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The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

derekthompson.org

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Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#791

Post by camgunz »

ausbah wrote: post #694
camgunz wrote: post #513

The housing crisis is a cultural problem. We don't want to build density, and we don't want to build transportation, because this all lowers housing values, and besides the millions of homeowners you'll piss off, you'll destabilize an economy primarily built on the mortgage. Not a good reelection plan. The places you're seeing growth are places where we could buy the land for cheap: suburbs and exurbs. We build huge…

this is sort of wrong though, there is a measurable increase in positive economic activity with increased density. you can increase housing in an area in a way that doesn’t mess with people’s existing home evaluations, at least in urban enough areas

That's interesting, are there comparable examples? Like, I'm sure China could do this by telling everyone what home values will be for the next 3 years while they build literally millions of housing units, but I'm skeptical we could double the density of SF without cratering its housing values or significantly changing its boundaries.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#792

Post by antifa »

LargeWu wrote: post #640
davidw wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been doing YIMBY stuff for around 8 years now, and it does not map nicely onto any kind of left-right narrative. There was one conservative dude who ran for city council here who was all about 'private property' and 'get rid of government regulations', who also ran against the idea of liberalizing zoning. I've met left wing people who I agree with on many issues who will do the most spectacular, Olympic level…

It's dogmatic among the left that "market based solutions are bad". And because Abundance embraces market solutions, it must therefore be bad too. Basically, all the arguments I've seen against Abundance tend either towards the ideological, or irrelevant. I tend to see very little empirical arguments.

No, the problem is when the markets are freer than the people.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#793

Post by germinalphrase »

tptacek wrote: post #780
germinalphrase wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very region dependent. When I left education for consulting after 10 years as a HS teacher, I was making 55k. I started at 38k.

In Chicagoland, it's one of the better benefits packages you can get in a widely-available job. Defined-benefit pension, great health, huge amounts of vacation.

I know a few retired teachers in the Chicago area, and it’s uniquely generous*.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#794

Post by pegasus »

Telemakhos wrote: post #584
hamhock666 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't people already pay for things like the NYT? I guess local papers might be harder, they may have to demonstrate they can reveal the journalistic failures of other papers in local affairs.

Nobody pays for news from the NYT. NYT is a game developer that also provides news on the side. Their games are their main draw; my gf subscribes and never reads the news. https://www.axios.com/2024/01/29/wordle-nyt-games-news-media... The legacy media were advertising companies who also happened to provide news. People aren't willing to subscribe for advertising, but they will for games.

If we're going by anecdata, here's another data point: I subscribe to NYT and don't play any of their games. Yes, I read it for the articles but also, to a large degree, for the subscriber comments as well. Similarly to the reason I frequent Hacker News. And to stay up to date with what has been my home for a long time. And also NYT Cooking, though I only access that once in a blue moon.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#795

Post by nathan_compton »

johnisgood wrote: post #784
Hammershaft wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both ideologies evolved from the same source of classical liberalism, and still share plenty in common today.

But liberals would definitely down-vote me if I talked about Rothbard and Mises. Why do you think that is?

Because they have a difference in opinion with you about the degree to which markets should be allowed to exclusively allocate resources?

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#796

Post by pegasus »

echelon_musk wrote: post #573
bboygravity wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fascinating to me that people would pay to read obvious political propaganda. I get that the state-sponsored "news" in many EU countries is heavily politically coloured, but why would something like NYT be if they have paying subscribers? I never did the research, but I'm guessing they must have huge additional streams of income besides payments from readers?

It's depressing to see the paper that once had the courage to publish the Pentagon Papers seen as publishing political propaganda. What alternative revenue incentive do you see that could support independent journalism?

You think nobody accused the NYT of propaganda during the Pentagon Papers years? Or ultimately, any other publication during any other period? What's new?

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#797

Post by johnisgood »

nathan_compton wrote: post #795
johnisgood wrote: post #784

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But liberals would definitely down-vote me if I talked about Rothbard and Mises. Why do you think that is?

Because they have a difference in opinion with you about the degree to which markets should be allowed to exclusively allocate resources?

I personally am in favor of free market. Are they? I do not shy away from being a minarchist either, to be honest.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#798

Post by __turbobrew__ »

pembrook wrote: post #547
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My gut feeling is that wealthy people buying up the housing stock to rent out is not actually as common just supply restrictions not meeting the demands of individuals. I used to live in Vancouver, and on my street almost all occupants were owners. But guess what, the number of houses on that street has not changes in 100 years, and the number of people who want to live in Vancouver has probably increased tenfold. Th…

> Anything short of taxing every residence which is not a primary residence AND banning foreign ownership AND reducing permitting toil AND raising interest rates, is going to fall short. You forgot eliminating favorable taxation for real estate as well. But actually if you kept all of those factors and simply just increased supply, it would still lower prices. It's not that complicated. It doesn't matter how many inc…

> only 30%

That is a huge amount. I don’t blame immigration and foreign ownership as the only issues with Vancouver prices, but 30% of housing stock being owned just by Chinese population is massive. I knew several people who were Chinese nationals and owned a factory or large business in China and then bought a $4 million home in Vancouver. I don’t have any personal issues with these people and I befriend several, but I also realize that foreign capital from the richest residents outside of Canada were out competing locals.

Another thing to consider is that a large number of foreign nationals buying real estate in Vancouver come from countries that have strong capital controls (China, India) whereas Canada has basically no capital controls which results in a pretty onesided trade relationship.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#799

Post by ajkjk »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #242
ajkjk wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like fewer restrictions would mean more garbage getting built.

The idea is that there will be more competition.

Well that's what they say, but it seems like there should already be enough competition for people to cause less garbage to be built, and it's not working, they just build it anyway.

My town has a bunch of half empty new buildings that are keeping their prices high instead of competing on price (they're also garbage construction, so they didn't compete on quality either). Apparently it makes more financial sense to the owner to keep empty units instead of competing because of the value of snagging a few tenants at higher rents or something.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#800

Post by __turbobrew__ »

tomrod wrote: post #548
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? If the real estate prices half and the municipality doubles the tax rate, everyone pays the same amount of tax in dollars per year?

Because people don't enjoy paying taxes if they perceived they should go down.

The cost of running a city is largely independent of house prices, so if the real estate market crashes there is no getting around that municipalities need to increase tax rates to meet their cashflow needs. People may not like that they feel they are getting ripped off, but the existing infrastructure has relatively fixed ongoing costs to maintain.
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