By now most everyone's probably heard about how looney housing markets are in certain parts of the country. Stories of multi-hour commutes, families nearly driven out into the street, and young people unable to even begin the process of home ownership are legion. On the other side of the coin, stories also abound of skyrocketing home values, multiple and creative refinancing deals, and predictions of bubbles bursting. The reasons? Well, if you don't already know, I don't really expect you to believe them:

Why then are there particular places where housing costs have skyrocketed?

In those places, much of the land is prevented by law from being used to build housing. These land use restrictions are seldom called land use restrictions.

They are called by much prettier names, like "open space" laws, laws to "preserve farmland" or prevent "sprawl," "greenbelt" laws -- or whatever else will sell politically.

People who already own their own homes don't worry about whether such laws will drive housing prices sky high. Somebody else will have to pay those prices while existing homeowners see the value of their property rise by leaps and bounds.

Meanwhile, land that might otherwise provide homes for others becomes in effect free park land for themselves, while such upscale communities use "open space" laws to keep out the masses. The crowning touch is that such self-interest is depicted as idealism.

Land use and real estate development are without doubt the hottest of hot-button issues in this area. The passion, really a kind of unreasonable lunacy, that anti-development zealots in this area bring to the table have made for entertaining if rather unproductive local news stories for several years now. I don't doubt for a second they would take vocal, bordering on violent, umbrage at any implication their selfless crusade to "protect" their areas had anything to do with the value of their own property, or ensuring only the "right" people lived near it.

Of course, it's been my experience that the more vocal the opposition, the more likely naked self-interest and filthy lucre is to be found. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.