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

Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

oecdecoscope.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 660 posts

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#571

Post by cyberax »

tiahura wrote: post #500
cyberax wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The _only_ way to decrease the housing prices is to BUILD MORE SUBURBS. Or even new cities entirely. Preach brother. Might I also add the possibility of encouraging migration from Metropolises to regional 100k - 200kish cities?

Yup. It's pretty much the only way to fix the housing crisis.

I think that 300k is the threshold for a good city size.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#572

Post by tacitusarc »

tacitusarc wrote: post #380
cyberax wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a natural experiment: Minneapolis vs. Madison. Minneapolis abolished the single-family zoning and parking requirements in 2018. And it worked, developers swarmed the city like vultures attracted to carrion. Madison did no such nonsense. Can you guess the impact of these policies on housing costs? The house price growth in Minneapolis _accelerated_, just like in the nearby Madison. Here are the price growth ch…

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...

*increasing supply to meet demand

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#573

Post by cyberax »

germinalphrase wrote: post #538
cyberax wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a natural experiment: Minneapolis vs. Madison. Minneapolis abolished the single-family zoning and parking requirements in 2018. And it worked, developers swarmed the city like vultures attracted to carrion. Madison did no such nonsense. Can you guess the impact of these policies on housing costs? The house price growth in Minneapolis _accelerated_, just like in the nearby Madison. Here are the price growth ch…

FWIW: as a Minneapolis resident, my experience is that there is active hostility and grassroots rejection of adding dense housing in neighborhoods that are traditionally single family homes. I would be curious to see how much dense housing has actually been built post-2018 relative to the historical norm, as the small number of apartment buildings I've seen go up along light rail and buss corridors have fought tooth…

It'll get worse: https://minnesotareformer.com/2023/08/31/ending-minimum-park...

The usual misery pushers are already celebrating the win.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#574

Post by cyberax »

waveBidder wrote: post #480
cyberax wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a natural experiment: Minneapolis vs. Madison. Minneapolis abolished the single-family zoning and parking requirements in 2018. And it worked, developers swarmed the city like vultures attracted to carrion. Madison did no such nonsense. Can you guess the impact of these policies on housing costs? The house price growth in Minneapolis _accelerated_, just like in the nearby Madison. Here are the price growth ch…

Those abolishments are way less intense than you're thinking. There's still a ton of restrictions that make building even the triplexes that they technically legalized actually get built. Things like floor/area ratios and setbacks, which make building dwellings that people want difficult. https://streets.mn/2023/10/24/mapping-minneapolis-duplexes-a...

The abolishments actually fundamentally changed Minneapolis: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/...

Most of the new units are in massive multi-apartment buildings. And these buildings have a huge disproportionate impact on the quality of life.

It's now going to be sliding into shittier and shittier conditions. More crime, more congestion, higher housing prices.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#575

Post by cyberax »

tacitusarc wrote: post #398
cyberax wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Firstly, your link is focused on zoning changes, specifically how they are insufficient to prompt addition supply to be built. From your linked blog post: > Freemark finds extremely mixed and uncertain evidence for the effects of upzoning, and one of several reasons he identifies is that the link between upzoning and actual housing production is tenuous. In other words, “Are they allowed to build it?” is a different…

> Firstly, your link is focused on zoning changes, specifically how they are insufficient to prompt addition supply to be built.

Yeah. The misery pushers (urbanists) can't admit outright that their ideology is leading to disaster, can they? So they now need not only zoning restrictions lifted, but the state must also build housing and give it out to "deserving" people for cheap.

> Secondly, building more suburbs and more cities increases the supply… which indicates agreement that the price problem is one of insufficient supply.

I'm not arguing against supply-and-demand in general (I'm not a communist idiot). I'm arguing against the _density_ increases.

> EDIT: To be perfectly clear, the data I disagree with is that increasing supply in Minneapolis failed to impact price.

But it did. The real estate transaction index clearly shows that there were no positive effects from the new construction.

Moreover, I analyzed all the real estate sales in the US, Canada, and parts of Europe since 1995. I have not found a single example of a large (>100k population) city that decreased the housing sale prices by increasing density.

