Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most • Hacker News Board

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#71

Post by jpttsn » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:46 AM UTC

knuththetruth wrote: post #26

Robotbeat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is ridiculous. Wages have never been higher, and there have never been more people. There are incredibly strong network effects from having more people (in cities, etc), and the benefit of international trade relies on more people to enable better specialization. All kinds of incredibly important markets, like semiconductors (including computer chips, solar power) and even mining rely on having a lot of people t…

>Wages have never been higher, and there have never been more people. Wages have essentially been flat for most workers since the 1970s[0] >This zero-sum Malthusian thinking is not only untrue, but following it collectively will make us much, MUCH poorer and worse off. I agree, but unless the US is willing to claw back wealth from the robber barons of our age, build a sustainable future with social services on par wi…

Have other countries solved the problem? Which ones?

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#72

Post by sien » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:48 AM UTC

nomocrypto wrote: post #59

toasterlovin wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This stage of the demographic transition is a huge problem, IMO. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a ratchet (as in, it only moves in one direction): Basically, two incomes are useful, so both people in a relationship pursue careers. Now they have more money to compete on the housing market. This seems like a good move, so others follow suit. At first this is largely a win for people who pursue this r…

Sane zoning laws would be much easier and do a lot more to ease the burden on people (I currently live in an “OMG no high rises! Won’t someone think of the neighborhood character!?” city and the rent is ridiculous). We just have to have the political will to change them, which unfortunately means angering very powerful monied interests, including Betty and Edgar who really love their now-valued-at-$500,000 house next…

This is bang on. Looking at the graph look where Harris County (Houston) and Dallas are.

If the graphs were plotted with increase in population against the change in fertility then those places would be outliers.

Texas zoning and tax on houses work.

The funny thing about housing prices is that a state in the US has handled house prices so well with an economy that is doing well but Texas is often ignored in these discussions.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#73

Post by labster » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:49 AM UTC

toasterlovin wrote: post #49

pitt1980 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the ratio of career gains that go to those working in a few expensive cities, even if this is largely selection effects, I'm not sure this paints a very rosy picture of the society we're creating. I'm reminded of how few heads of EU states are parents https://www.marketwatch.com/story/do-childless-leaders-mean-...

This stage of the demographic transition is a huge problem, IMO. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a ratchet (as in, it only moves in one direction): Basically, two incomes are useful, so both people in a relationship pursue careers. Now they have more money to compete on the housing market. This seems like a good move, so others follow suit. At first this is largely a win for people who pursue this r…

Immigration will offset the demographic implosion, at least if current trends continue. But speaking as someone who studied climate science, a temporary population reduction can only be a good thing for long-term human survival. We're above the carrying capacity of Earth for humans, and though we've done a lot of tricks to expand capacity, we're currently putting a large swath of the biosphere in danger.

If there are less people, then pressure for good neighborhoods goes down, and we'll reach an equilibrium. I think it only seems like a ratchet because we're in the middle of a downturn after a 5000 year run of exponential growth.

Doesn't mean it doesn't suck to live in this time in terms of housing -- but in other terms, life is pretty outstanding. The two income thing is mostly new, but then compare the amount of time that medieval women spent on childcare and providing clothing. It's so much better now that they're not expected to spend every spare moment at the spinning wheel.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#74

Post by ceras » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:52 AM UTC

toasterlovin wrote: post #49

pitt1980 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the ratio of career gains that go to those working in a few expensive cities, even if this is largely selection effects, I'm not sure this paints a very rosy picture of the society we're creating. I'm reminded of how few heads of EU states are parents https://www.marketwatch.com/story/do-childless-leaders-mean-...

This stage of the demographic transition is a huge problem, IMO. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a ratchet (as in, it only moves in one direction): Basically, two incomes are useful, so both people in a relationship pursue careers. Now they have more money to compete on the housing market. This seems like a good move, so others follow suit. At first this is largely a win for people who pursue this r…

There's a book somewhat related to this idea called The Two Income Trap. I haven't read it yet, but recently read a good book review of it[0] that discusses the extra competition created by two-income households and tries to vet the book's evidence. It also discusses the related problem that comes from treating "good school districts" as a positional good, causing a negative externality of over-competition and consumption beyond the intrinsic economic benefit of that good.

