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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

#101

Post by lazide »

rhino369 wrote: post #21
spamizbad wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge you have is that people view housing as an investment . Americans expect their home values to keep pace with inflation. And because housing values are so expensive, there's a tremendous amount of psychological pressure to "preserve" what they've purchased beyond their own property line (eg: "Neighborhood character"). For these reason, they're going to oppose any new supply entering the market. The only…

In California, the only reason people can oppose new projects is because the government enables them to have a say in someone else's property. So you don't have to force development, but you do have to remove NIMBY's ability to veto projects. That starts with reforming permitting processes and zoning regulations.

‘Having a say in someone else’s property’ is really ‘voters voting for the rules and laws they want’.

As long as the rules benefit most people who vote, why would they want to change it?

And right now, that is exactly what is happening - it isn’t changing because most people who vote are benefitting from it. It’s a pretty fundamental part of a democracy.

Until either 1) more people who don’t benefit from the current rules change the rules through voting, or 2) some non-democratic (in the sense of not directly answerable to an election) institution such as the courts change some rules, or 3) someone manages to convince the voting bloc to vote against their interests and change the rules, it is what is is.

All the handwringing about the situation is just hot air.

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

#102

Post by davidw »

jeffbee wrote: post #22
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…

It's handy to say "nowhere is building" but it's not really supported by the data. Look at Dallas and Houston compared to San Francisco. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=B6Tc

BTW, for people looking for other examples of how to grow, who might not like the idea of Houston's sprawl, I've always liked this article:

https://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-...

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

#103

Post by kodah »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #87
kodah wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only thing new I learned from this article is a rough estimate of how much higher an ex-Californian's budget is on average, which was novel but hardly surprising. My story related to this: Californians (and other comparatively rich people) moved to Dallas, TX in droves and outpriced an already saturated housing market. This was happening far before COVID but I think it was really mostly talked about in the circ…

> The outcome is that communities that have seen decades of development will soon price out the resident who paid for its development in taxes only to reward people who are taking advantage of inequality. Sounds like the plight of poor people from developing/poor nations who have to contend with people from developed/rich nations.

> Sounds like the plight of poor people from developing/poor nations who have to contend with people from developed/rich nations.

Could be. What's your suggestion?

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

#104

Post by shuckles »

majormajor wrote: post #93
shuckles wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand your both sides argument. One side takes advantage of the fact that zoning is a local matter to advantage incumbents at huge expense to society at large. It also creates the bureaucratic infrastructure that favors large developers who can pay bribes informally (literal bribes) or formally (impact fees). The other side is all future residents who might want to live in a quadplex where a SFH e…

If you want to change their minds, and change housing policies in major US cities... you may want to try harder to understand why people want single family homes, and why they don't see zoning as evil. You've got a lot of minds to change! Both sides are understandable to me because those hypothetical future residents have the entire rest of the country to choose from. I don't know why the current residents shouldn't…

Yes, because I think it's absurd to claim that someone building a small apartment building on property they own down the street is changing my life. In fact, in your last claim, the property owner who is exercising control over their neighbor's building is the one unfairly "changing lives." In addition, developing on my own property has little to do with relative power imbalances. Who really holds power when I have to bribe my neighbors to get a variance to build an ADU in my backyard?

> those hypothetical future residents have the entire rest of the country to choose from

This is kind of a silly claim because it suggests that the country is an undifferentiated landmass and there are no relative benefits of a particular geographic location. There are clearly relative advantages to living in a place, so telling people they can choose anyplace else is not really a choice!

> I don't know why the current residents shouldn't be able to expect to make the rules they want.

This is only barely a coherent argument at the international levels ("Middle Eastern refugees shouldn't be able to decide where to settle in Europe!"). When you live within a country with freedom of movement, this is a very difficult argument to make. Should I only be allowed to vote in places where I am a property owner?

