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Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

benjaminschneider.substack.com

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Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#191

Post by pas »

gottorf wrote: post #153
pas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main point is the fast-tracking. Developers don't care if they need to add some landscaping to the whole thing, it just makes things more expensive in the end. What they care about is they don't want to start working on projects that then sit in drawers for years. Of course "LA cracked" nothing, because the construction industry is in absolute shambles. It basically regressed into this cutesy artisanal no…

> ugliest flimsiest Florida-grade paper-thin boxes Is Florida-grade a thing? As far as I know, Florida is the only state where a majority (or plurality?) of single-family homes are built with CMU blocks, vs. the typical stick-framed construction.

I meant these mobile-home looking boxes. (for example Largo has this manufactured home community.)

Probably they are temporary/vacation homes, so they don't count. (Though if a storm is coming it might not care about the distinction. And evacuating ... well, looking at the sat view it's unlikely that a thousand or more cars can just whoosh away at the same time.)

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#192

Post by infotainment »

acdha wrote: post #172
infotainment wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehh, they tried that in the US with major housing projects like Pruitt Igoe, and we all saw how that turned out.

A single failure doesn’t somehow cancel out the more successful versions, it says you should learn from them how not to repeat the mistakes. The toxic stew of racism of the south in the 1950s, for example, seems significant as does the realization that you can’t just toss up a building with no shopping, jobs, poor transportation access, etc. and expect it to go well.

Sure, but it wasn’t just one. Essentially every public housing project in America failed. I’d argue the main problem is American culture as a whole, which emphasizes an attitude of “if I don’t personally own something I should ruin it immediately”

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#193

Post by rcxdude »

beaeglebeached wrote: post #182
rcxdude wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not obvious that would stay fixed: depending on the dynamics of the market, it could go up, it cold go down (The demand is for housing, not land. If you manage to increase supply for housing sufficiently by increasing density, then the value is the land could go down even if you could build many more homes on it than before). I agree it's not certain that it would go down, however.

It becomes obvious as housing density approaches infinity. Why would anyone buy your land for housing if they need one tiny spec to house a billion? This is simple supply and demand, high density housing lowers land value, as price isn't determined primarily by potential utility .

Sure, you can always make an obvious argument at an extreme, but then you need to demonstrate that the extreme is relevant (like, the function is monotonic, not very common in economics).

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#194

Post by reverius42 »

robomartin wrote: post #160
gottorf wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are a range of options, from other places in the US > far more likely that the move will happen within the US I don't know what you value in a place to live in, but many Southern and Midwestern states have much better fiscal and regulatory climates[0] and are full of midsized cities with surprisingly charming and walkable downtown areas. About the only thing you will not find is the delicious Mediterranean cl…

> I don't know what you value in a place to live in Sanity and reason would be a good starting point. California is like dating a beautiful supermodel who is an horrible person. Everyone sees the outside and thinks "How lucky". Nobody know she the person she is inside that exterior. It didn't use to be like this. There's only one reason it got this way, and that is the support of a putrid ideology that has, throughou…

> a putrid ideology that has, throughout history and across the world, destroyed everything it has touched

Does this ideology have a name?

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#195

Post by beaeglebeached »

rcxdude wrote: post #193
beaeglebeached wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It becomes obvious as housing density approaches infinity. Why would anyone buy your land for housing if they need one tiny spec to house a billion? This is simple supply and demand, high density housing lowers land value, as price isn't determined primarily by potential utility .

Sure, you can always make an obvious argument at an extreme, but then you need to demonstrate that the extreme is relevant (like, the function is monotonic, not very common in economics).

[dead]

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#196

Post by acdha »

infotainment wrote: post #192
acdha wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single failure doesn’t somehow cancel out the more successful versions, it says you should learn from them how not to repeat the mistakes. The toxic stew of racism of the south in the 1950s, for example, seems significant as does the realization that you can’t just toss up a building with no shopping, jobs, poor transportation access, etc. and expect it to go well.

