Cap and trade. Home edition!

They’ve been talking about enacting this in Boulder, Colorado for a long time now.

The new rules, which will go into effect Aug. 8, will force anyone who wants to build a house larger than 6,000 square feet — including basements, garages and storage areas — to purchase extra “development credits” from smaller houses or vacant lots to do so. The idea is to offset huge homes with more modest houses and open land.

The idea, much like cap and trade, would create artificial scarcity and then force people to trade for space thus saving the environment by capping growth. In a mid-sized city such as Boulder, the rich can easily overcome this problem and build massive houses while the poor and middle class … well, they can move elsewhere. But, as with many progressive, environmentally friendly, diverse, forward-looking neighborhoods around the country, Boulder is primarily white and quite rich (once you negate — and I mean this in the least violent way –the University of Colorado students).

But Housing Commissioner Ben Pearlman says:

“I think there are a lot of people, when the dust has settled, who are going to be happy to be able to sell off their development credits,” Pearlman said. “That may be the greatest legacy of this project — allowing people to choose to keep small houses for the benefit of themselves and the rest of their community.”

It’s wonderful to see Boulder taking a lead in coercing people to live more responsible and sensible lifestyles. I simply can’t wait for this idea to catch on. Soon I’ll be spending half by day trading credits to save the planet.