Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

strongtowns.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 174 posts

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#151

Post by huherto »

YokoZar wrote: post #115
iopq wrote: post #94

The reason why poor neighborhoods are profitable is because the city doesn't spend money on them. If the city spent money on them, they'd be less profitable. There's no reason to expect that the city spending more money on a neighborhood increases any tax returns.

These are property tax returns. Property tax returns come from property prices. Making a neighborhood nicer raises property values, and thus prices. The article is making the observation that it's much easier and cheaper to improve bad neighborhoods than rich ones. Painting crosswalks and planting trees is cheap, but rich neighborhoods already have those things.

So it is an application of the Law of diminishing marginal returns ?

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#152

Post by Amezarak »

sundvor wrote: post #54
ryandrake wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why national US voting is held mid-day on a Tuesday. Sure you have mail-in ballots now, but the default in-person voting time/date is surely deliberately designed to favor a particular demographic.

That's pretty sickening, but can't help but consider true. Upvoted and added this comment for emphasis. In Australia voting day is always a Saturday, from 8 am to 6 pm, also with ample opportunity to mail in beforehand. Oh and you'll be fined if you don't cast your vote... It may not be perfect, but appears way more democratic to me than the US elections. http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/polling.htm (When I left Norway n…

At least in the US, Saturday is a workday too for millions, if not tens of millions, of people, most of them working class or poor. [1]

[1] https://www.bls.gov/TUS/CHARTS/WORK.HTM

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#153

Post by supernumerary »

yabatopia wrote: post #100
supernumerary wrote: post #64

Detroit is implementing a program along these lines. They are selling properties in so called 'bad neighborhoods' and mandating that they be rehabbed and renovated within 6 months to code. The average cost of rehabbing a home bought for $1000~$2000 say is $50,000. Have a look at the website: http://www.buildingdetroit.org/ The 'Rehabbed and Ready' ( http://auctions.buildingdetroit.org/RehabbedAndReady ) homes demonst…

These conditions are crazy. Requiring in investment of ten thousands of dollars in a home in a high risk neighbourhood within six months after purchase is borderline preying on the gullible. A street in Detroit can go in a downward spiral within months. All it takes is one bad apple (home) that gets boarded up or goes down in flames near your investment and your purchase becomes a super high risk gamble, most probabl…

The conditions are onerous, I think this is to discourage speculation or out-of-town investors who are not invested in a neighborhood in a 'rake leaves, clear snow, mow lawn and lend a cup-of-sugar' kind of way - buying one of these properties and leaving it unoccupied for any length of time would not be a good idea. The conditions (kinda-sorta-owner-occupiers-only) correlate to what the city thinks these neighborhoods need.

Regarding the notion of 'high risk' neighborhoods. See above point - risk is proportional to occupancy. Occupied structure, reduced risk. Rental unit with fallow periods - high risk.

The elephant in the room here is also Race. Race does not correlate to risk or a 'High risk neighborhood' - this notion is perhaps the most insidious and hardest for Capital to overcome - if it ever will be - in which case these supposed 'High Risk Neighborhoods' or 'Bad Apples' will always be labelled as such and avoided. (Incidentally I see this paradigm shift - to be the core argument of the article - albeit approached obliquely)

Regarding neighboring houses - A street in Detroit, if it can go in a downward spiral, typically already has, the city is currently in the process of demolishing blighted structures, and a property owner has a reasonable expectation that if a nearby house has-gone or goes 'galley-west' the city will take it down and offer the lot to neighboring property owners or list it for-sale on the website linked in the original comment.

The taxes correlate to the assessed value of a property, these are slightly unpredictable. However, the city is reassessing property values this year, working under the supposition that realistic valuations that people can actually pay are a better approach. Basically - I agree, lack of confidence in tax-rates is a bad thing, and it's a good thing the city is working to deal with this.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#154

Post by emodendroket »

dragonwriter wrote: post #143
emodendroket wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Insofar as the US (under the Constitution, at least) was an experiment in government, it wasn't in revive a dormant concept of "democracy", but in vigorously and fairly explicitly adopting the novel tripartite separation of powers model of Montesquieu. But that model is basically based on the English government with Parliament and a king in place of Congress and a president, isn't it? There was definitely a lot of…

> But that model is basically based on the English government with Parliament and a king in place of Congress and a president, isn't it? Not really; the British system of the time was certainly an important influence on Montesquieu, but it didn't exhibit the three-way separation of powers between executive, legislative, and judicial that his model called for.

The King is the executive and the Parliament is the legislature. Both systems have courts.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#155

Post by emodendroket »

vidarh wrote: post #144
emodendroket wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but they also kept writing about how they were creating the new Rome.

But that basis of that fascination was also part of the reason for the rise of neoclassisism. Greece and the Roman Republic and Empire came to be seen as purer, grander and more refined past, which drove a lot of effort into re-discovering information about them, which led to an increased interest in archeology, and eventually to things like neoclassism. Dictators and radicals alike looked for lessons, and found them…

The HRE probably had the best claim next to the Byzantines to being the true successors to Rome, but of course in the US they were a lot more interested in the Roman republic than the dominate.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#156

Post by dragonwriter »

treehau5 wrote: post #105
dragonwriter wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After all, the United States was a crazy experiment to revive 2,000-year-old Greek idea called 'Democracy'. Not really. Representative democracy as the substantive form of government was an established tradition in Britain and it's North American colonies long before the US (a prime motivation for the revolution was perceived increasing deviation from that norm by the central government in respect to the administra…

The Church hierarchy was an example of a representative democracy as well. The primates would come together at ecumenical councils to decide on matters of faith and pastoral care. All bishops received one and only one vote, and the ecumenical patriarch, who often was tasked with organizing and presiding over the council, was simply referred to the "first among equals", and also only had one vote.