Sure, but it wasn’t just one. Essentially every public housing project in America failed. I’d argue the main problem is American culture as a whole, which emphasizes an attitude of “if I don’t personally own something I should ruin it immediately”

It’s not true that every project failed, and you really have to keep things in context. The problem was not the concept of public housing but rather the racial segregation underlying much of that era’s policies and design, and those same policies had many other negative impacts. Saying that we shouldn’t build public housing is responding to the symptom, not the problem.

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#197

Post by Aloisius »

cyberax wrote: post #184
Aloisius wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greenaway-McGrevy (2023) showed an increased supply of housing in Auckland reduced rents in 3-bedroom homes by 26-33% below a control. Mense (2023) showed a 1% yearly increase in housing supply in Germany results in an average local municipality rent to fall by 0.2%. Asquith et al. (2023) found in NYC, the average new building lowers nearby rents within 250 meters of the new building by 5% to 7% relative to the trend…

> Greenaway-McGrevy (2023) showed an increased supply of housing in Auckland reduced rents in 3-bedroom homes by 26-33% below a control. I have not read this one yet. Sounds suspicious, though. The rest are basically what I told: one-time single-digit percentage decreases in rents. This one is also funny: > Asquith et al. (2023) found in NYC, the average new building lowers nearby rents within 250 meters of the new b…

> one-time single-digit percentage decreases in rents

Why would one expect a single increase in supply of available housing units to cause more than a one-time decrease in rent?

> Rents still _increased_, but slightly slower.

I'm not entirely sure why you find this funny. It finds adding housing units reduces surrounding future rents. If you find it funny it didn't lower rent in absolute terms for some reason, extrapolate what would happen to the rent of an place within 250 meters of 20 new buildings.

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#198

Post by yterdy »

epistasis wrote: post #82
yterdy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's advocate: induced demand. Density increases interactions which are the economic point of cities, and why cities are wealthier than suburbs/rural areas (when suburbs/rural areas aren't juiced by subsidies and loans). Wealthier cities attract migration, migration increases demand for units. That said, my personal belief is that prices are completely decoupled from demand and are more reflective of a desperation…

(Keeping in mind that you are playing devils advocate, and that none of this is directed at you personally) Induced demand for highways: sure. Well proven. Happens every single time. Induced demand for housing? Gonna need to see some hard evidence on the time scales, etc. Housing is very different from highways. People can go from using zero freeway miles to 50 freeway miles a day, if there's slightly cheaper housing…

I mean... The very existence of wealthy cities is a sort of proof. Remember that for America to temporarily be one of the few examples where dense cities were less wealthy than spread-out suburbs and exurbs, we had to combine massive subsidies and financing with good old-fashioned racism.

What I don't agree with from GP is the idea of real increases in housing costs for those already in cities. The rising tide lifts most boats, if density isn't being unduly suppressed. So, density increases housing value but also the wealth of city-dwellers, relative to everyone else. Supply keeps up with demand, except where we won't let it.

>the increase in demand comes from having, presumable, more amenities

Not necessarily. It can also come from the increased opportunity for exposure to people and culture.

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#199

Post by readthenotes1 »

SheepSlapper wrote: post #44
readthenotes1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or seeing as how it's kinda important, we could stop regulatory capture for housing. (There is an article here on hackers news not too long ago that said that while most industries had had huge productivity gains in the last 30 years, construction had been flat or decreasing - mostly because of increased regulation)

Coming from a construction family, this is THE problem with building right now. Material costs going up by an order of magnitude during COVID times (and not really recovering) was rough, but it doesn't hold a candle to the dumpster fire that is regulation. Permits for everything (some permits are good, some are SO bad), mandates for things that increase cost for marginal/no gains in the finished product, and a ton of…

I have a friend who builds temporary structures for events. He was telling me that a fire marshal insisted there be a sprinkler insistence installed in the tent over the swimming pool...
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