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The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

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Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#181

Post by ilamont »

jamespitts wrote: post #68

The reasons behind the housing supply crisis are many, and the situation can seem intractable. I have been assisting architect Eugene Lew with a comprehensive and audacious solution to this problem. If you are interested in reading a draft version of his white paper, DM me on https://twitter.com/jamiepitts . The concept is tailor-made for the west districts of SF but can be applied to any city. It combines finance, a…

If 300 units are built it will help 4500 middle-income households. That's great, but how many middle-income households will still be unable to find affordable housing, therefore keeping market-rate rents sky-high?

I think the solution is not trying to cram more units into a small area. Manhattan has done that for decades, and it's still not enough to balance supply and demand. Rather, it's to encourage business development and residential living elsewhere, either nearby or far away. We're seeing that with Oakland and northern NJ but there are many more opportunities to expand this to other areas of the country. A lot of credit goes to southern states which encouraged (through tax breaks and other incentives) heavy industry to set up shop in smaller cities and rural areas. What will it take Google, GE, or Microsoft to move a big chunk of their respective operations away from San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle?

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#182

Post by caidh »

jessewmc wrote: post #28
rublev wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about places like Canada? Where your only real options are Toronto and Vancouver. Other places are lonely and small. Personally I'm into music. Composing, playing shows, going to the symphony, the opera, the ballet. Sure, I could leave Toronto, except now I'm in the middle of nowhere where there are no jobs and no culture. Now what? I'm sure it's similar for others in the US.

Montreal? Very cheap to live, probably the most cultured city in Canada. I'll admit the job situation isn't great there but that's why it's cheap. Calgary and Edmonton both have top notch symphonies, the world class Alberta Ballet, and burgeoning music scenes. Much cheaper than Vancouver or Toronto. There are huge, huge affordability problems with Vancouver and Toronto, but they're hardly your only choices.

The only time I imagine myself living in a big city again (I'm originally from Queens, NYC) is when I visit Montreal. Beautiful city, efficient immaculately clean subways compared to any city I've been in. If I weren't comfortable in the relatively rural part of the Hudson Valley I'm in, I'd seriously consider it.

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#183

Post by ghaff »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #175
forrestthewoods wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inequality is not the problem. The problem is there are more people who want to live somewhere than there are houses. With perfect equality there would still be more people than houses. The one and only fix is more houses. That's it. Any other solution is just picking winners and losers different ways. But no matter which way you pick the same number of people win and the same number lose.

> The one and only fix is more houses Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The heart of the problem in many parts of the country is that we fund our schools with property taxes. Hence, a cycle of better schools and increased demand in concentrated areas, which causes the supply-demand imbalance and price increases. Compounding this is the fact that people in such areas actively block "higher density" housing, which n…

I'm not sure I understand your comment. Public schools in dense cities tend to be almost universally bad--in spite of often being funded at significantly higher per-student levels than even relatively tony suburbs that have high-performing schools. If you look at Massachusetts public high schools for example, the one public high school in Cambridge (where housing has gotten very expensive) has some of the highest per-pupil spending and is in the bottom tier of test results.

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#184

Post by JumpCrisscross »

closeparen wrote: post #138
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> terrible public schools There are affordable parts of Long Island and Connecticut with great public public schools less than an hour from Manhattan by train. We've grown accustomed to overporting our post-war suburban archetype of what a "middle class" family "deserves," i.e. lots of bedrooms, garages and lawn space, while diminishing previously (and still!) common practices like having roommates when young, not ow…

>We've grown accustomed to overporting our post-war suburban archetype of what a "middle class" family "deserves," i.e. lots of bedrooms, garages and lawn space, while diminishing previously (and still!) common practices like having roommates when young, not owning a car, et cetera. "People's lives are too good, we need to make them worse." What's your angle? What do you gain from advocating against mobility and pers…

> What do you gain from advocating against mobility and personal space?

What works in the suburbs isn't sustainable in cities. Suburbia is built for personal spaces. It's terrible, however, at supporting the rich social fabrics densely-packed humans spontaneously weave. (There's also the problems of commute and it's environmental impact.)

City-centre richness is a direct product of density. If everyone gets large, personal spaces you're back to suburbia and all its disadvantages.

Living in a city means accepting less personal space in exchange for the benefits of density. The only alternative is to have fewer people with more personal space, which means rationing or auctioning off that limited housing as well as a less "city-like" urban core.

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#185

Post by yardie »

schoolsman wrote: post #25
cddotdotslash wrote: post #17

This article fails to mention that the middle class can't afford to live in the "nicest parts" of cities, but many cities have other areas as well. Take NYC for example. Sure, if you want to live in the Chelsea or West Village neighborhoods in Manhattan, it's going to cost you. But there are tons of available houses in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx that are plenty affordable. The other day I saw a house for sale in…

> But there are tons of available houses in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx that are plenty affordable. The other day I saw a house for sale in a decent part of Queens for $240k - definitely affordable for middle class. Do you have kids? Because this glib reaction signals that you don't, or you'd be aware that the areas you are touting as affordable have terrible public schools. That's why they're relatively cheap. T…

I think I know this area you are talking of. And if there is a house there for 240k then it is definitely not a decent neighborhood. There are areas of Queens which are very industrial and you can get a house for cheap, next to a superfund site.

