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Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

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Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#171

Post by Arizhel »

davidf18 wrote: post #143
Arizhel wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Remember, rising prices come from scarcity. Eliminate the scarcity and your eliminate the high prices. Reverse the zoning density restrictions and you get lower prices. Yes, but why would you want to do this? Or more accurately, why would the powers-that-be in a given area want to do this? They already have their real estate, and they're profiting by the rising prices. Why would they want to bring prices down?

> Or more accurately, why would the powers-that-be in a given area want to do this? Well, they generally would not. Except there are firms that must pay salaries that are not in real estate that have to pay their employees higher salaries in order to pay for the "rent-seeking" of landowners. It would benefit them to lobby and influence city council. Also, powers that be love monopoly pricing but there are laws to sto…

>It would benefit them to lobby and influence city council.

Why would city council want to bring down rents? They and their cronies are profiting off the high real estate prices. The city council is, after all, composed of wealthy people who own land in the city. You can't have a city council composed of people who don't even live in the city.

>Also, powers that be love monopoly pricing but there are laws to stop monopolies.

Those laws only apply to corporations; they have nothing to do with real estate, and this isn't a monopoly situation. There isn't a single company that owns all the land, or all the apartments, in these high-priced cities. There's merely a shortage of usable land, because of geography and physics.

Basically, to fix this problem, we would need new laws at the State or Federal level, along with enforcement which would absolutely work against the wishes of these city councils. But there isn't much demand for such laws, because it's a local issue, and national-level politicians aren't going to do well trying to make it a campaign issue. Voters in rural areas just don't care about high rents in cities; they'll tell you that you just need to move out where they are and bring the high-paying jobs to their rural communities.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#172

Post by supergeek133 »

PlaceFan wrote: post #68
yladiz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But college is not a necessity, whereas living somewhere is, and you can somewhat easily get money from the government (at least in the US) to support your degree, whereas you can't really get that for your housing.

> But college is not a necessity Ehhh, that isn't the narrative we've been pushing for the last 20+ years. > whereas living somewhere is I think the fact that it's a necessity only benefits the idea of providing people aid for housing. > you can't really get that for your housing. I mean, you absolutely can depending on your level of income. It won't make up for being poor, but that's what section 8 housing is. Even…

Exactly, from the point we think a child can understand it, society pushes a narrative that you need college to succeed.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#173

Post by pavel_lishin »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #161
nosuchthing wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fallacy of rent control, which only treats the symptom and fails to address the root problem of inadequate supply and restrictions to adding additional supply to the market.

I'm genuinely curious how the supply of housing in Manhattan could be increased.

The standard way is to build more.

Another option is improving commutes from the outer boroughs and New Jersey - the Bronx has many affordable areas, but the 456 is a shitshow, and I'd rather move back to Texas than put up with the slow peristalsis that would become my commute. Buses aren't great, either, and suffer from a lot of the same problems that regular street traffic does. My coworkers who come from Jersey typically have a bus ride of an hour, assuming there aren't any traffic problems.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#174

Post by zimzam »

humanrebar wrote: post #139
zimzam wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, here's the thing about coastal types: they are obsessed with getting the "top" talent, as if every project or startup requires it. What if most startups only need "good" developers to develop their mostly CRUD apps and don't need "the best" developers?

> What if most startups only need "good" developers to develop their mostly CRUD apps and don't need "the best" developers? There are some exceptions, but most any successful technology product needs at least a few great technical leaders, if only to say no to net-negative ideas, provide mentoring to those who need it, and to make strategic technical decisions (architecture, tech stack, technical hiring strategy, etc…

It doesn't require being in the top 10% of a top 10 school to be able to recognize bad ideas though. The standard you are describing is what I would call "qualified" or "competent" not "elite" or "top".

There are highly competent people in both the lower 90% of the top 10 schools as well as in non-top tier schools

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#175

Post by steffan »

scurvy wrote: post #114
acchow wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Boeing in Washington? Also, not too many people aspire to be in insurance. I don't think you can put it on the same level as finance, arts, software, fashion, film, etc.

