Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

bostonplans.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 413 posts

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#381

Post by steveBK123 »

lovich wrote: post #371
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They can be purchased by the rich to be used as unlicensed hotels aka airbnb. They can be ought up as "investments" and not effectively rented out effectively enough as long as you don't build so much you literally flood the market. There's a natural floor to this though. For example, if Boston built 3 housing units for every human being on the planet, there would hardly be any problem even if every person wanted t…

We really just need to build in the Boston area. I’m politically pretty close to full on communist but all the policies I’ve seen around creating affordable housing are failures from my analysis. Rent control changes who gets a home from a decision of whose wealthiest to whose luckiest which isn’t any morally or functionally better. Subsidizing or requiring developers to have “affordable” units in developments either…

Yup its all about making it easier to build, easier to build more density.. and build anything else you need to support that - schools, transit, parks, etc.

Everything becomes luxury housing when theres a shortage and it gets bid up by dollars. And the existing government housing has not covered itself in glory such that we should look to that as a solution (paging NYCHA).

This stuck-in-amber Euro-ficiation of US HCOL urban coastal areas is not going to work in the longterm, especially as we continue to have growing population unlike many of the quaint European cities people like to visit.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#382

Post by ghaff »

nradov wrote: post #339
FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't you seen all those hip buildings with high ceilings and exposed brick? They used to be factories and warehouses. Many of them are from a time of much sturdier construction. If the alternative is balloon-frame Mc-residential, then you want to renovate the old brick mill.

Those buildings look like crap. Hardly the kind of place where I would want to live or work if I had any choice.

I guess tastes vary. The old brick factory buildings converted to residential can look really cool. Our city office is also an old factory building. I'll take it over our suburban office park building anytime.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#383

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

bandyaboot wrote: post #196
hedora wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main advantage of living in a converted factory (there are a lot of these in the rust belt) is that you end up with an absolutely enormous space made out of cool materials. I was finding it hard to imagine that there are inner-city office buildings (high rises) that have floors so large that they couldn't be cut into, say 1/4'ths, with four residences on each floor, and each unit having 50% windows along its peri…

I doubt that people in the market for a downtown apartment share the same priorities for selecting a home as people who would buy a McMansion. I also don’t think you can equate 10,000 sq ft over multiple floors with the same area on a single floor. I don’t know how that space would be designed in any practical manner that wouldn’t turn it into a labyrinth. I guess if someone wants a ballroom or a basketball court in…

> 10,000 sq ft over multiple floors with the same area on a single floor

My neighbor's house is, IIRC, 11,000 sq-ft all on a single floor. Just a lot of very big rooms.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#384

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

nradov wrote: post #339
FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't you seen all those hip buildings with high ceilings and exposed brick? They used to be factories and warehouses. Many of them are from a time of much sturdier construction. If the alternative is balloon-frame Mc-residential, then you want to renovate the old brick mill.

Those buildings look like crap. Hardly the kind of place where I would want to live or work if I had any choice.

Tastes do indeed vary. Part of the reason I took my last job was because the building used to be a 19th century factory and there was so much cool looking exposed brick and timbers. The atmosphere was so different from the cubicle hell of the last job that I actually felt energized going into the office every morning.

Of course, more money didn't hurt either ;-)

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#385

Post by mec31 »

bee_rider wrote: post #93
kgc wrote: post #82

Maybe just make the middle a datacenter that uses that modern HVAC. Datacenter doesn't need windows.

Plus Boston is a big biotech city. Chilly winter day? Fold some proteins.

Fun fact—AI has done that already. 200 million proteins have been folded (and that’s all there are). Folding at Home is no longer a thing!

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#386

Post by [deleted] »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #302
bmitc wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you getting at? That is not necessarily the only conclusion that supports that, but it is one. A lot of urban designers just think that building apartment buildings will help with the demand problem in the same way that people think building highways alleviates congestion, which perhaps surprisingly urban designers know that that doesn't work for highways. And I see no evidence, at least in big metropolitan…

You absolutely could build your way out of highway traffic given sufficient lanes. However, given the constraints of land and how density inefficient cars are, you'd have to build double or even triple (etc) decker highways all over the place, which is totally economically infeasible. Meanwhile, you can build a shitton of lanes out in the exurbs, sure, but then all the cars on your thirty lane highway have to go some…

[deleted]

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#387

Post by Arrath »

menus wrote: post #379
spywaregorilla wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original comment was a single sentence, not a thorough advocate proposal.

My point exactly. Glad we have understanding.

Is your contention then that every statement even in casual conversation must have background and explanation to cover every possible angle and interpretation?

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#388

Post by eliasmacpherson »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #377
eliasmacpherson wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on the other hand, if they don't rent them out they can let them appreciate in value, wait for more wealthy families to show up.

This is circular reasoning because homes are rising in value due to lack of supply. With enough supply it would not make sense to sit on an empty home as it would not make a good investment.

Why do people sit on empty homes then, in the face of rising supply of luxury homes? The demand side of the equation is unable to finance a purchase. The wealthy can wait until they get the gains they want. There's nothing circular about it.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#389

Post by xyzelement »

lovich wrote: post #373
xyzelement wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

// Downtown apartments (in good condition) are expensive because they are in high demand Yup, my question is - do we expect this to hold when downtown is no longer the place to be for work.

It’s the place where shit is though, even beyond work. My wife and I moved out of Boston due to the pricing, but if we could afford it while maintaining our current savings rate we’d move back in a heartbeat even though we both have remote jobs. The density allows for so many choices in food and entertainment that you can’t get in the suburbs or countryside. And that’s without even accounting for the lack of needing…

Sure, but it doesn't sound like you have kids (yet) based on how you are describing it. Sorry if that's a wrong assumption.

I totally get how at the period of life before you have kids, the city has advantages but once you have kids that formula flips quite a bit (eg: you care about access to Thai food less, while the backyard starts to matter a lot.)

To put it in the terms of my up-thread post - that still sounds like a relatively smaller total demand vs before (eg, before COVID I suggested buying a larger place so we could have kids in NYC and I would have an easy commute - now I couldn't care less about being there vs my nice burb)

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#390

Post by ProfessorLayton »

eliasmacpherson wrote: post #388
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is circular reasoning because homes are rising in value due to lack of supply. With enough supply it would not make sense to sit on an empty home as it would not make a good investment.

Why do people sit on empty homes then, in the face of rising supply of luxury homes? The demand side of the equation is unable to finance a purchase. The wealthy can wait until they get the gains they want. There's nothing circular about it.

They're sitting on empty homes because there's not enough supply. Without solving the supply issue the wealthy will keep using residential real estate for investment purposes.

The wealthy aren't waiting around to buy/sell houses per se, they're trying to get a maximum return on investment. Adding enough supply so that housing isn't an investment vehicle removes those incentives.

Post reply on HN