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California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

nytimes.com

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Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#631

Post by annoyingnoob »

woodrow wrote: post #428
annoyingnoob wrote: post #240

I'm all for more housing but we need to make sure we have the appropriate infrastructure to support it, water, sewage treatment, roads, etc. The city I live in has been growing a lot, but so has traffic and crime.

Do you live in California? If so, your city's infrastructure may be struggling due to the county's lagging property tax revenue, which in turn is a result of Prop 13.

Not exactly, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mello-Roos

Mello Roos more than doubles my Prop 13 property taxes. My neighborhood gives way more than its fair share. The schools suck, the roads are too narrow, I could go on. Its poor planning and probably out-right corruption.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#632

Post by DataWorker »

ScottBurson wrote: post #624
DataWorker wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is the same one I’m making. People come here because FANG and tech generally subsidize that movement. It’s great for tech profits and great for that one guy from Russia or wherever who can make 140k salary, but it’s a net negative for society. The housing crisis is the result. A greedy growth at any cost business culture, not senior citizens trying to avoid displacement in their golden years; that’s what c…

> The housing problem is a problem of demand Prices are set by the balance of demand and supply . The demand isn't going away. The supply is what we can do something about. Even building expensive luxury apartments helps, unless no one can afford them at all (which is not what the builder wants to happen). The people who rent those aren't taking up spaces others could have afforded.

Demand is mediated by policy. Tax corporate real estate to create incentives for companies to locate where it’s beneficial to citizens. That’s one way to better manage demand. And we have to manage demand or we create a lot of failed cities like Detroit. Boomtowns are avoidable with sensible policy. We need those policies to keep people from exploiting humans herd like instincts for profit.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#633

Post by bluGill »

bradlys wrote: post #288
bluGill wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it will. Housing is about compromises. If you can rent a 3 bedroom apartment for $900/month would you pay $9000/month (plus taxes and insurance) to buy a house? The above numbers are realistic. You have a choice to nice 3 bedroom apartments for $900/month in the Des Moines Iowa area. The payments on a 30 year loan for a 2 million dollar house are a bit over 9000/month.

Your comparison doesn't make sense. You're conflating multiple variables.

I'm conflating multiple variables, but the whole is reasonable. If SF would build enough apartments (starting 20 years ago!) it is reasonable to expect that you could rent there for not much more than Des Moines. Given that lack of space in SF - they are not making more land - owning a place will always be more expensive than renting, but high rise apartments amortize the land costs over a lot of people and so it need not be that much per person. Neighborhood is important too: if you are right next to the big jobs centers you should expect to pay more (in Des Moines downtown apartments run $2000 for a 2 bed room - they have just started building them though so I expect that price to come down in 10 years.)

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#634

Post by bluGill »

zamfi wrote: post #483
bluGill wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is they need to create the demand. Anybody who wants to get around and checks transit knows it isn't an option so they find an alternative. If CalTran wants to be useful transit for more than commuters (My understanding as someone not in the area is CalTran runs only a few trips during rush hour - if I'm wrong that invalidates some of my reply...) they need to run more service for a while so people start…

Lots of people take Caltrain to commute, and commute trains are often standing room only. But almost no one takes Caltrain at non-commute hours.

I just pulled up the schedule, just looking at the schedule I can confidently tell you that the only people taking CalTrain are going to work or have no other choice: From 10-11 am there is 1 stop at most stations/direction. Trains and buses that only run once an hour midday exist only for those who have no choice: those unable to drive (generally disabled - blind). You need to run at least every half an hour to even think about getting people who are not going to work. People going to work generally can adjust their schedule enough to make hourly work and once they figure it out they don't have to think about it again. Also those going to work generally have very heavy traffic as the alternative.

If you want a train/bus to be used by people who have a choice you must run not less than ever half hour for 16 hours a day. The more often you run the more people who will ride, up to about 5 minutes where everybody knows you can just show up and get on. (unfortunately the amount of extra riders you get from coming more often isn't linear so you sometimes cannot justify coming more often by the amount of extra riders you get)

Note, there is a 2 year lag between changes in routes/schedules and riders figuring out the new routes. I think Caltrain could get a lot more non-commute hour riders by coming more often but if you push them to make sure you make everybody aware that it will be 2 years before there is a change.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#635

Post by bluGill »

tathougies wrote: post #366
bluGill wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 13 also has the perverse incentive that once you are in you should vote for tax increases and high spend policies - you won't have to pay for them. I'm surprised Republicans have not latch onto this as a reason to repeal it - they already like to point out it is easy to spend other people's money as an argument against socialism.

There are no republicans in california. Like, the CA republican party is completely defunct at this point, and I am a (former) California republican; now a republican in another liberal state.

That is something local Republicans need to fix...

