Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws • Hacker News Board

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#161

Post by roenxi » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #143

briandear wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, have you ever owned a building? I might suggest that your opinions might change once you have. Owning rental property isn’t a tidy math problem. Newer buildings have more predictable costs, definitely not older buildings. It’s pretty much the opposite of what you said in the real world. Newer buildings can lease to higher quality tenants at higher rates with lower eviction/non-payment/damage risk. O…

If we can agree that profit is essentially what we call "greed," any financial risk means deceased profits, in other words less opportunity for greed. I'm not a communist so I'm not against profit, but in Marxist theory this kind of profit is seen as the problem with capitalism.

You might want to re-read your Marx; one of his more famous and less controversial observations was that the rate of profit tends to decrease over time in a healthy market.

High rates of profit wasn't the problem, it was the negative effects that were theorised to occur when the rate of profits, inevitably, fell too low.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#162

Post by Misdicorl » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

tathougies wrote: post #146

Misdicorl wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stranger danger isn't the only risk to children. Being hit by fast moving vehicle traffic is much higher on most people's worry list.

I dont think ive ever seen a fast car on a dense city street (difficult to go fast when theres gridlock) whereas speeds above 55 mph were common on the 'nice' suburban street I grew up on

The fatality rate spikes around 30mph. Most city traffic is definitely in that range (at least that I've experienced).

> speeds above 55 mph were common on the 'nice' suburban street I grew up on

Thats not a suburban street, thats a highway interconnecting the suburb. Non-driving connection within a suburb is certainly a huge problem.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#163

Post by tomohawk » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

> tenant activists and union leaders

In other words, these are people looking for a free lunch and thinking they have the power to get it by legislating it into existence.

Only, there is no such thing as a free lunch. It will be paid for. And the ones paying for it will be the people providing the housing, so there will likely be less housing.

I wonder why these same people who are so concerned about this don't just go out and build affordable housing instead of forcing their ideas on other people?

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#164

Post by Misdicorl » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #137

Misdicorl wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see 28% walk share for NYC (pdf warning): http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nycdot-citywide-mo...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share

That link is only considering commutes to/from work. That traffic is very segregated in suburban communities. Notably, its also usually very far from where children hang out.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#165

Post by apo » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

The Growth Ponzi scheme may be useful in thinking through housing issues:

https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme

Briefly, most cities are unsustainable in their current configurations due to an unaffordable maintenance cost structure. But they can fake it by adding people/businesses and thereby growing the tax base.

This scheme leads to a growth at any cost attitude resulting in market distortions. Throw in some help from a central bank hellbent on levitating the US stock market by shoveling money into the credit system, and you end up in a bad place.

Portland has decided to stop sprawl by investing in density-increasing infrastructure such as rail lines.

Ironically, the result has been to send property prices through the roof, leaving an overhang of unused land in its wake. Owners of these properties look around them to see high density developments everywhere. What's the value of their own land? It will of course be turned into and equally-high value development, so the price is set accordingly.

Nothing is left in the middle.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/10/23/portland-hous...

What's the solution? The author of Strong Towns puts it this way:

> What if along all these rail corridors and at all of these rail stops, instead of being able to build an eight-story condo unit, all a developer was allowed to build was the next increment of intensity? For most of that area, that would mean single family homes. In that case, what would happen to land prices? They would drop. They would crater, in fact. This would free up an incredible amount of land for cheap, affordable development while also taking a substantial amount of pressure off of the existing single-family neighborhoods.

> I'm not advocating for single family homes. I'm advocating for incremental development. Portland (and Austin and San Marcos and...) are trying to skip increments. They are trying to have a toned body without proper diet and exercise. ...

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/10/30/spiking-a-ris...

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#166

Post by Misdicorl » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #140

Misdicorl wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This entirely misses the point. The point isn't that every SFH-only neighborhood is affluent or even middle-class, it's that having all these SFH-only neighborhoods supports stratification. Is that the point? Is stratification what we are trying to prevent by removing single family home regulations? I don't think it will work.

Prevent? No. Alleviate? Yes. You can't just say "I don't think it will work" without saying why. Allowing for smaller home forms would mean affordable options in desirable neighborhoods. Do you have a reason to believe poorer families would still universally avoid those options?

It seems to me that stratification of neighborhoods is extreme whether single family housing regulations are in place or not.

These types of regulations probably do make it more extreme. But I also question the base motive. Is de-stratisfying neighborhoods actually a worthwhile goal? I can certainly see some benefit- its nice to live in a diverse neighborhood. I wonder if that might happen anyways if we address the underlying issues instead- violence, schools, access to public works, probably others- rather than just throwing up our hands and giving up on these underserviced 'bad' neighborhoods.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#167

Post by muzika » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

world32 wrote: post #43

wwdhx wrote: post #28

Eastern European countries have a racial homogeneity that the United States doesn't have.

No they don't. Gypsies are a large ethnic minority in many eastern european countries. Also, although a religious minority instead of racial, there are a large percentage of Muslims in many of those countries too. Don't forget that the last european genocide over ethnic and religious lines happened in eastern europe too. Also don't forget their is currently an ONGOING war in the Ukraine over divisions between those w…

The war in Ukraine is not about ethnicity.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#168

Post by spoonie » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #71

pchristensen wrote: post #45

Here’s an anti rent control argument I haven’t heard (this applies to stricter rent control regimes like NYC, SF - not sure about this new OR law). Getting a spot in a rent-controlled apartment is a valuable, non-transferable asset. If you buy a house and it gains $100,000 in equity, you can sell it and buy a bigger house, sell it and cash out while getting a smaller house, borrow against it. With a rent-control asse…

Your observation also highlights how rent control is institutionalized privilege. Those who already have a home are given an ownership right to that status, while those without a home are being permanently excluded.

Exclusionary zoning is an even worse form of institutionalized privilege that benefits the wealthy and middle class rather than the poor and middle class.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#169

Post by Misdicorl » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #91

Misdicorl wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those traffic fatalities are vastly more vehicle-vehicle collisions. I believe the EU even in the last decade legislated car design changes to address the risks of vehicle-pedestrian accidents that are far more prevalent there.

Of course they're more vehicle-vehicle in the US; hardly anyone walks in America. Just look at the stats. Even the walk-iest big city in the US, NYC, only has like 6% walk mode share. However, controlled for number of trips/distance, being a pedestrian in the US is generally quite dangerous compared to elsewhere.

I'd be interested to see a source about comparative pedestrian safety. I'd be literally shocked if small suburban streets weren't safer than almost any other option.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#170

Post by stale2002 » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

ISL wrote: post #22

throw0101a wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, rent control will have the opposite effect of what Oregon thinks, and only make housing scarcity worse. I always found it odd that rent control always seems to be an all-or-nothing policy: either things are tamped down on, or it's a laissez faire system. Does any locality have a "hybrid" approached. Something like: * buildings 0-5 years old, allow up to 3x inflation rent increases * buildings 5-10 ye…

This would encourage tearing down old rental units in order to build new rental units in their place.

Ok? This sounds like a good thing to me.