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California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

nytimes.com

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Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#61

Post by throwaway0a5e »

shuckles wrote: post #31
sokoloff wrote: post #8

I feel like I got served an appetizer and a small dessert, with no main course in between. California has a housing crisis in some cities. Californians are moving out of those cities. The cities that they're moving into are experiencing an increase in demand (directly restating the previous). That's pushing up prices (not shocking), which is preventing some people with less money from outbidding people with more mone…

California has a statewide housing crisis. Most cities in the country also have their own housing crises.

>Most cities in the country also have their own housing crises.

No they don't. The ones that do are the ones who's housing market is all jacked up by California money that wants off the sinking ship.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#62

Post by shuckles »

lisper wrote: post #35
shuckles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately (for you), your desire for a quiet suburban neighborhood should not give you the ability to immiserate other people who want to live there by prohibiting the construction of homes for them. Do you value your quiet suburban neighborhood enough to buy and pay property taxes on the whole block or subdivision? If not, I recommend you look for estates on acreage in remote areas.

> your desire for a quiet suburban neighborhood should not give you the ability to immiserate other people Of course not. I'm not saying I have any kind of right to keep my neighborhood from changing, only that my desire to keep it from changing is not purely financial. (In fact, in my case, it is the exact opposite!)

Fair enough. Steve Waldman described about this mentality pretty well here: https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/6287.html

This is not as divorced from property values as you believe. The features of suburbs you like such as low-crime (usually coded as "quiet"), amenities, good schools, access to jobs through a quick commute etc. are exactly what give them their high value. However, the single family home subdivision suburban form cannot scale provisioning these amenities to many people. That is exactly why suburbs are exclusionary whereas cities need not be.

Your suburb isn't going to have decreasing property values without disinvestment, at which point it won't be a nice place to live. The detached houses probably have little to do with what you like about your community; there are plenty of places in Central California with detaches homes, high crime, bad schools, etc.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#63

Post by sokoloff »

jeffbee wrote: post #50
majormajor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demonizing single family houses seems rather dated in 2021. Single family home prices are surging in much of California too (while apartment prices and condo prices... not so much!), it's not just "everyone is fleeing!" California was short on both types of housing - what has changed is that it is in even higher demand now! And if remote work continues after COVID, that will continue. Add to that more efficient elect…

People don't buy houses because they have children, they gather both children and houses because they are prosperous. Millenials (some of whom are now past their child-bearing years) and younger generations won't just get houses because of the inexorable march of time. First they'll need money.

Houses are linked to prosperity. I have doubts that children are overall linked to prosperity.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#64

Post by shuckles »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #55
shuckles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately (for you), your desire for a quiet suburban neighborhood should not give you the ability to immiserate other people who want to live there by prohibiting the construction of homes for them. Do you value your quiet suburban neighborhood enough to buy and pay property taxes on the whole block or subdivision? If not, I recommend you look for estates on acreage in remote areas.

Using your logic, you should never immiserate people that want to live in your house, maybe even in your bed just because you think you paid for it. Wanting to live in a place that is already occupied does not give the right to force people there to rebuild their houses into high density places. There is a lot of free land in that country where people can build skyscrapers with millions of cheap, small living pods in…

I didn't make a single claim about coercing owners of private property. In fact, I ended by saying that if you want to maintain total control, you should go ahead and buy the neighborhoods you want to prevent from changing!

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#65

Post by jeffbee »

subpixel wrote: post #58
jeffbee wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't buy houses because they have children, they gather both children and houses because they are prosperous. Millenials (some of whom are now past their child-bearing years) and younger generations won't just get houses because of the inexorable march of time. First they'll need money.

Actually, there is an inverse relationship between prosperity and child-bearing.

Only if you make improper global comparisons. Within comparable American populations, wealth is positively associated with fertility.

"Examining data from 1985 to 2007, Lovenheim and Mumford use short-run home price variation over time within cities as their shock to family wealth. They find that a $100,000 increase in the value of one’s home results in a 16% increase in the probability of having a child."

https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_0026...