[0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/28/book-review-the-two-inc...

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#75

Post by erik_landerholm » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:52 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45

baddox wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In pretty much every analysis involving housing costs, I try to mention that percentage of income spent on housing is not a great metric. A better metric is absolute income minus housing costs. All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent, because that remaining 25% would be a heck of a lot of money. I doubt this metric would significantly change the conclusions of this ar…

> I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent No, you wouldn’t. As income goes higher, long-distance transportation becomes (a) more comfortable and (b) smaller as a fraction of income. De-camping to Washington State and commuting to San Francisco doesn’t make sense at $200,000; it does at $1 or 2 million.

Yeah, this. There is no way that would work.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#76

Post by im3w1l » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 3:00 AM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #61

fooker wrote: post #35

I once attended a lecture by a well known statistics professor, who demonstrated a similar correlation between the price of a kg of apples and the rate of divorce in his country.

Are apples and divorces plausibly related? Or was the professor simply drawing from an enormous number of metrics to find a spurious relationship (and report just that).

Well price of apples should approximately reflect general food affordability.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#77

Post by nautilus12 » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 3:01 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #37

lkrubner wrote: post #20

From previous: " In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the ability to get one’s own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to average rent. In the USA, the happiest year for this ratio was 1958, when people were spending 22% of their income on rent, on average. Not by coincidence, this was the peak year of the Baby Boom. In some sense, it was the best year in history to be a young white…

In pretty much every analysis involving housing costs, I try to mention that percentage of income spent on housing is not a great metric. A better metric is absolute income minus housing costs. All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent, because that remaining 25% would be a heck of a lot of money. I doubt this metric would significantly change the conclusions of this ar…

No, this should end up being about the same. This means that household is extremely over leveraged in household cost. Suppose that their income is cut in half, they would have to come up with 250k just to keep their housing expenses alive. The net result of this is that on average you would be averse to having kids if you knew that they could suddenly be thrust into this circumstance.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#78

Post by branchless » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 3:06 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #37

lkrubner wrote: post #20

From previous: " In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the ability to get one’s own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to average rent. In the USA, the happiest year for this ratio was 1958, when people were spending 22% of their income on rent, on average. Not by coincidence, this was the peak year of the Baby Boom. In some sense, it was the best year in history to be a young white…

In pretty much every analysis involving housing costs, I try to mention that percentage of income spent on housing is not a great metric. A better metric is absolute income minus housing costs. All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent, because that remaining 25% would be a heck of a lot of money. I doubt this metric would significantly change the conclusions of this ar…

It's the average. If the median wage was $1MM all goods would be way more expensive.

But all this is wrong because rents rise to soak up income. If we all earned $1MM rents would be most of that if all other goods stayed the same.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#79

Post by dvdhnt » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 3:07 AM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #63

dvdhnt wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s pretty arrogant to conclude that the human race is somehow exempt from the concept of a carrying capacity. Wages are higher because of inflation, the floor has moved, and it’s relatively meaningless as the cost of rent, healthcare, and food has greatly outpaced such growth. To put it bluntly, your semiconductors are insignificant if we can’t house and feed our population.

It's also pretty shortsighted to underrate human advances in adapting their abilities.

That’s not the point. What good is the ability to grow enough food for everyone if we arbitrarily withhold it from them?

I’d argue patching a system that values the very few over the many is not an advancement.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#80

Post by WillEngler » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 3:07 AM UTC

perfmode wrote: post #51

lkrubner wrote: post #20

From previous: " In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the ability to get one’s own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to average rent. In the USA, the happiest year for this ratio was 1958, when people were spending 22% of their income on rent, on average. Not by coincidence, this was the peak year of the Baby Boom. In some sense, it was the best year in history to be a young white…

i wonder how Jim Crow affected these employment and housing markets.

Check out The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein for an extensive treatment of this topic. (His focus is not on Jim Crow per se, but on the entire web of policies used to enforce segregation across the States, thus locking African Americans out of the great boom in housing wealth post-WWII.)