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A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

bloomberg.com

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Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#21

Post by bilbo0s »

s0rce wrote: post #18
ryandrake wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t just add in “moar housing” in a vacuum and declare mission accomplished. Let’s say SF doubled its housing. Where are all these new residents going to park? So, now it’s housing and parking that needs to be fixed. Assume none of these new residents have cars? Ok now it’s housing and public transit that needs to be fixed. Where are their kids going to go to school? So we need more school capacity, too. How mu…

Chicken-egg problem though. If you say transit doesn't go places or doesn't run often people claim the density is too low and we need more people to use it. Can't have the same excuses just used to block everything. Just start building everything, high density housing, dedicated bus lanes, multi-level parking garages, better utilities.

>Just start building everything, high density housing, dedicated bus lanes, multi-level parking garages

I'd advise against this. We did that in Madison, and before we even got very far doing this, Mother Nature started to hint to us that it might not be a good idea.

Maybe there are places where you can just build Willy-Nilly. (I doubt it, but what do I know?) I suspect, however, most places are like Madison, just not quite as delicate. You probably have to be REALLY careful about what you're building.

And even more careful about where you're building it.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#23

Post by Symmetry »

bradleyjg wrote: post #5

The charts at the top are eye opening. More and more of our income is going to pay for pieces of land. Unlike computers, TVs, and even troublesome areas like healthcare the land is not getting better and better. It’s instead a purely zero sum game. We probably can’t eliminate the scourge of land rents altogether but we can stop making the problem worse by putting in place more and more policies designed to raise hous…

For a long time there was a roughly equal balance in the US between the amount of money paid out as wages and the profits that go to capital. Recently that balance has gotten skewed with 60% going to capital. But basically all of that skew is due to rising rents and housing prices.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#24

Post by dangrover »

ryandrake wrote: post #14
matchbok wrote: post #9

Seems like it could work. Nonsense local policies to encourage "affordable" housing like inclusionary zoning have been huge failures. In big cities, we just need way more housing. Yet NIMBYs fight it at every step, esp in SF.

You can’t just add in “moar housing” in a vacuum and declare mission accomplished. Let’s say SF doubled its housing. Where are all these new residents going to park? So, now it’s housing and parking that needs to be fixed. Assume none of these new residents have cars? Ok now it’s housing and public transit that needs to be fixed. Where are their kids going to go to school? So we need more school capacity, too. How mu…

The whole point of a city is people aren't dependent on cars/parking. Otherwise, it's not a city.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#25

Post by iamdave »

flaque wrote: post #11
mendelsd wrote: post #4

If you want to make housing affordable you will need to reckon with this: http://positivemoney.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/UK-House... House prices move with mortgage credit growth. Credit growth is one of the key pillars of the politically sustained Ponzi-scheme that is the modern urban housing market.

That is one crap graph. What’s the Y axis?

I'm going to guess using the context clue of the title of the graph that it's the average cost of a house in thousands?

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#26

Post by ahoy »

kazinator wrote: post #19
xvedejas wrote: post #3

In Japan, zoning is handled federally; and the result is much more affordable cities. "Why Tokyo is the land of rising home construction but not prices" https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3... An overview of zoning practices there: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

I'm for Japanese zoning, and Japanese anything else, provided we make everyone "Japanese" first: bred with the same common code of decency. Also, Japan is NIMBY at the national level, as in "not on my island". For instance, accepting few refugees. Smart in other ways, not just the zoning, you see. They protect their culture.

Ah, the classic "only monocultures can work toward the social good, if we'd stop accepting 'outsiders' we could do the same" trope. It's tired and xenophobic. The presence of foreigners isn't why laws that benefit already-wealthy real estate developers persist.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#27

Post by pwned1 »

ginko wrote: post #12
imgabe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is the case for a lot of the differences between the US and other countries. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as "just make the Federal government do it for everyone". The constitution limits the authority of what the Federal government can do in the US and delegates everything else to state and local governments.

Are the State governments the problem here though? From what I(not American) can tell the issue seems to be more that local residents have a surprising(to me) amount of political control over zoning on the municipal level. I guess this is all part of the American approach to the distribution of power and there are certainly good sides to this, but it also means that NIMBYs can have so much control by voting for the m…

Cities are legally an extension of the states, so states could take control over the process, but you're right, as far as I know municipalities (cities, counties, townships) have almost total control over zoning standards (at least here in Michigan).

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#28

Post by skh »

pitaj wrote: post #10
imgabe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is the case for a lot of the differences between the US and other countries. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as "just make the Federal government do it for everyone". The constitution limits the authority of what the Federal government can do in the US and delegates everything else to state and local governments.

> The constitution limits the authority of what the Federal government can do in the US I wish. If that was true I'd be much happier with politics than I am.

Your response only makes sense if the there are no constitutionally enforced limits on the powers of the federal government vs. state governments. The Medicare portion of the ACA being struck down by the Supreme Court is a notable counterexample to your comment. The check on federal powers may not go as far as you like but laughing in response to the comment that was made is in poor taste.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#29

Post by joshe »

ryandrake wrote: post #14
matchbok wrote: post #9

Seems like it could work. Nonsense local policies to encourage "affordable" housing like inclusionary zoning have been huge failures. In big cities, we just need way more housing. Yet NIMBYs fight it at every step, esp in SF.

You can’t just add in “moar housing” in a vacuum and declare mission accomplished. Let’s say SF doubled its housing. Where are all these new residents going to park? So, now it’s housing and parking that needs to be fixed. Assume none of these new residents have cars? Ok now it’s housing and public transit that needs to be fixed. Where are their kids going to go to school? So we need more school capacity, too. How mu…

Actually it solves lots of those problems too, more affordable housing would make it possible for teachers, waiters, bus drivers, waiters, grocery cashiers to live affordably in the city.

Uber/Lyft and now scooters have already 10x improved transit in SF. Living without a car and even without buses is totally possible now. The cost of Lyft 10 times a week compares favorably with a car, and scooters/bikes are much cheaper. See http://www.rideordrive.org/

Improving caltrain, muni and bart would be awesome, but there's plenty of transit to handle much more housing.

So "moar housing!"

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#30

Post by jgraham »

iamdave wrote: post #25
flaque wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is one crap graph. What’s the Y axis?

I'm going to guess using the context clue of the title of the graph that it's the average cost of a house in thousands?

Pretty sure it must be percentage of the 1997 value, otherwise it's hard to understand how the scale can accomodate both house prices and population in a single set of units.
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