Viewing profile — javanissen

When investors buy housing they almost always rent it out, increasing the supply of rentals and decreasing rent prices relative to the alternative universe in which no new housing …

> people who currently live in the place I currently live in Manhattan, have lived here for years, and I support relaxing zoning at least to the point where most Manhattan neighbor…

> these mostly vacant buildings in a city with a housing affordability problem Vacancy rates are extremely low in NYC at 1.4%. Anything below 5% indicates drastic under-supply of h…

Relaxing the zoning requirements that unnaturally force huge swaths of the city to be under-built would fix this without sprawling housing into existing greenspace.

> A more objective statement would be "USSAID-funded programs have plausibly contributed to averting tens of millions of deaths over two decades. PEPFAR's ~25M is the best-evidence…

There are 3.7M existing units in NYC, and I meant it as a 54% increase in overall housing units([0]), but that's on me for not clarifying that I did not mean "apartments" specifica…

No, which is why there are very few vacant units in NYC: 1.4%-ish percent of total supply, whereas the rule of thumb I've heard is that around 5% is the sign of a reasonable equili…

> Can you provide the citation for higher density in the early 20th century? It was a quick google search and the value was taken from the Gemini result, which is not great practic…

> Almost by definition you cannot out build the demand for housing. Would love to see some justification for this claim, which tacitly suggests that adding, say, 2M extra apartment…

> bunk beds… $5000/month The market prices full one-bedrooms at less than this in most of Manhattan. Flophouse beds would cost a fraction of this and they would get cheaper the mor…

Do you live here? I do, and I’m astounded by the number of 1- to 3-story buildings and surface parking lots (!) dotted throughout Manhattan, especially outside of the skyscraper cl…

This is your point of view. Atul Gawande’s point of view is that USAID has saved >92M lives and that its discontinuation has killed hundreds of thousands, almost all of them in the…

Thanks for pointing that out, here’s the archived version: https://archive.is/U12Hg

Gift link: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/03/08/w...

I think the real exhortation is to develop a multi-pronged strategy for managing depression. I didn't feel like my depressed life got durably better until I had both exercise and t…

Is the huge risk being involuntarily committed? If so, that is a risk that is very dependent on local laws. I would be much more cautious about seeking mental health care in Florid…

I am such a fan of minimal, text-forward, straight to the point website designs like this. I feel like it makes it easier to quickly determine whether the text content is worth rea…

Sub-3% inflation [0] and 3% annualized GDP growth [1] sure doesn’t seem like stagflation to me. Not everything is sunshine and flowers but we shouldn’t throw around terms when they…

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Illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than US citizens and therefore decrease overall crime rates: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU01/20250122/117827/HHRG...

I see a few phenomena here: 1) The US was rebuilt after WW2 to be highly car-centric, with disastrous results for pedestrian safety. It is actually more dangerous for children to m…

Because renting a room in SF costs more than $700. I understand asking $700 for this feels icky, but the only reason they can do it is because of the insane scarcity of housing in …

I agree. My desired tone for my comment was less “CrowdStrike is evil” and more “the universe, through its indifference to you, can be very cruel and absurd”