Live data from Hacker News

The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

nber.org

21–30 of 105 posts

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#21
post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

I'd suggest that you research why it's necessary for companies to cram so much demand for housing in a few areas. It's seems absurd in this day and age that we're still concentrating business to such an extent in places like the NY Metro Area and the Bay Area. IBM in the olden times leveraged locating facilities in nowheresville as a competitive advantage. I'm surprised it isn't catching on now that engineers are bei…

Because there are numerous network effects* for specialized concentration of labor.

*Network effects are unfortunately only understood as a handwavey buzzphrase in tech, but they have been researched and defined in extreme detail by economists. Think non-ergodic math.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#22
post #17
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I see this posted, I ask about noise. Dense housing near rapid-transit, particularly rail, has led to lots of people getting exposed to massive volumes of noise, even at night. This is the type of long-term negative that get people to move out to the suburbs (e.g. self-defeating the policy) or call for more construction such as sound walls. You can see Reno for a perfect example of this. Everyone moved out…

> inherent problem of rapid-transit noise What inherent problem? Rapid transit is certainly quieter than vehicle traffic. Noise pollution comes from sirens and heavy trucking, not public transportation.

When they re-route the rapid transit bus 1 block so it ends up going down my street during street repairs, my kid and my wife and myself get regularly woken up starting at 4:45am. Then the bus keeps going till midnight. Yippee what fun!

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#23
post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

Social justice?

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#24
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since that's a marketing page for SB827, can someone explain to me how it doesn't ultimately create an incentive against public transit? All it would take to get around the zoning override would be to remove transit... I assume removing a bus stop (or even an entire route) is trivial. I could definitely foresee more homeowners blocking development of new routes/stations. With those considerations, it's possible we co…

> I could definitely foresee more homeowners blocking development of new routes/stations. Say, you own a piece of land with a house near public transit. Since the local township can no longer forbid building an apartment building on your land, you can probably sell your land to a developer for $$$$, so you make much more money than selling just a single house. And because you didn't want to live near public transit,…

Good point. I didn't consider the fact that land zoned for higher density would fetch more money. From that perspective, if your goal is to increase the monetary value of your investment, it seems like a win

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#25
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. If nimbys don't want stuff built, imo they should buy the land themselves. I don't know what happened to property rights in CA.

Somewhere, there are probably some reasonable positions like "it'd be great if they didn't build a fireworks factory right next to my house", but we've gone so far beyond those in the US.

We've gone so far we've went into the opposite direction - "it'd be great if there wasn't a fireworks factory next door to the house I'm building".

As someone who has spent close to the last decade trying to figure out where to put down "roots" it's utter insanity to me. It's clear as day that one of the most evil parts of American society is tying what is typically far and away your largest "investment" to housing. It creates insanely perverse incentives.

It seems to me that most folks have lost their collective minds and forgot the reason we needed housing in the first place.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#26
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could definitely foresee more homeowners blocking development of new routes/stations. Say, you own a piece of land with a house near public transit. Since the local township can no longer forbid building an apartment building on your land, you can probably sell your land to a developer for $$$$, so you make much more money than selling just a single house. And because you didn't want to live near public transit,…

Good point. I didn't consider the fact that land zoned for higher density would fetch more money. From that perspective, if your goal is to increase the monetary value of your investment, it seems like a win

[deleted]

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#27

YES. Seeing an NBER paper on Hacker News of all places makes me want to cry tears of joy. That zoning and insane levels of regulation are absolutely the causes of the housing crises in the US is the mainstream consensus among economists. For those unfamiliar, Glaeser is widely considered the foremost urban economist, so I'm shocked to see his famous paper linked on here. He's absolutely brilliant.

[deleted]

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since that's a marketing page for SB827, can someone explain to me how it doesn't ultimately create an incentive against public transit? All it would take to get around the zoning override would be to remove transit... I assume removing a bus stop (or even an entire route) is trivial. I could definitely foresee more homeowners blocking development of new routes/stations. With those considerations, it's possible we co…

> Since that's a marketing page for SB827, can someone explain to me how it doesn't ultimately create an incentive against public transit? How does building high density housing near public transportation incentivize people to not use that public transportation?

Not against using it, against building it in the first place. Say someone lives in the suburbs and doesn't want to be upzoned. They could vote to block a bus stop from being added

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#29
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> inherent problem of rapid-transit noise What inherent problem? Rapid transit is certainly quieter than vehicle traffic. Noise pollution comes from sirens and heavy trucking, not public transportation.

When they re-route the rapid transit bus 1 block so it ends up going down my street during street repairs, my kid and my wife and myself get regularly woken up starting at 4:45am. Then the bus keeps going till midnight. Yippee what fun!

If a bus is your noise threshold you should be living on a farm, not one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the country.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suggest that you research why it's necessary for companies to cram so much demand for housing in a few areas. It's seems absurd in this day and age that we're still concentrating business to such an extent in places like the NY Metro Area and the Bay Area. IBM in the olden times leveraged locating facilities in nowheresville as a competitive advantage. I'm surprised it isn't catching on now that engineers are bei…

Because there are numerous network effects* for specialized concentration of labor. *Network effects are unfortunately only understood as a handwavey buzzphrase in tech, but they have been researched and defined in extreme detail by economists. Think non-ergodic math.

network effects from specialized labor = civilization

perhaps for a reason, civilization has something to do with cities

Post reply on HN