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#186

Post by cynicalkane »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #157
mhneu wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just housing policy that's gone wrong, it's transit policy. We haven't built good public transit in our cities, and now that cars are filling all available roads, even houses far away from cities are too expensive for how long commutes are. We wish we had a train system in many cities that allowed the middle class to live 40-60 minutes away from their jobs. Ultimately however the main problem is wealth inequ…

Inequality is not the problem. The problem is there are more people who want to live somewhere than there are houses. With perfect equality there would still be more people than houses. The one and only fix is more houses. That's it. Any other solution is just picking winners and losers different ways. But no matter which way you pick the same number of people win and the same number lose.

There are two fixes, which must be done simultaneously: more housing and more transportation infrastructure.

Our modern economy wants to centralize in cities, and not doing so is leaving free lunch on the table. Also keep in mind that more people in cities = cheaper suburbs for those who prefer it.

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#187

Post by ctulek »

closeparen wrote: post #171
ctulek wrote: post #155

I have 2 questions: (1) Do not such articles sound like "not everyone can afford a holiday in Hawai"? Or "all my friends have a Mercedes AMG but I don't"? What is the difference? * (2) In Bay Area, the daily commute itself is an obvious sign of overpopulation. How does more housing not make it even worse? * I exclude the gentrification problem which is really affecting the lives of poor and old people as their mobili…

>(1) Do not such articles sound like "not everyone can afford a holiday in Hawai"? Or "all my friends have a Mercedes AMG but I don't"? What is the difference? * It would be useful, for many reasons, to have a greater proportion of people living in cities. So, it's useful to challenge your implicit assumption that doing so ought to be a luxury. (2) In Bay Area, the daily commute itself is an obvious sign of overpopul…

(1) For the sake of extending the same analogy, the question is not whether people should have vacations and cars or not, it is about everybody asking for luxury vacations or cars.

(2) IMHO, housing may for sure move some people closer to their work but it also means more service workers and other jobs to move to the same spot; this sounds to me like a vicious circle. At the end isn't it this vicious circle that drives city growth? Even if the commute problem is solved, which I doubt looking all the cities I lived or know a little bit, how are we going to prevent the classic environmental challenges: clean water, or effects on natural habitat?

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#188

Post by ghaff »

closeparen wrote: post #171
ctulek wrote: post #155

I have 2 questions: (1) Do not such articles sound like "not everyone can afford a holiday in Hawai"? Or "all my friends have a Mercedes AMG but I don't"? What is the difference? * (2) In Bay Area, the daily commute itself is an obvious sign of overpopulation. How does more housing not make it even worse? * I exclude the gentrification problem which is really affecting the lives of poor and old people as their mobili…

>(1) Do not such articles sound like "not everyone can afford a holiday in Hawai"? Or "all my friends have a Mercedes AMG but I don't"? What is the difference? * It would be useful, for many reasons, to have a greater proportion of people living in cities. So, it's useful to challenge your implicit assumption that doing so ought to be a luxury. (2) In Bay Area, the daily commute itself is an obvious sign of overpopul…

It might be better as a matter of policy for more people to live in cities. I get the arguments even if I might not personally care to follow that path. However, that doesn't make it better as a matter of policy to cram people into as few different cities as possible. There's plenty of housing to be had at reasonable prices in Detroit, for example.

In general, city living is not a luxury. Living in what are generally viewed as desirable neighborhoods of certain cities is.

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#189

Post by intopieces »

cies wrote: post #162
1024core wrote: post #151

I live in SF, and am flabbergasted at the number of 1- or 2- floor single-family homes. A city the size of SF (46 sq mi) and population (850K+ and growing) simply can't afford so many SFHs. I was in Barcelona recently (yay NIPS!) and Barcelona is smaller than SF (36 sq mi) and has nearly twice the population! Everywhere you see are 6-floor buildings, with the bottom reserved for shops and people living above them. It…

> why can't SF be more like BCN? 1. Earthquakes. 2. City planning policies over the years (or lack thereof).

>1. Earthquakes.

And yet Tokyo exists.

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#190

Post by unclebucknasty »

ghaff wrote: post #183
unclebucknasty wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The one and only fix is more houses Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The heart of the problem in many parts of the country is that we fund our schools with property taxes. Hence, a cycle of better schools and increased demand in concentrated areas, which causes the supply-demand imbalance and price increases. Compounding this is the fact that people in such areas actively block "higher density" housing, which n…

I'm not sure I understand your comment. Public schools in dense cities tend to be almost universally bad--in spite of often being funded at significantly higher per-student levels than even relatively tony suburbs that have high-performing schools. If you look at Massachusetts public high schools for example, the one public high school in Cambridge (where housing has gotten very expensive) has some of the highest per…

Hmm. It's a little hard to imagine that per-student funding in high-density city schools outstrips that for truly wealthier and presumably sparser suburbs with any significant consistency. I'd want to see the actual numbers. For instance, where is this funding coming from for the cities? And, where is the suburban tax money going?

And, what's the history? Were these schools neglected for years, then the state recently started pouring in money?

I mean, maybe there are some exceptions (perhaps partially gentrified cities where some tax base is moving back into cities at inflated prices?), but these would generally be outliers. Since wealthier people have fled most major cities for the burbs, the tax base and educational investments have generally followed them. You see this over and over again in communities throughout the country.

For example:

http://www.npr.org/2016/04/18/474256366/why-americas-schools...

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