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Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

economist.com

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Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#501

Post by giantg2 »

dcow wrote: post #495
giantg2 wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"However, in essentially 0 places in the US that are hot housing markets do they allow as much housing as is demanded." And thus my question/comments about controlling the demand side, as the supply side changes haven't worked well. "Good intentions to help the old people stay in their homes but it means that the new people moving in support the people that lived there earlier." Well, the system of funding the school…

The supply side changes haven't worked because people are selfish and the system is perverted. “I’ll see your family struggle with gentrification before I lose my bay views and stupidly inflated house value.” The problem is boomers treating property as an investment vehicle the value of which must go up up up. Introduce affordable housing to cool the market off? Not over my dead body if it means people won’t be clawi…

The higher taxes mentioned would be a demand side tactic. We could also address the root cause and not just the symptoms. The high paying jobs are one of the biggest things bringing people in. The city could create policies that make other locations more attractive for businesses to create those jobs, thus decreasing demand in the areas with the problem.

I do understand that many of the incentives are backwards, so higher taxes, policies to move jobs, etc are all difficult to handle. But I also think that building more high density housing isn't really going to fix anything. In my view, many of the people in this sort of situation chose to be - they could take jobs in other cities but the group-think says they need to be in SV and working for FAANG to be successful. Not to mention that many want a single family home with amenities to come with that.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#503

Post by googlryas »

randomopining wrote: post #491
oh_sigh wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're complaining that too many people are making a Fri-Sun trip into the mountains, and it is making your Fri-Sun trip into the mountains take too long?

He's not complaining lol just stating a fact. If the fact is that it takes 7 hours to drive into the mountains... that's important to know, if you're thinking of moving there. All the OutdoorsBro(tm) that I know are moving to Denver, so idk if I would even like it.

Labeling people OutdoorBro just seems like gatekeeping your hobby for people who aren't "true believers".

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#504

Post by elthyrior »

oh_sigh wrote: post #463
elthyrior wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much true. I-70 into the mountains is a parking lot on Friday and Saturday, and basically the same leaving the mountains on Sunday. Turns what should be a three to four drive to get to the western slope into six to seven some days.

You're complaining that too many people are making a Fri-Sun trip into the mountains, and it is making your Fri-Sun trip into the mountains take too long?

I'm not sure how you determined I was complaining from a comment that is simply pointing out a fact. The individual I replied to asked if bad traffic was true or not, and I indicated it is.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#505

Post by dcow »

munificent wrote: post #472
bedhead wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year I moved from a top 3 city to a small mountain town in Colorado. In my experience, your hostility is extremely common in small towns that have big seasonal influxes. I continue to be amazed by the overt disdain long-time locals have for second home owners and relatively newer full-time residents. The one constant is: "Everything was great until shortly after I relocated here and you people moved in." A week…

I recall with some relish a comment I read on the Seattle subreddit a while back. The commenter was furious at how all of the recent transplants were screwing up their previously wonderful city. Eventually, they happened to mention that they themselves had moved to Seattle from California less than a year prior. There is a real thing going on in the US today, a sort of inchoate rage felt at all of the poorly defined…

And this is what frustrates me so much about recent attempts at social justice activism. It’s like we find the only thing we can see on the surface and start screaming at it while the rot in the core goes unaddressed. I resist the screaming because I want to fix problems in the core. But the screaming, while not entirely unjustified, often just serves to further obfuscate and conceal the rot within. It’s hard not to feel hopeless when you see so much human capital spent fighting the symptoms.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#506

Post by randcraw »

ksdale wrote: post #451
throwaway316943 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s almost like it’s progressively getting worse as more people crowd in.

The very, very easy way to fix that is to build enough housing. Places don't suck because a lot of people live there, they suck for lots of reasons that are orthogonal to the population.

Rapid change is disruptive. No remedy will please locals who don't welcome those changes. Folks who lived in Austin 30 years ago (before the growth in Round Rock, Georgetown, and the Hill Country, and the invasion of high tech) chose to live there because it was affordable and offered a fun weird mix of music & academics unique for hundreds of miles (perhaps similar to Santa Fe's acculturation 40 years ago). That precious mix has diminished to make their home less weird, more commercial, and damned expensive.

