Housing prices are increasing throughout the US due to low supply
Change my mind: Density increases local but decreases global prices
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Re: Change my mind: Density increases local but decreases global prices
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
People generally don't seem to be aware of Japan's economic state. Here are some relevant data: Graph of Japanese Stock Market: https://www.macrotrends.net/2593/nikkei-225-index-historical... Graph of Japan's Population: https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/population Graph of Tokyo's Population: https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/21671/tokyo/population Average Salary in Tokyo: https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-s…
I personally don't think it's such a bad thing if our population stays stable rather than increasing, even small decline I don't think is such a bad thing.
In an economy based on growth that means however, investors still expect more money each year.
And that money has to come from somewhere. So either your population grows, so the more work is distributed better on more shoulders or you try to educate them better to increase the quality of the corporations etc.
But the fact that our economies expect constant growth has consequences for everything else
Re: Change my mind: Density increases local but decreases global prices
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
The median resident isn’t buying a place in Shinjuku - see my edited part of the comment. Tokyo’s transit enables cheaper living than is available in the bay.
The bay isn't remotely reasonable comparison. NYC is much cheaper than Tokyo, adjusted for living quarter size and median wage. I'm not talking about affordances you get by living in certain areas - simply the size of the place and the price, relative to localized income. Tokyo simply is not cheaper, period. It only seems cheaper because rich Americans keep using their income and comparing it to the adjusted USD:YEN…
I currently work for a US tech company here in Tokyo, but previously worked at a local tech company.
I've lived in 3 separate places in Tokyo (and currently own an apartment), and everything I've lived in has been bigger and cheaper than my apartment in San Francisco. I currently live in Sangenjaya (central Tokyo, a couple stops from Shibuya) and my mortgage, insurance, HOA, and total expenses are cheaper than my rent alone in SF.
My income is lower, but not in a way that I actually feel, because the overall cost of living is considerably lower in Tokyo. The conversion rate only really matters if you're going out of the country. There's been barely any inflation, so if anything, as the rate eventually goes back to normal, things will still be considerably cheaper here.
Yes, a lot of people live in tiny apartments here, but the cost of those units can be really cheap. You can pay ~$400 a month for a tiny unit here, which you simply can't get in NYC.
Re: Change my mind: Density increases local but decreases global prices
#94I think the missing dimension here is time. Building houses overnight won't magically make Oakland into NYC. It would take time, if it did happen, and until then housing would be cheaper.
Additionally. I think that it would be interesting to consider the distribution of housing costs. There are likely more affordable housing units in NYC than in Oakland (citation very much needed, I'm not sure this is true) , even if there are less relatively. So if your goal is to increase the number of people that can afforably live somewhere (as opposed to decreasing the average housing cost) building may accomplish it, even if it drives up median housing costs.
Lastly, this suggests that perhaps building needs to be accompanied with other policies if the goal is to decrease housing costs (whether rent control, demand reduction, or something else). Unfortunately, I doubt limiting job creation to reduce demand would be popular :)
Re: Change my mind: Density increases local but decreases global prices
#95It has been common sense in real estate investing that the increase in density drives the land price higher (thus the housing price per squire foot). But there is a difference between the density increase of housing units and the density increase of the population. The land price increases only to the point that the added housing capacity is 'fully employed.' And that can be measured by the vacancy rate. When the vacancy rate is low, more density will lead to higher property prices.
Re: Change my mind: Density increases local but decreases global prices
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
> With housing you also have a better chance of outpacing demand growth if you build densely enough. I feel like one important driver of demand is missing here: investment properties. It's no secret that at one moment AirBnB essentially took over tourist hotspots in the most attractive cities, jacking prices up to ridiculous levels. There's a building in my neighborhood that consists of so-called "microapartments" -…
The logical thing for any locality is then to build one million units and sell them for a million dollars each. Since the supply elasticity of price is zero in this model, the locality can amass a trillion dollars easily. At this point, armed with the resources of nations, it can do many things - perhaps buy out an entire island nation, perhaps end wars. If the money is insufficient, sell a billion homes, and now you…
That's a nice vision, but still less absurd than some of the actual listings I've seen, like "Sale! 10 studio apartments!" - you have to buy the whole thing.
