Taxpayers, and even Republican lawmakers, rebelled at the expense of sending water and sewer lines off in the direction of every platted subdivision to breeze through a local planning commission. Add in the cost of roads and schools and other expectations for an urban standard of living to match their new tax bills The cry from City Halls, county courthouses and the Legislature was to DO SOMETHING.

Laying off most of the blame for the cost and affordability of Seattle, or even Puget Sound housing, to land-use regulations, is a bit thick. New jobs and salaries that powered a strong economy - and attracted lots of motivated, educated new people to the community - helped bid up the cost of housing. The quip when I arrived in Seattle was of the $177,000 tear down. The dotcom boom turned ordinary housing into building lots for mega homes.

As housing soared, most middle-class wages stagnated. Add in a housing bubble fueled by low interest rates, dubious lending practices, and the overall frenzy to treat a house like an ATM machine. An entire cable channel is devoted to the get-rich-quick fantasies of house flippers and wanna-be real estate moguls. Prices climbed and climbed.

Seattle enjoyed serious competition for a finite amount of homes. Those Green Lake bungalows available for picking up the mortgage payments during the Boeing Bust were hot and destined to get hotter. We have yet to test how these housing prices actually hold up in an economic downturn.

Did an urban growth boundary push up the cost of housing? Over time, no doubt at some level. Can the madness of housing prices be laid off on zoning and coherent land use practices? Get real. Has anyone done the math to figure out how green space, clean air and a healthy outdoor playground makes this an attractive place for highly skilled workers, and adds to house values?

Making land-use regulation the boogeyman does not work. If you want to try and change my mind, you can buy me coffee and charge it on your credit card linked to your home equity.