There's no easy fix for this, especially in a place as extremely laissez-faire as Texas, where urban planning and zoning are seen as mortal sins.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#507

Post by AnimalMuppet »

grecy wrote: post #439
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A second home isn't necessarily an investment, especially if it's a vacation home. It can be just a place you go on vacation.

By making that home unavailable for people who actually need a place to live, you're reducing the supply, thus increasing prices, and contributing to unaffordable housing. I say that as a Software Engineer who is 39 and has never been remotely close to affording even a first home.

f I build a vacation home somewhere where there wasn't a house, and I neither live in it nor rent it, does it diminish anyone else's supply of housing? No, it doesn't.

You may say that it could have increased someone else's stock of housing. And that's true. But if I built it as a vacation home, then if it wasn't going to be used as my vacation home, I wouldn't have built it, so it wouldn't have increased anyone else's supply of housing anyway.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#508

Post by milkytron »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #466
ecshafer wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing prices are almost purely supply and demand. Cities like New York City have 90% of their existing housing stock ( the cheapest and densest buildings) labelled as illegal under their current zoning laws.Los Angeles have extremely restrictive laws that make only the most luxurious high end towers being financially viable, and most of the city zoned for only suburban sprawl. San Francisco is largely illegal to bu…

Trying to force density on people will fail because people don't like being told what to do and the government is terrible at telling people what to do. Just let people build whatever, wherever (hazardous commercial activity notwithstanding) and the suitable density for the area will develop naturally... like it did pre-ww2

Density won't develop at it's natural pace if we continue with policies that inhibit density, and fund projects that discourage it.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#509

Post by giantg2 »

labcomputer wrote: post #488
giantg2 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not base the the revenue on income taxes instead - charge the people making money instead of forcing people out of their home through taxes? The main issues (in my opinion) with housing in the parts of CA that are always mentioned is just population density and desired living conditions. I don't see what the right fix is for that. If we're basically taking the policy that we'll raise taxes to make people want to…

> Why not base the the revenue on income taxes instead Yup, California does that. That's why CA has a reputation as a high-tax state. Although total tax burden isn't that different from places like Austin, TX though (at least that's how the numbers come out when my friend or I have seriously looked into moving there). > I don't see what the right fix is for that. Ha. People have been shouting it from the rooftops. Bu…

"Ha. People have been shouting it from the rooftops. Build more houses! More specifically, just allow people to build more houses. Stop preventing people from building more houses.

Frankly, that's really the only solution. If you have n households in a country, you need approximately n homes to put them in."

The whole point I was getting at was distribution. Sure you have n households in the country, but nothing says that n/100 need to live in just one or two counties of that country. Even if you get the green light to build more, it will be very expensive to do so, and you will have population density/congestion issues.

"Sure, but that's what this whole thread is about! People complaining when other people spread out to get relief"

Not exactly. They are seeing influxes in some areas, but it's not an even distribution. They aren't really complaining about spreading out but more about the problems created when going against the established customs, or bringing the same problems with them (taxes, property values, etc), although the costs in that area will still be less than in SV.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#510

Post by zip1234 »

giantg2 wrote: post #464
zip1234 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every place changes regardless of people trying to preserve them in amber. The 'forced out of your lifelong' home thing is tough but I haven't seen any good solutions to it. California absolutely messed up their state with their property tax changes that turned home ownership into feudalism. Good intentions to help the old people stay in their homes but it means that the new people moving in support the people that l…

"However, in essentially 0 places in the US that are hot housing markets do they allow as much housing as is demanded." And thus my question/comments about controlling the demand side, as the supply side changes haven't worked well. "Good intentions to help the old people stay in their homes but it means that the new people moving in support the people that lived there earlier." Well, the system of funding the school…

Here is an image that shows you what California's property tax system has done: https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/1265719788875272192

Keep in mind that the tax break can be passed on to children when the owner passes. I fail to see the collective good in that system. But at least the owners of that $3.5M home never have to leave while they pay $800/yr in property taxes and the newcomer that moved into the identical house next door pays $25k/yr.

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