A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by sjg007 » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

grandmczeb wrote: post #66

joecot wrote: post #65

> On Aug. 13, Carson proposed requiring that cities that receive federal housing grants reduce their use of exclusionary zoning. Question: is there anything stopping these cities from just deciding to decline federal housing grants? The biggest culprit in this issue is Silicon Valley. Do they really need Federal housing grants to make people want to move there? The issue is too much demand already. If Carson forces t…

HUD grants are a major source of funding for things like fighting homelessness. The city could decline them, but they would have to make up the difference.

The cities probably won't decline. They probably want an external reason to change the zoning laws vs doing it themselves. They might all be voted out though in the next election by pissed off homeowners... unless there are enough pro development voters in the city to offset them. My guess is that if this doesn't work then the Feds will tie removing exclusionary zoning to some other funding source. The question will be will it go to the Supreme court.

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

#72

Post by Sileni » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 4:26 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #62

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.

Banks love mortgages because they are easy, safe ways to earn a bit more than the federal rate. Wealthy consumers love mortgages because it's a cheap way to leverage a huge asset for market-rate returns. Normal consumers love mortgages because it allows them to buy a house. Good luck taking that away. Additionally, while access to credit raises housing prices, there's no guarantee that removing access to that credit…

But you're ignoring the fact that people are already being priced out of the housing market. The market only continues to gain steam while the next generation can reasonably shoulder the burden being placed on them by the previous. Otherwise those assets are going to deprecate. Credit allowed a handful of people to become incredibly wealthy by becoming rent seekers, while most people didn't realize they had the opportunity. The general consensus seems to be "Tough shit if you weren't born in the 60's - 70's". I don't see that ending well for the economy as a whole.

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

#73

Post by pcwalton » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 4:26 PM UTC

ende wrote: post #37

burlesona wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal zoning would be really difficult to get done constitutionally, but state level zoning wouldn’t be as hard and would have most of the same benefits, ie. reducing the power the nimbys. However there’s no reason to think that would fix it all, transportation planning, design, and funding is almost entirely a state and federal affair, and the nimbys still torpedo all sorts of things that would be great for the re…

Right. There’s no need to take this “all the way to the top” (ie Federal). States can easily supplant the zoning powers of their local governments.

And they do; see the Housing Accountability Act in California, for example.

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

#74

Post by sjg007 » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 4:28 PM UTC

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #45

As with most things, engineering a blunt policy solution will lead to unintended consequences. If this proposal goes into effect, by clobbering local zoning codes, anything with sufficient money behind it is going to get built. This typically means projects that optimize for the developer's ability to extract rent from residents: 3 or 4-story apartments with small unit sizes, basic finishes made to aesthetically look…

"the plentiful supply of single-family homes" ... huh? the issue is that there is not a plentiful supply of said homes.

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

#75

Post by pcwalton » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 4:29 PM UTC

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #45

As with most things, engineering a blunt policy solution will lead to unintended consequences. If this proposal goes into effect, by clobbering local zoning codes, anything with sufficient money behind it is going to get built. This typically means projects that optimize for the developer's ability to extract rent from residents: 3 or 4-story apartments with small unit sizes, basic finishes made to aesthetically look…

> Therefore, while housing affordability is sure to improve in some places where it's absurdly high, it won't meaningfully be altered in places whose urban form is predominantly suburban.

That doesn't make any sense to me. Supply and demand exists in both the cities and the suburbs.

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

#76

Post by joecot » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 4:29 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #71

grandmczeb wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HUD grants are a major source of funding for things like fighting homelessness. The city could decline them, but they would have to make up the difference.

The cities probably won't decline. They probably want an external reason to change the zoning laws vs doing it themselves. They might all be voted out though in the next election by pissed off homeowners... unless there are enough pro development voters in the city to offset them. My guess is that if this doesn't work then the Feds will tie removing exclusionary zoning to some other funding source. The question will…

I could see cities going one way or the other.

