My colleague Dan Bertolet at Citytank introduced us to the idea of the Zen Koan (pronounced coe – on), those mind puzzles meant to confuse or perplex one into enlightenment (I think Christian tradition has Koan too, the best one being the Holy Trinity; but that’s another post on another blog). The most well known Koan is, “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” Of course, in price sensitive Seattle, the question would certainly be, “yeah, I know what one hand clapping sounds like; but is it affordable?”
I threatened that I’d follow with Haiku on affordability to add to the effort to break free of the cognitive logjam liberal Seattle is trapped in. What’s the sound of affordability when we won’t increase supply? How do we lower price when we keep adding rules and requirements?
Here are three Haiku on housing affordability. Do you have one?
Price is what we watch
Life is what we are living
Track that which remains
Where we choose to live
Is it all about the price?
We live where we thrive
Builder builds the house
The price is based on the costs
Deregulation!
