You Deserve to Live Close to Where You Work
Beto O’Rourke is actually right about something — everyone has the right to live within a reasonable distance of where they work. But to make that right a reality, we’ll need an industrial and housing policy that values people over profit.
Typical traffic congestion on the I-80 Eastshore Freeway in Berkeley, California.
Writing in the December 2019 issue of the libertarian magazine Reason, Matt Welch warns that the Left is “conjuring up new rights.” His primary example isn’t Bernie Sanders’s campaign for sweeping new rights to health care, higher education, and other such core social goods, but a tweet from mediocre former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke.
Living close to work shouldn't be a luxury for the rich. It's a right for everyone. pic.twitter.com/lohRdoFGrH
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) September 10, 2019
In the video, O’Rourke says that “Rich people are going to have to allow, or be forced to allow, lower-income people to live near them.” He notes that the absence of such conveniently placed mixed-income housing often has the effect of forcing “lower-income, working Americans to drive one, two, three hours in either direction to get to their jobs, very often minimum-wage jobs.”
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