like good politics to me. (One of the lessons I learned from politics is people don't usually respond to what you say, but how you say it. Passion is extremely important!)
That is, unless your voting base is overwhelmingly boomer NIMBYs. At that point, I think the move is pivot and then mention that people's children need a place to live that's near their parents. This won't 'connect' with all boomers---but if you can peel off some of them, that will help electorally.