61–70 of 107 posts
Can some explain why affordable housing is a problem that requires government policies to prevent? For example, I can't afford a home in Malibu, so I don't live there. I don't understand the issue. Why does government need to step in and fix this?
Cities are full. US population has doubled since 1960. If we get rid of zoning we will end up with overpopulated cities like Hong-Kong, Jakarta, Moscow, Tokyo.
You can find stories similar to such all over the place. San Francisco recently had a 117 unit fall apart after all the conditions and accommodations of all "aggrieved" parties got their share and drove the costs beyond profitability.
of course you get the typical political bs from the politicians and activist who always claim "if developers are willing to work with us they can get approved quickly" but that is the rub, the approval usually requires far too much outlay on the builder which in combination of set asides for "affordable" units then forces the rest of the units up a tier or two eliminating the market the developer was aiming for.
this isn't about affordable anything, its about political power and money. many of these "activist" groups which claim to represent the people and use that as a basis to go to court to block builders are in fact merely extensions of various political election campaigns.
These article are pretty ridiculous and I see this political bent more and more on here. The article/book makes a huge leap in assuming progressive cities are somehow worse at housing. The reality is people actually want to live there. The most densely populated cities in the US, and in general all cities, lean left politically. Finding new housing is important but we're really losing perspective on how successful th…
The problem is, I've been hearing about these problems since I lived there in 1995. 1995 would have given an intelligent species enough time to build a money-losing, poor-people housing skyscraper or two. Yes building vertically in crowded places is a challenge and expensive but those are just excuses. Since 1995 they could have figured out a way to get the job done, so now we have to examine what the problems are.
Since 1995 they could have figured out a way to get the job done
If only someone tried. I mean, for how long have people agreed on what "the job" is? Too long, if at all?
> a shortage of new construction, a lack of tenant protection "Tenant protection" -- especially rent control -- is a nontrivial cause of the shortage of new construction. High rents are a signal to developers that there is money to be made constructing new housing. If it's not possible to make the money, they won't do the construction, which is what rent control causes. You get a population of existing residents with…
This is not how rent control works in any city in the US that I know of. Everywhere I know of rent control only applies to significantly older buildings. Which means that new buildings can charge much higher prices, which means that rent control actually encourages new buildings. The only time some type of rent control applies for new buildings is when they are specifically built as "affordable housing". This usually…
New buildings are what become older buildings. If that causes them to become less valuable, they become less valuable immediately because the future loss gets priced in, making them less valuable to construct.
And older buildings also become newer buildings. In most places with a housing shortage there is already a structure on any given piece of appropriately zoned land. To get more housing, you have to knock something down and replace it with something bigger, or subdivide an existing building with fewer, larger apartments into one with more, smaller ones etc. That can't happen if the building is full of existing rent controlled tenants who can't be removed (and have strong incentives to never leave).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
High home values and inclusive housing policies are directly opposed. They exclude anyone who can't afford high housing prices.
Yet there is public housing in Chelsea NYC. We can argue about how to do ‘inclusive housing’ but the idea that it immediately precludes high home prices doesn’t hold up to basic inspection.
Can some explain why affordable housing is a problem that requires government policies to prevent? For example, I can't afford a home in Malibu, so I don't live there. I don't understand the issue. Why does government need to step in and fix this?
It's for the same reason right to farm laws exist, no community wants to give up its right of self direction to outsiders. Even if in many ways it's not to benifit of its neighbors.
Can some explain why affordable housing is a problem that requires government policies to prevent? For example, I can't afford a home in Malibu, so I don't live there. I don't understand the issue. Why does government need to step in and fix this?
It is a problem when not just Malibu, but the entirety of Los Angeles becomes unaffordable. Then people with less means need to live very far away from where they work, etc.
Can some explain why affordable housing is a problem that requires government policies to prevent? For example, I can't afford a home in Malibu, so I don't live there. I don't understand the issue. Why does government need to step in and fix this?
While not a federal, or even state issue it is very much a locality issue. One which is unique to a given locality and is well within their rights to legislate. It's for the same reason right to farm laws exist, no community wants to give up its right of self direction to outsiders. Even if in many ways it's not to benifit of its neighbors.
Eventually it seems the market will level out. If people can't afford to live there then industries will leave. At that point people living there will have to decide if that's okay or they should change policy to be more accompanying.
> a shortage of new construction, a lack of tenant protection "Tenant protection" -- especially rent control -- is a nontrivial cause of the shortage of new construction. High rents are a signal to developers that there is money to be made constructing new housing. If it's not possible to make the money, they won't do the construction, which is what rent control causes. You get a population of existing residents with…
>You get a population of existing residents with rent controlled apartments, who then have no incentive to fix the housing shortage or eliminate rent control, but insufficient construction going on and consequently even higher prices for people who didn't get a rent controlled apartment in 1975. You may not be in that population but you have to solve for them as well. Removing rent control is only going to price them…
There is a suitable way to phase this out. First, never create another new rent controlled apartment -- they only exist as preexisting, can't be transferred to anyone but a spouse, and can't be transferred more than once. Second, allow the landlord the option to provide a comparable replacement apartment in a different building at the same rent, so that buildings with existing rent controlled apartments can be replaced with higher density ones.
Then in general adopt long-term policies to keep market-rate housing prices under control, so that they don't rise faster than inflation and future generations have no need for a ridiculous price control because the market price becomes and remains affordable.