For what it's worth, there are plenty of developing legal arguments _against_ local zoning, and California is on track to solve its housing issues by having the state take control of zoning away from cities.

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

#105

Post by lazide »

shuckles wrote: post #26
lisper wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being very unfair here. When you choose a place to live you are not only choosing the structure in which you reside, you are choosing the surrounding environment as well. People's desire to keep the environment from changing too much extends beyond financial interests. I live in a quiet suburban neighborhood, and I want it to remain a quiet suburban neighborhood even if the value of my house drops. In fact, I…

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.

He isn’t- but if enough others agree that is what they want, why shouldn’t they be able to? That’s literally what democracy is!

It’s not their responsibility - not anyone’s! - to take a shot in the nuts so someone else can be happy, despite any guilt tripping.

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

#106

Post by lisper »

shuckles wrote: post #94
lisper wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> low-crime (usually coded as "quiet") In my case, quiet is not code for low-crime. I meant it literally. I lived for a long time (20+ years) in loud neighborhoods with lots of traffic noise and screaming kids (literally -- one place I lived was next to a house that was used as a day-care center) and mockingbirds which kept me up at night because our house had no A/C so we had to keep the windows open at night. My ma…

> I live in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains...If all of Silicon Valley were depopulated I think my neighborhood would still be a perfectly fine place to live. Humboldt Country is a beautiful and high poverty part of the state with poor municipal services. I have no reason to believe the Santa Cruz wouldn't be the same without expensive urban infrastructure, not to mention the money we do and need to continu…

> I have no reason to believe the Santa Cruz wouldn't be the same without expensive urban infrastructure

Like I said, my neighborhood began as a vacation destination for rich San Franciscans in the late 1800s. It has been affluent for over 100 years, long before Silicon Valley was a thing, in fact, before electricity was a thing. There are rich urban areas and there are poor urban areas, and there are rich rural areas and there are poor rural areas. There is absolutely no correlation in general between housing density and quality of life. There is, however, a strong and obvious correlation between per-capita wealth and quality of life. But housing inflation does absolutely nothing to promote that.

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

#107

Post by lazide »

shuckles wrote: post #44
zepto wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“immiserate other people who want to live there“ Perhaps true, but what right do the people who don’t live in his neighborhood but want to have the right to immiserate the people who already live there by building high density blocks? Why do you not recommend those people to look for acreage in remote areas?

Building apartments is not a pox on a community. In fact, the most valuable real estate on the planet has lots of apartments. And are you seriously asking why people may want to live someplace for reasons other than it being an undistinguished suburb? School, weather, jobs, community?

And what right do they have to impose on others to change and take damaging consequences so they can be happier or their life easier without compensating them for it?

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

#109

Post by wonder_er »

davidw wrote: post #102
jeffbee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's handy to say "nowhere is building" but it's not really supported by the data. Look at Dallas and Houston compared to San Francisco. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=B6Tc

BTW, for people looking for other examples of how to grow, who might not like the idea of Houston's sprawl, I've always liked this article: https://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-...

That is a lovely article! Thanks for sharing.

I feel like the US would be better off looking at cities around the world that are pleasent, and pattern-matching off of that.

Vienna is beautiful. We should do more of what Vienna does.

Clearly tweaking the US's "process" is just moving deck chairs on the titanic.

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

#110

Post by davidw »

wonder_er wrote: post #109
davidw wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTW, for people looking for other examples of how to grow, who might not like the idea of Houston's sprawl, I've always liked this article: https://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-...

That is a lovely article! Thanks for sharing. I feel like the US would be better off looking at cities around the world that are pleasent, and pattern-matching off of that. Vienna is beautiful. We should do more of what Vienna does. Clearly tweaking the US's "process" is just moving deck chairs on the titanic.

Yeah, Vienna is very nice! It doesn't feel like a "Big City" at all. I'm partial to the Montreal example in the article - it feels the most 'human scale' to me - but everyone has different tastes.
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