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#636

Post by bluGill »

stale2002 wrote: post #282
bluGill wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the city an decide that the cost of upgrading are more than the future values of the additional units and not upgrade. Some upgrades in capacity have significantly higher costs than others. If the current system is the largest that can physically fit on the land the city owns they need to buy more land first. If they won't get a lot of new development it is better to stay just below capacity. The above doesn't app…

> If they won't get a lot of new development it is better to stay just below capacity. If a developer comes in and says "Hey I want to develop in this area", it is a contradictory response to say that this development should be prevented, because there is not enough demand. If a bunch of developers are trying to build houses, then by definition, we are in a situation where there is demand. This supports my point even…

You are assuming linear costs. However they are not. The system is good for 1 development at no extra cost, but the second goes over capacity and so they have to tear down the old system and build a bigger one. The new one is good for not 1 more development but 100 - which might or might not come. If it comes good, but if you just have the 1 development everybody is on the hook to pay it off, not that one development.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#637

Post by logfromblammo »

komali2 wrote: post #597
logfromblammo wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could halt immigration--or at least the kind of immigration that most anti-immigration people complain about--in a naive and oversimplified fashion by raising the minimum hourly wage of noncitizen permanent residents to the median annual household income divided by 2000 (~$32/h), raising the minimum hourly wage for temporary residents with a work-permitting visa to 125% of that (~$40/h), and raising the minimum w…

Wait I don't get it, why wouldn't everyone just pretend they're undocumented immigrants to get the highest pay?

Because they would lose the job to someone who can legally work for less.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#638

Post by throwaway34241 »

exterrestrial wrote: post #613
throwaway34241 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for to be convinced but I'll try. First of all, for example in the Bay Area there are more people who would like to live there than there are houses, and so the people with more money bid up the price and "win" the house, while the people with less money are priced out and must live elsewhere. Hopefully you agree with this basic premise? With this model, if there is one less…

Citing Japan only further proves my point. Property values don’t appreciate the same in Japan because, and one reason is that they don’t have a finance industry that allows them to. Land owners cannot get rich by mere property appreciation like they can here. I definitely think we should imitate Japan more, but this isn’t simply a matter of “allowing more housing”. Acting like that’s all there is to it is disingenuou…

Japan does real estate development with banks and loans like the US does, and interest rates are even lower so it's easier to borrow a large sum of money. Can you explain what you meant about the finance industry not allowing prices to appreciate?

Their zoning is where they have obvious huge differences. The zoning categories are set at a national level and limit how restrictive local cities can be (there's 12 categories based on nuisance level). The higher zoning usually allows lower density also, so cities just start with a little extra zoning headroom that allows them to grow over time. They also automatically permit things that follow zoning. [1]

In the US zoning is more local, often there are many more zone types that are much more restrictive about what they allow (it's more micromanaged and often prohibits things like mixed-use in addition to multi family). In many of the biggest markets even projects that follow zoning are usually not allowed, every project is an individual years long fight. Also in cities like Los Angeles the zoned-for capacity has actually dramatically decreased over time, even as the population grew. [2]

Some of these policies may be a legacy of people deliberately not wanting it to be too affordable, because neighborhoods didn't want low-income people to move in. Of course now in many places even middle-income people can't afford it.

I think, from a social justice perspective, the US policy has been an abject failure. It's increased pollution (from long commutes) and homelessness. It's deprived people of good paying jobs, since they can't afford to move to the locations where they're available. It's squeezed the middle class and enriched landlords, there's even debate that housing may be the most important contributor to wealth inequality. It's anti-environment since higher density has less environmental impact on a per-capita basis. I'm sure there's some upsides, but I can't see any that remotely justify the long-term costs that these policies have brought about.

[1] https://marketurbanism.com/2019/03/19/why-is-japanese-zoning...

[2] https://www.salon.com/test/2015/04/05/the_incredible_shrinki..., graph at: https://www.austincontrarian.com/.a/6a00d8341d04dc53ef01b8d2...

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#639

Post by stale2002 »

bluGill wrote: post #636
stale2002 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they won't get a lot of new development it is better to stay just below capacity. If a developer comes in and says "Hey I want to develop in this area", it is a contradictory response to say that this development should be prevented, because there is not enough demand. If a bunch of developers are trying to build houses, then by definition, we are in a situation where there is demand. This supports my point even…

You are assuming linear costs. However they are not. The system is good for 1 development at no extra cost, but the second goes over capacity and so they have to tear down the old system and build a bigger one. The new one is good for not 1 more development but 100 - which might or might not come. If it comes good, but if you just have the 1 development everybody is on the hook to pay it off, not that one development…

> but the second goes over capacity

This is not how "capacity" works.

It is not that there is some constant limit to something, and everything is 100% fine as long as you are under capacity, but breaks entirely when you go over capacity.

Instead, capacity is flexible, and there are costs to it being flexible.

Instead, capacity is something that you start bumping up against, and this starts to cause problems. And the more that you bump up against capacity, the more problems that you get.

So, if you are only slightly over capacity, it means that, your roads will be a little bit congested some but not all of the time, or the town will have to purchase a little bit of energy from the town next over (or raise prices a little bit during certain times of the day to reduce demand), or a school will have a little bit more people attending it than previously intended, or you'll have to pay the police overtime hours more often.

And when these problems get big enough, THEN, people will decide that it makes sense to upgrade the network.

That solves your step wise function, that you are talking about. "Capacity" is actually pretty flexible. And you don't have to do some maximum upgrade, if you go over it. You can instead wait until you are over capacity enough that it makes sense to do the upgrade.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#640

Post by _fq4v »

bluGill wrote: post #635
tathougies wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no republicans in california. Like, the CA republican party is completely defunct at this point, and I am a (former) California republican; now a republican in another liberal state.

That is something local Republicans need to fix...

Yes, I don't disagree, and am not asking for 'help'.

The comment above wrote

> I'm surprised Republicans have not latch onto this as a reason to repeal it - they already like to point out it is easy to spend other people's money as an argument against socialism.

I pointed out that there is hardly any Republican leadership in California that would be able to latch onto this issue and amplify it. My observation was an explanation for the dearth of republicans against this issue, not a request for assistance.

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