I'm in the market for an apartment and some of the best spots are already taken by such housing, while families are pushed to the suburbs.
Re: Change my mind: Density increases local but decreases global prices
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
People generally don't seem to be aware of Japan's economic state. Here are some relevant data: Graph of Japanese Stock Market: https://www.macrotrends.net/2593/nikkei-225-index-historical... Graph of Japan's Population: https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/population Graph of Tokyo's Population: https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/21671/tokyo/population Average Salary in Tokyo: https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-s…
I personally don't think it's such a bad thing if our population stays stable rather than increasing, even small decline I don't think is such a bad thing.
With boomers retiring the numver of non working people with a lot of income increasing relative to the number of people who do work. This is ripe for long term inflation - especially in areas old people spend in, and that’s before the added tax drain of social security.
Re: Change my mind: Density increases local but decreases global prices
#98Never mind houses, what about gas/petrol? It always seems to be more expensive in dense cities, even though there is greater competition and economies of scale (e.g. delivery of the fuel to the stations) while it tends to be cheaper in rural middle-of-nowheres, even if there is no immediate local competition. The cost of land and labor is higher, sure, but even the stations that are owned rather than rented don't see…
>The cost of land and labor is higher, sure, but even the stations that are owned rather than rented don't seem to be much cheaper.
They need the higher prices to recoup the higher costs of land: mortgage cost, property tax cost, opportunity cost of the land.
Re: Change my mind: Density increases local but decreases global prices
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you got it the wrong way around - cities _form_ around opportunities, rather than produce them. Initially, geographic advantage (such as being near harbour, river, or some other geographic feature) gives a settlement that's not yet a city a big advantage in attracting more people there. This in turn, forces the city to grow as more people cram in. To artificially build denser by policy doesn't produce opportu…
Two are not mutually exclusive. A city can be formed around the "opportunity" of a river or whatever a thousand years ago, and yet provide new opportunities like tinder having loads of people nearby nowadays.
Similarly, cities decline after loss of opportunities and opportunities decline after cities make losses.
Re: Change my mind: Density increases local but decreases global prices
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you got it the wrong way around - cities _form_ around opportunities, rather than produce them. Initially, geographic advantage (such as being near harbour, river, or some other geographic feature) gives a settlement that's not yet a city a big advantage in attracting more people there. This in turn, forces the city to grow as more people cram in. To artificially build denser by policy doesn't produce opportu…
There are lots of planned cities that are natural experiments in this: Brasilia, Canberra, Ottawa, Abuja etc. They all show that yes, it is possible to "build it and they will come", but it's hugely expensive, takes a long, long time (decades) to get to critical mass, and produced mixed results at best, eg Brasilia's original strictly separated zoning has been widely panned as a disaster. And I'm pretty sure all of t…
> There are lots of planned cities that are natural experiments in this... They ... produced mixed results at best, eg Brasilia's original strictly separated zoning has been widely panned as a disaster.
I'm not sure if there's been some slight shift of topic here. By "planned", I think we originally meant "deliberately built in relatively undeveloped land". But then you mention as an example of a failure of deliberately building a city in relatively undeveloped land, an example of a failure of micromanagement (also a kind of planning, but one that is completely orthogonal to the circumstances of the city's founding).
So does Brasilia's original strictly separated zoning show the problems of strictly separated zoning, or does it show the problems of deliberately building a city where none was before? It's possible we just had the wrong idea of what you need to have a great city during the 20th century isn't it? Washington DC, for instance, is an artificial city with top-down planning, but it was built at a time when people had different ideas about what made a great city, and it doesn't really seem to be a failure. It doesn't even appear on your list, despite being the case that served as a template for your other examples.
(I don't know. I don't know anything about Brasilia other than that it is the capital of Brazil.)