Even during the crash of 2007, the dense housing crashed less than comparative nearby sparse housing.

The scholarly literature is also unambiguous. The best effects of density increases are either mild (transient effects on rent), or indirect (migration chains).

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#576

Post by sudosysgen »

toss1 wrote: post #507
sudosysgen wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, and even if they do magically popup, the grocery stores will STILL be a drive for everyone. And stores for every other supply, and the JOBS , will be a significant drive away. 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,…

> Yes, and even if they do magically popup, the grocery stores will STILL be a drive for everyone. And stores for every other supply, and the JOBS, will be a significant drive away.

There is basically nowhere a family can pay less for rent that the price of upkeeping a beater car - the residents were going to have a car either way. There's just not enough public transit in the US to avoid this reality outside of cities with high rent, especially for apartments large enough for a family.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#577

Post by BlueTemplar »

rhubarbtree wrote: post #528
jfil wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting perspective on increased supply that I haven't considered before. It is remarkable how similar the Canadian housing situation is to the UK's.

It's the same everywhere, and even China is copying the model. Housing is a fixed asset and everyone needs one, so the moment you allow people to borrow to buy and let then the renters are stuck and the house prices soar. The reason it's the same everywhere is that this model magically creates "growth" and "wealth". My house is worth £100K. House prices increase. So now there is more wealth in the economy (there isn'…

But even economists are aware of the difference between wealth and value : you are describing inflation.

Why were you allowed to / it was a good idea to remortgage under ~20% inflation ?

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#578

Post by BlueTemplar »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #444
cyberax wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a functioning economy, people won't be feeling pressure to move into a handful of population centers. Canada has PLENTY of free space for construction, and modern construction is pretty cheap and efficient. But economic forces are concentrating the growth in a few areas. Well-intentioned efforts to force "affordable housing" and "walkable neighborhoods" make these forces even worse. The root cause fix is to stop t…

People have been moving from rural areas to cities since the beginning of the industrial revolution. People want to improve their economic lot, and that is the most likely way to do it. I didn't know of it is even possible to stop that in a capitalist society.

And even before, but cities used to be much more deadly.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#579

Post by marssaxman »

toss1 wrote: post #71
marssaxman wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your skepticism! The proposition that rates of homelessness are primarily driven by housing costs has actually been well supported in research - this Pew article contains many useful references: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/... As per econ 101, high prices are a function of scarcity relative to demand: we can reasonably claim that regulations which restrict housing developm…

>>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…

> Moreover, saying that zoning in locales like this should be changed to accommodate low-income high-density housing is just stupid.

It's a good thing I am not talking about locales like yours, then; unless your small town has a demographically-improbable homelessness problem, akin to the ones you see in big cities whose history of inadequate development due to strict zoning regulation has created a persistent housing crunch, nothing I said pertains to you.

> 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.

You're not making this point of view sound any more appealing by defining "the character of a neighborhood" entirely in terms of money.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#580

Post by mmooss »

Arn_Thor wrote: post #425
vasco wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I spend a lot of time in cities and know others who do too. None feel menaced by people who are unhoused - why would that be menacing? - or high. High people generally don't know you are there, and are easily avoided. I've had zero problems; I don't know of anyone else who has This is completely detached from reality. I find it hard to believe you are being truthful unless you're doing some sort of gotcha where you…

Whether the very real fear of the homeless/mentally ill/drug addicted is justified and rational is a big elephant in the room.

Fear is a feeling, and I'm not sure what "very real" means, as if your feelings are matter of national importance. If someone commits a crime, then the people are justified in acting - in a proportionate, necessary way - through government. Otherwise, your fear is your problem. Maybe the homeless person is scared of you - after all, you can call the police and subject them to serious abuse.

I agree that it's an often implied issue, but I think the sub-subtext, the point of it all, is far more serious: whether you can do things to other people - via the state or personally - for arbitrary reasons. That is, whether people have universal human rights. That is the elephant they are hunting.

They have found their best test cases, their best steps toward destroying universal human rights, with homeless people, people without legal immigration status, and those engaging in progressive protests.

They won't stop there, of course. It's either human rights for all or for none.

Post reply on HN