Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not implying that immigration is the only reason for higher housing prices. My opinion is that 0% interest rates and loose credit are the primary reason. However, simple supply/demand would suggest that immigration AND 0% interest rates both affect demand quickly while supply requires securing land, building homes and getting approval to build homes takes significant time. Migrations are happening at a faster rat…
On HN and on tech twitter I often see this statement: “the reason rents are high is because we don’t build enough houses.” But I don’t think that’s really true, I think that’s very simplistic. The missing observation is that housing has become an asset class in a way it wasn’t in the past. Large numbers of people purchase houses to rent seek as landlords, and the only limit to the demand for rent seeking is the abili…
Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)
501–510 of 660 posts
Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
I defy the data [1]. There is too much complexity in that single example and the law of supply/demand has been proven too frequently for it to not make sense that increasing demand to meet supply would reduce cost. 1. For clarity, this phrasing is from here https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vrHRcEDMjZcx5Yfru/i-defy-the...
> I defy the data. Sorry. The reality doesn't care about your defiance. Upzoning does not lead to lower housing prices. Even the most extreme urbanists admit that: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/4/26/upzoning-might... > and the law of supply/demand has been proven too frequently Ah, here it is. Have you considered that there, you know, might be "too much complexity" for "Economy 101" to fully explain the si…
Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the implication here that needle and syringe programs cause needles to be left everywhere? Because, if so... let's just sit with that for a second and think it through.
maybe if you act just a little more condescending i will have a clue what you are trying to say
Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)
#504Without digging too deep into the nature of the statistics they use, I'm a little skeptical of this. The transition to using the word "homeless" has resulted in transforming something we can't easily measure -- "drug addicted or mentally ill people being a public menace" -- into something that we can measure -- "people without a good living arrangement". Sure, the latter is important in a lot of ways too. And there h…
You're assuming others share your perspective and understanding. > The transition to using the word "homeless" has resulted in transforming something we can't easily measure -- "drug addicted or mentally ill people being a public menace" -- into something that we can measure -- "people without a good living arrangement". > the former is the actual problem that we care about The word homeless is pretty old, not someth…
Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>which is a polite way of saying "we don't want apartment-dwelling poor people coming to live near us". NO, it is most definitely NOT that. It is overwhelmingly exactly what people say it is — maintaining the character of a neighborhood that everyone there has paid higher cost of entry, cost of taxes, and cost and time of maintenance and upgrades to maintain. Don't make claims in areas where you have zero knowledge…
The groceries and convenience stores and so on will naturally appear once density increases if they are allowed to. It's a non issue. I'm sympathetic to your plight seeing the character of your neighborhood change if public housing is built, but society has to balance it against the plight of people who are forced to change their neighborhood due to poverty, and on the balance their plight is simply worse than yours.…
But NO, you obviously do not understand, let alone have any sympathy for, preserving environment and habitat. It is not merely inconvenient, what you propose is death for everything from the insects, birds, flora, fauna, and 50-year-old endangered turtle living in the wetland behind my neighborhood. Paving paradise and putting up a parking lot is not a solution.
Beyond that, you are proposing to literally steal uncounted millions of dollars of built-up value. Everyone in this area has willingly paid large amounts of extra costs and far higher taxes to maintain its character, purchase lands for greenspace preservation, trails, etc. It is not mere inconvenience you are talking about, it is literally stealing all of that extra value, and handing it to the developers who will strip the land and put up (almost universally shitty quality) buildings and pavement. You need to compensate the residents who will be displaced, not merely hand their value over to the developers, destroy the habitat and "inconvenience" the current residents.
Moreover, even if grocery and convenience stores "popup" with demand, they will still require cars to get to for almost everyone. It also fails solve the problem of where will be the JOBS or any other supplies. Most things will still be a significant drive away, and you've just solved one problem (lower housing cost) to add another — the requirement to spend money on multiple automobiles per family. And the added pollution and resource usage.
Your problem is you think there is a single simple solution that applies everywhere. You are wrong.
In some cases, it is a great solution. In others, you are literally destroying everything to gain nothing, because you can't be bothered to think about it more deeply. Any society doing that is doomed to failure.
Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
Edit - ok, I see the mistake. Thanks. "Finland has the highest rates of detention per 100 000 inhabitants, about 214" If by detention you mean incarceration, that is still shy of half of the US rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...
Incarceration and detention are totally different things. Incarceration is generally for things that have already happened. Detention is for things that might happen in the future. A convicted criminal is incarcerated. A dangerous patient is detained to prevent them hurting themselves or others going forwards.
Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
> groceries and convenience stores and so on will naturally appear I'm sorry, but that's not how that works. not if you really want it to happen. There's conversations between high level government officials and corporate execs to make things happen. negotiations are had, and contracts are signed. theres a city planning agency that has a CPC. All of that is to say, there's entire industry just in the planning of citi…
There is an entire industry for planning cities, yes. And public housing bypasses most of that industry. It's just a simple fact that if you have a large population center, and market demand for it, basic things like grocery stores and convenience stores will pop up. Not every grocery store and convenience store is run by a large chain that negotiates with the government for a location, if you believe that's the case…
So, you will have just condemned every poor person you transplanted to now buying, maintaining, and insuring an automobile or several for each family. A constantly depreciating asset. Which may well cost more than they saved in rent.
"Oh, just put in public transit", you'll say. Have you ever looked at any suburban/rural bus service? They only run infrequently, and often unreliably on time, and are so now the poor people must squander massive hours of their day just waiting on the busses, or configuring their schedule around the busses.
No one else is overcomplicating it. You are massively oversimplifying it, waving your hands about, and being very loud about proclaiming your virtuous non-solution. Stop it, and think more.
Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Canada the majority of shelter beds go to refugee claimants. I believe it is highly like many illegals in the US are homeless and make up the majority of homeless people. They are not part of the numbers you provided.
> In Canada the majority of shelter beds go to refugee claimants. Is there data someplace that shows it? > I believe it is highly like I believe that angry gods cause rain. What does it matter?
There was a 400+% increase in 2023.
https://www.toronto.ca/news/city-of-toronto-update-on-shelte...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/globalnews.ca/news/10933673/tor...
Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
Relative scarcity is the necessary and sufficient condition. Either there's enough housing or there isn't (there's a bit of slack with relocations, house sharing and spare bedrooms but it's largely inconsequential.) That means that supply (i.e. quantity) is enough. It's true that if it was impossible to speculate on housing, there would be less incentive to create artificial scarcity by e.g. lobbying for restrictive…
> Relative scarcity is the necessary and sufficient condition. Either there's enough housing or there isn't This seems like an oversimplification. Speculation affects demand, so the amount of speculation is hidden within “relative scarcity”. If there is no speculation then demand is directly related to the needs and finances of potential occupants. If there is speculation then demand becomes connected to the buying p…
Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason it's expensive is or because the US is bigger. It's because the people in cities want to keep people out so they make it very expensive. Which in turn fuels homelessness. The desire to exclude, the refusal to permit enough housing, and the rejection of density are the fundamental cause. The scale of the US has nothing to do with it. It's merely a cultural choice by a prior generation that younger generatio…
The answer is to just build a lot more housing. Increasing the housing stock by 10% everywhere would be a good start. If there is so much housing available that buyers don’t get into bidding wars and landlords have to struggle to find tenants, then prices will come down. Why doesn’t this happen? Because developers will have to do more work for less money.