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#66

Post by [deleted] »

chasd00 wrote: post #32
LatteLazy wrote: post #9

It's an urban problem. No one is short of space in bumfuck, nowhere. The jobs are all in cities. Workers need to be in cities. Commuting by car isn't viable on a large scale. Other forms of commuting require investment (building rail etc) and governments won't do that. So house prices spiral.

> The jobs are all in cities. Workers need to be in cities. This is beginning to change and the pandemic quickened the pace. If Starlink comes online and works as promised it will further speed up the process. I think there are many people who live in a crowded city only because that's where the office is and would chose to live elsewhere if it were possible.

[deleted]

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#67

Post by shuckles »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #61
shuckles wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California has a statewide housing crisis. Most cities in the country also have their own housing crises.

>Most cities in the country also have their own housing crises. No they don't. The ones that do are the ones who's housing market is all jacked up by California money that wants off the sinking ship.

"If you ignore all the cities people want to live in, the remaining don't have a housing crisis."

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#68

Post by jeffbee »

sokoloff wrote: post #63
jeffbee wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't buy houses because they have children, they gather both children and houses because they are prosperous. Millenials (some of whom are now past their child-bearing years) and younger generations won't just get houses because of the inexorable march of time. First they'll need money.

Houses are linked to prosperity. I have doubts that children are overall linked to prosperity.

If you believe that fertility is negatively associated with prosperity, then the idea that people will buy these houses because they have children is especially wrong.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#69

Post by asdff »

rustybelt wrote: post #33
asdff wrote: post #4

Nowhere is building enough housing for growth. In low cost of living places, chances are if you look at population data, the metro region has been stagnant for decades which has alleviated pressure on supply. In any area with growth at all, prices rise because we don't build actual dense housing like we did before WWII (when row houses and mixed use development in walking distance to frequent public transit were the…

As you say some places are growing and others are stagnating or shrinking. If every place has a certain capacity to grow given the necessary pressure to do so, wouldn't more evenly distributed growth reduce the problems caused by the current uneven distribution of growth/stagnation/shrinkage? In other words, how can you say we're not growing fast enough when so many places aren't growing at all?

Because growth isn't even nor can it be, it depends on connectivity of an area to relevant features that spur further growth, such as industry, jobs, education. There are highly specific reasons for growth to happen where it happens, and 9/10 it's due to some piece of immovable necessary infrastructure that supports a wider region. For example, Chicago is the size it is because it is a confluence point of freight, first from the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, now freight rail. Los Angeles is the size it is because the Port of Los Angeles/Port of Long Beach is the mouth of all east Asian trade coming into the continent, which started a century of industrialization and job growth in the area. San Francisco and Boston are innovation centers due to the number of high quality universities in these areas that continually feed the local talent pool by the year. There are plenty of places that are zoned for growth but it hasn't happened yet, either. For instance, just across the Angeles National Forest north of Los Angeles, you have the Antelope Valley, which remains relatively depopulated in comparison to Los Angeles due to a lack of connectivity to very many job centers or much industry, even with roads having long been laid for eventual development (1).

1. https://www.google.com/maps/@34.5617689,-117.9209187,5165m/d...

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#70

Post by pirocks »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #27
pirocks wrote: post #19

I would argue this isn't a California problem or a national problem. It's a global problem. Example: Hong Kong. In Hong Kong the government funds itself in large part through property ownership. They are therefore incentivised to make housing as expensive as possible. The result is predictable. I would argue that in democracies this will remain a problem as long as the majority of voters benefit from high housing pri…

Hong Kong has a very limited territory to build on, while most of the USA is free space. Yes, you are right on the bad government incentive.

> Hong Kong has a very limited territory to build on, while most of the USA is free space. Yes, you are right on the bad government incentive.

Hong Kong has limited space but aren't utilizing it well. Tons of it is empty. See the pie chart here:https://www.pland.gov.hk/pland_en/info_serv/statistic/landu....

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