> The Church hierarchy was an example of a representative democracy as well.

Which church heirarchy? The secular heirarchy of the Catholic Church (which you seem to be referring to) certainly isn't an example (while there were certainly councils in which voting occurred, the members of those councils were not, for the most part, elected by the people below them, but appointed by those above.)

The monastic heirarchy perhaps had greater similarity to representative democracy, though I'd still say it was at best loosely similar to representative democracy rather than an example of it.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#157

Post by dragonwriter »

emodendroket wrote: post #154
dragonwriter wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that model is basically based on the English government with Parliament and a king in place of Congress and a president, isn't it? Not really; the British system of the time was certainly an important influence on Montesquieu, but it didn't exhibit the three-way separation of powers between executive, legislative, and judicial that his model called for.

The King is the executive and the Parliament is the legislature. Both systems have courts.

> The King is the executive and the Parliament is the legislature. Both systems have courts.

At the time Montesquieu was writing (there has been some practical evolution towards an independent judiciary since) Parliament held not only legislative power but also (in the House of Lords -- which at the time was also the dominant House in terms of the legislative function, though that is very much not true now) the judicial power as well.

Again, the then-current British system was one of the primary reference points which informed Montesquieu's model (and he clearly saw it as far superior to the French system of the time), but it wasn't designed around the three-way separation of powers with mutual checks and balances the way the US system under the Constitution was.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#158

Post by galdosdi »

WildUtah wrote: post #84
jonlucc wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be interested in the episode of 99 Percent Invisible [1] that talks about how an architect was tasked with designing a bunch of housing for very poor residents in Chile after a disaster. He chose to build half-houses that are literally unfinished roofs on one side. Over time, people were encouraged to build the other half as they saw fit. [1] Episode 231 - Half a House - http://99percentinvisible.org/episod…

There's a famous National Geographic photo of a cookie-cutter suburb an hour east of Mexico City. [0] Identical brand new tiny homes in cheerful monotone colors extend into the distance. If you visit that neighborhood today, you can see the results of laws very different from those in American suburbs. Most of the houses have been expanded. Each one has grown in a different way. They've been repainted different color…

Yes, this!!

If you want to visit "good suburbs" (single family homes and duplexes mostly, but with variety, character, mixed use, and you can get around by transit, walking, or car -- and a reasonable tradeoff of affordable housing but reasonable commute time) like this in the USA, the middle areas (not center, not outskirts) of northeastern cities developed before or around the time of the rise of the auto have some. Queens, Bronx, outer (ie, not the currently trendy part along the East river) Brooklyn for example.

So often we frame it as a choice, quiet but car-enslaved suburban living versus hectic but convenient urban living.

Wrong! You can have it all. You just need your government to not be stupid.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#159

Post by Camillo »

jonlucc wrote: post #41
PaulHoule wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to the poor neighborhoods and look closely and you often find that they built a bunch of row houses that are maybe two to four stories high. Some of them got knocked down, some of them are still there but they've been altered or decorated. When the trees get taller the monotonous aspects are less visible. Some of them are now vacant lots or rebuilt houses, stores, parking lots, etc. When they went to see Levittown…

You might be interested in the episode of 99 Percent Invisible [1] that talks about how an architect was tasked with designing a bunch of housing for very poor residents in Chile after a disaster. He chose to build half-houses that are literally unfinished roofs on one side. Over time, people were encouraged to build the other half as they saw fit. [1] Episode 231 - Half a House - http://99percentinvisible.org/episod…

That's not a new idea. It used to be common in America too, although usually in that case it was two floors, one finished and one unfinished for future expansion.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#160

Post by jandrese »

twblalock wrote: post #91
jandrese wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either way if you make the neighborhood a nice place to live more people will want to move there. The more people who want to move there the higher prices will go. The higher prices go the higher taxes and rents go. After some time the original residents can no longer afford to live there. That's gentrification. The trick would be to apply the improvements to every poor neighborhood at the same time so you don't crea…

> The trick would be to apply the improvements to every poor neighborhood at the same time so you don't create winners and losers and upset the balance in the housing market, but this is basically impossible. Even if you could do that, it wouldn't work. It would simply make all of the poor neighborhoods more attractive to gentrifiers at the same time. I think there is a tipping point where if you help poor neighborho…

There is only so much demand for housing, especially for higher priced housing. You can't create additional demand simply by improving the neighborhood, additional demand is only created when more people move into the area.

So if you increase the quality of all of the affordable housing, then it shouldn't make much impact on the prices of those houses. They're already paying what they can. Now if you create new job opportunities at the same time then the equation changes. If the high quality jobs greatly outgrow the housing then you end up in a situation like San Fransisco or lower Manhattan where rents skyrocket regardless of the condition of the housing.

Post reply on HN