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How Much Housing Will Be Built?

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Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#21

Post by simonh »

efaref wrote: post #20
kartan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Build enough market rate housing that the price falls to what low income people can afford and you don't need any low income housing. There are other kind of problems like buy-to-leave ( http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Buy_to_leave ). In that scenario the amount of housing to build to get to a point that it is affordable is a lot higher than it should be. > subsidizing construction If you mean state owned…

The solution to buy-to-leave is surely extremely high taxation on properties left empty (and I'm talking "10% of market value" levels of taxation, enough to obliterate any possible returns on investment).

That would be either unreasonably punitive or easy to avoid. Properties needing renovation or structural work can't reasonably be penalised for not being occupied, so owners would simply arrange for unoccupied buildings to be permanently having work done on them. I'm sure there are plenty of builders that would help them out for moderate fees. I'm sure there are other ways round something like this too.

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#22

Post by meric »

mickrussom wrote: post #18

The bay area. The best, brightest, smartest, pedigreed, hardest working most motivated people on earth. And we cant solve the simplest problems in the Maslow's hierarchy. American Indians solved the housing problems with Teepees and Wigwams - so much for being "smart." There was an article recently where a google employee was living in a 24 ft truck in the google parking lot. This Bay Area mess is a self inflicted jo…

That is the consequence of focusing on solving problems for the world, instead of connecting with the people next to us.

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#24

Post by branchless »

mickrussom wrote: post #18

The bay area. The best, brightest, smartest, pedigreed, hardest working most motivated people on earth. And we cant solve the simplest problems in the Maslow's hierarchy. American Indians solved the housing problems with Teepees and Wigwams - so much for being "smart." There was an article recently where a google employee was living in a 24 ft truck in the google parking lot. This Bay Area mess is a self inflicted jo…

American Indians didn't believe in land enclosure and didn't have banks issuing fiat money against land, they also bartered I think rather than issuing paper against future labour.

I think hacker news isn't smart at all about fiat money because it's inextricably bound up with the venture capital world where you agree to hand over your labour for paper.

Fiat money is ex nihilo and therefore creatable in infinite amounts. Many of you won't be old enough to realise the productivity gains computers have brought. It's amazing. Yet here we are all scratching around for enough to cover our basic bills.

It will always be like this when you have land enclosure and tax labour. Create more and you can devote more to land costs. Hurry up, the rentiers are waiting.

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#25

Post by pjc50 »

mickrussom wrote: post #18

The bay area. The best, brightest, smartest, pedigreed, hardest working most motivated people on earth. And we cant solve the simplest problems in the Maslow's hierarchy. American Indians solved the housing problems with Teepees and Wigwams - so much for being "smart." There was an article recently where a google employee was living in a 24 ft truck in the google parking lot. This Bay Area mess is a self inflicted jo…

"What do you mean 'we', white man?"

The problem is there's no solidarity with the newcomers, and a strong desire by incumbents to keep the place the same and not turn it into skyscraper-filled Guangzhou. For a lot of people not building housing is an important priority in their life that they will fight for. Not to mention the question of money.

You might equally ask why the tech industry feels the need to be stuck so tightly to SF when it's far more amenable to remote work than most industries.

There's also the little matter of the earthquake zone.

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#26

Post by LionessLover »

mickrussom wrote: post #18

The bay area. The best, brightest, smartest, pedigreed, hardest working most motivated people on earth. And we cant solve the simplest problems in the Maslow's hierarchy. American Indians solved the housing problems with Teepees and Wigwams - so much for being "smart." There was an article recently where a google employee was living in a 24 ft truck in the google parking lot. This Bay Area mess is a self inflicted jo…

> The best, brightest, smartest, pedigreed, hardest working most motivated people on earth.

Come down back to earth.

Putting your post into the context of neuroscience, Einstein's brain consisted of much smarter (or "just better" and "harder working") neurons than can be found in all other brains!

Or maybe Einstein's brilliance was an emergent property of how they are working together in their network?

You should take some time and think about the nonsense in your statement. You raise a question without much understanding. It's not in the hand of individuals, and to change system outcomes is very, very hard. Politicians and businesses have power - but they have power because they function in a system. If they go against it they lose it. Like the king on that tiny planet in "The Little Prince" who commanded the sun to rise and to set.

You understand humanity as a bunch of individuals - that will always leave you baffled why we act (or don't) the way we do. It is a very inadequate model if you try to apply it to things like the missing housing in the BA.

Also, there are risks few are talking (or thinking) about when significantly increasing the Bay Area's population: Water and earth quakes, for example (the latter can severely impact the former). http://www.bayareacouncil.org/issues-initiatives/water-polic... What will happen in "Black Swan" events? Especially since we can be pretty certain that they will come. The water situation in particular needs to be addressed for the entire Bay Area.

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#27

Post by branchless »

efaref wrote: post #20
kartan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Build enough market rate housing that the price falls to what low income people can afford and you don't need any low income housing. There are other kind of problems like buy-to-leave ( http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Buy_to_leave ). In that scenario the amount of housing to build to get to a point that it is affordable is a lot higher than it should be. > subsidizing construction If you mean state owned…

The solution to buy-to-leave is surely extremely high taxation on properties left empty (and I'm talking "10% of market value" levels of taxation, enough to obliterate any possible returns on investment).

Land value tax is the solution. Stop taxing labour, tax land.

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#28

Post by Swizec »

simonh wrote: post #21
efaref wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to buy-to-leave is surely extremely high taxation on properties left empty (and I'm talking "10% of market value" levels of taxation, enough to obliterate any possible returns on investment).

That would be either unreasonably punitive or easy to avoid. Properties needing renovation or structural work can't reasonably be penalised for not being occupied, so owners would simply arrange for unoccupied buildings to be permanently having work done on them. I'm sure there are plenty of builders that would help them out for moderate fees. I'm sure there are other ways round something like this too.

Or you can just keep the taxes on unoccupied properties and people will make sure they get fixed up quickly. You'd be surprised how quickly and efficiently work gets done when penalties for lateness are high enough.

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#29

Post by IndianAstronaut »

pjc50 wrote: post #25
mickrussom wrote: post #18

The bay area. The best, brightest, smartest, pedigreed, hardest working most motivated people on earth. And we cant solve the simplest problems in the Maslow's hierarchy. American Indians solved the housing problems with Teepees and Wigwams - so much for being "smart." There was an article recently where a google employee was living in a 24 ft truck in the google parking lot. This Bay Area mess is a self inflicted jo…

"What do you mean 'we', white man?" The problem is there's no solidarity with the newcomers, and a strong desire by incumbents to keep the place the same and not turn it into skyscraper-filled Guangzhou. For a lot of people not building housing is an important priority in their life that they will fight for. Not to mention the question of money. You might equally ask why the tech industry feels the need to be stuck s…

>There's also the little matter of the earthquake zone.

So is Tokyo.

Re: How Much Housing Will Be Built?

#30

Post by IndianAstronaut »

eru wrote: post #12

Building denser has to be part of the solution. One way is to build up. Another is to also remove minimum parking requirements: See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/economy/15view.ht... and http://www.uctc.net/research/papers/351.pdf

An easy fix might be to turn single story strip malls into two story dual purpose buildings. Stores on bottom, rooms on top. I doubt this would do much to change aesthetics.
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