* Some cities might readily accept the leverage to change policy they weren't happy with.

* Some cities might decline the federal grants, under threat from home owners.

* Some cities might decline the federal grants, because pricing the lower class out was the entire point all along.

Maybe a later volley will force more hands, but it seems like this policy will blow up in HUD's faces.

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

#77

Post by tptacek » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 4:29 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #55

rayiner wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exclusionary zoning developed in response to Supreme Court cases striking down state laws making it illegal for african americans to buy property in majority white neighborhoods: https://tcf.org/content/commentary/exclusionary-zoning-conti... People are racist and xenophobic, we know that. It’s not xenophobic to point out that, within a democratic framework, peoples’ racism and xenophobia, coupled with a hetrogenous…

That's right; so why would Japan have developed exclusionary zoning, when the question doesn't even arise that the vast majority your neighbors will be other than Japanese wherever you go, with the help of national policies that help keep it that way.

I don't understand the question. Japan is intensely racist and xenophobic, probably significantly more so than the US.

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

#78

Post by munificent » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 4:29 PM UTC

FussyZeus wrote: post #6

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…

Because we can make more computers, execute more healthcare services, etc. Land is a zero sum game; we have a fixed amount, and while it's possible to create more, it's prohibitively expensive to do so. Add to it, land is the primary method by which "old money" remains in that category.

> Land is a zero sum game; we have a fixed amount, and while it's possible to create more, it's prohibitively expensive to do so.

Yes, but that sum in the US is huge. Drive around the midwest or any region outside of an urban core and its empty space as far as the eye can see.

The problem is large-scale economic and demographic changes. The US used to have:

* A culture that prized living in suburbia away from dense areas.

* Labor-intensive agriculture that provided a lot of jobs in rural areas.

* Labor-intensive manufacturing that provided a lot of jobs in a large number of smaller cities.

All of those forces encouraged the population to spread out. Those forces are evaporating. The suburbs are now seen as soulless sources of miserable commutes. Automation and consolidation has dramatically reduced the number of farm employees needed for a given square acre of land. Automation and cheap imports from other countries have eliminated manufacturing jobs.

Without those forces counterbalancing things, there is a strong trend towards consolidating into large metropolises which can't absorb the growth that quickly.

We can try to stuff every more dense housing in those cities and gradually turn them into concrete boxes. Some amount of densification is good. But instead of investing almost entirely in that, I really wish the US was working to try to make small and mid-size cities more desirable too.

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

#79

Post by prolikewh0a » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

ende wrote: post #37

burlesona wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal zoning would be really difficult to get done constitutionally, but state level zoning wouldn’t be as hard and would have most of the same benefits, ie. reducing the power the nimbys. However there’s no reason to think that would fix it all, transportation planning, design, and funding is almost entirely a state and federal affair, and the nimbys still torpedo all sorts of things that would be great for the re…

Right. There’s no need to take this “all the way to the top” (ie Federal). States can easily supplant the zoning powers of their local governments.

Won't happen. The Nimbys have all of the money and can influence the votes in extraordinary ways. Look at Seattle, they won't budge and we have an enormous amount of single family housing. Our mayor is also nearly entirely useless as well, and seemingly only cares about sports teams.

The amount of propaganda that would be pushed out to crush any changes to zoning would be on historic levels.

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

#80

Post by munificent » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #42

maxerickson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US isn't particularly space constrained. In city cores the lack of space is significant. For most of the country, there's plenty of room to build.

Distance costs money or time (basically the same thing at the macro level). When you have things spread out people need to eat the large opportunity cost of forgoing jobs or other opportunities that are far away or spent a lot of time and money commuting. If cities prioritized making it easy to commute in and out that would make distance cost less, effectively the same as increasing density. The problem is that there…

Instead of trying to put cheap homes where the jobs are, we could also try to put jobs where the cheap homes are. People constantly talk about the former, but I almost never see people talk about the latter.