The American Enterprise Institute’s Mark J. Perry compared housing starts for Houston, Texas, and the entire state of California – the most populous state in the Union. His findings reveal how the states’ differing policies affect economic growth. “During the period from January 2011 to March 2014, there have been slightly more single-family housing starts in Houston (95,037) than in California for the entire state (94,993),” he writes. “In this single chart, we can understand the dynamism of the booming, expanding Texas economy and housing market compared to the stagnation of the California economy and the housing market there for new construction.” Perry notes, “The religion of ‘open space’ in California probably helps explain why there’s more new construction of single-family homes in Houston than in the entire state of California. And those ‘open space’-driven housing restrictions in California help explain the high cost of housing there relative to Houston.” More…