They left Washington a while ago; I think over taxes?

Also iirc they hired a CEO who lived in Chicago

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#176

Post by supergeek133 »

acchow wrote: post #89
supergeek133 wrote: post #21

> Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever Yes it can, College Tuition is a great example. Instead of finding the cause and treating it, we just increase the amount of aid people have access to.

No, college tuition will rise with middle-class incomes. This is a cultural phenomenon. We're "supposed" to get our children the best education we can possibly afford, otherwise we are bad parents. Since colleges don't have price discrimination, this essentially means tuition is set at the absolute maximum that the middle class can afford - squeeze every penny out of them. This is why aid won't reduce the burden of t…

College tuition has been rising more than incomes for a long time. It's very rare for someone to be able to go to college without a loan.

> According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2016–2017 school year was $33,480 at private colleges, $9,650 for state residents at public colleges, and $24,930 for out-of-state residents attending public universities. [1]

1: http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmp...

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#177

Post by pascalxus »

geff82 wrote: post #4

Especially for information technology, I don't understand the rationale why it has to be concentrated at certain places. As long as there is a good net connection, it could be anywhere in the world. Let's concentrate on the US for a moment. Why can't a successful startup not be in Dallas, Amarillo, Miami or Des Moines? Talented people already move from one coast to the other, so they could as well move to any other p…

SV companies are not price sensitive. They'll pay alot, even just for the benefit of having them in the office. Software companies either win big or lose big. If they win big, they can easily cover whatever cost of salary in SV and there's still a plethora of talent out here in the bay area, for a well funded company.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#178

Post by humanrebar »

cheriot wrote: post #163
humanrebar wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you wanted culture, you'd have to get in your car and drive at least an hour. Everywhere has culture. You just didn't like the one you were in. In tiny towns, the culture looks more like running around in the woods, country music, 4-H club, and church potlucks. That's a culture, even if you don't like it. And, besides, in the internet age there are plenty of farmers' daughters that get really into oil painting o…

With fewer people in a place there will be fewer people that match OP's cultural interests. Even moving from a medium city to a larger city has a noticeable increase in organizations of people doing cool things I'm interested in.

Right. To do things, it helps to be colocated. But in many cases, you don't strictly need to be in the same room with people even then.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#179

Post by Arizhel »

jamiek88 wrote: post #162
Arizhel wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How many of us could live in San Francisco, London or New York City and bring up three children in a decent neighborhood with good schools? The simple solution is to not have any children. Leave that to extremely rich people and very poor people. Society obviously does not support child-rearing, given the cost of housing and the lack of support from employers, so why fight it?

That is a logical but dystopian conclusion to make. It disturbs me deeply and I wonder why. Maybe it was your matter of fact, emotionless delivery of it that caught my attention. I can't really dispute what you have said other than it is not an inevitability. Societies can choose to change this, Sweden being a current example, Finland too. But people need to organise and want it enough, maybe they don't. Time will te…

>It disturbs me deeply and I wonder why.

I'm very glad about this; it means I must have gotten something right. :-)

>I can't really dispute what you have said other than it is not an inevitability. Societies can choose to change this,

Exactly, but that's the problem: societies can choose to change this, but will they? As a pessimist, I say no, other than a few very small countries like those you cite (and even there those are just attempts at change so far; the birthrates in those nations are extremely low). Humans are remarkably bad at seeing impending large problems and collectively working together to change things to avoid them.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#180

Post by nosuchthing »

maxxxxx wrote: post #5
jandrese wrote: post #2

What does it look like if a rent bubble pops? Can such a thing even happen? Rents tend to be difficult to change without moving. I guess rents can fall if demand considerably outstrips supply and the landlords get desperate, but most landlords I've seen are pretty stubborn and will hold out until the last second before they lower the rent a single penny.

In 2008 rents didn't drop much. I think landlords will leave places empty before they will drop rents too much.

Apparently hedge funds scheme to always leave a a fraction of the units empty as a means of pushing against the market.
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