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Should European housing politics be Americanized?

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Re: Should European housing politics be Americanized?

#31

Post by JumpCrisscross »

drnick1 wrote: post #25
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> until public policy shifted towards papering over population decline with mass migration Do you have a source showing price increases correlate with migration? (The article seems to show a timing relationship between zoning and prices.)

You can see it in the Japanese data. Japan is more or less closed to immigrants, is experiencing a (for now) slow population decline, and house prices are plummeting.

> Japan is more or less closed to immigrants, is experienced a (for now) slow population decline, and house prices are plummeting

Japan also famously builds lots of housing. (Agree they are a good example, though, for measuring these effects.)

Re: Should European housing politics be Americanized?

#32

Post by ben_w »

paulddraper wrote: post #6
irdc wrote: post #2

The issues around zoning are not comparable. For one, here in the Netherlands we have plenty of density and not a lot of missing-middle, but still a giant shortage. The problem here was never zoning, it was a lack of building.

What causes the lack of building?

Lack of building is the default natural state, one should (in general) ask what causes building.

Even with the stuff in the sibling comments, the Netherlands also famously makes new land.

Re: Should European housing politics be Americanized?

#33

Post by yladiz »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #29
yladiz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but they are don't rise nearly as much as real estate prices in city centers, and it's mostly irrelevant to the point I was making, because it doesn't matter how the prices are outside of the city center if you want to live in the city center.

> they are don't rise nearly as much as real estate prices in city centers Pick the low-hanging fruit. More housing outside the city centre (with requisite transit infrastructure) still means more-affordable housing. That, in turn, should relieve pressure on the centre.

Many cities and areas close to major European cities have good transit infrastructure, yet people don't want to live there, they want to live in the city. So making more housing outside of the city, again, doesn't solve the actual problem facing major European cities.

Re: Should European housing politics be Americanized?

#34

Post by y-curious »

kazen44 wrote: post #12
paulddraper wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What causes the lack of building?

a combination of many things. For one, Cities in the netherlands are already quite dense, and the dutch are focused on building family houses attachted to each other mostly (row housing). Also, thanks to the massive agricultural sector and a lack of oversight on industry, the netherlands has a massive problem with nitrogen in its soil which prevents building because building stuff generates more nitrogen. Speculation…

This is news to me and interesting re: nitrogen crisis. That said, isn’t construction a very minor contributor relative to the agricultural nitrogen impact? Like, taken to an extreme, preventing construction based on this is like preventing people from having children because children will produce nitrogen compounds

Re: Should European housing politics be Americanized?

#35

Post by jonkoops »

yladiz wrote: post #17

Am I understanding that the solution proposed in the article is to allow more dense building in suburbs/outskirts of cities in Europe? This doesn't solve the actual problem that many European cities face, which is a housing shortage in the actual city center, where people want to live; there's generally not that much a lack of housing the further you get outside of a major city center in Europe, and people don't want…

I live in Amsterdam; nobody wants to live in the city center. There are plenty of ways to keep an old city center AND build out the surrounding areas in a way that people actually would like to live there.

We do really need to have a serious conversation about single-family homes; you will even find them right next to metro stations. Some of these low-density neighborhoods really need to be demolished and reconstructed into higher-density housing that can still reasonably house a family.

Re: Should European housing politics be Americanized?

#36

Post by secretsatan »

secretsatan wrote: post #21

Could it be the author only read english articles? The assertion that no one in europe speaks about housing shortages does not reflect my experience. There are no countries in europe who’s native language is english, and all online discourse would be in european languages. ( apart of course from the uk, but the author makes the distinction)

Actually, just typing any search query with a member of the eu and “housing shortages” does bring up results, so this assertion is even more bizarre

Re: Should European housing politics be Americanized?

#37

Post by PeterHolzwarth »

kazen44 wrote: post #12
paulddraper wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What causes the lack of building?

a combination of many things. For one, Cities in the netherlands are already quite dense, and the dutch are focused on building family houses attachted to each other mostly (row housing). Also, thanks to the massive agricultural sector and a lack of oversight on industry, the netherlands has a massive problem with nitrogen in its soil which prevents building because building stuff generates more nitrogen. Speculation…

Thanks for that link and info - I had never heard of this issue, even obliquely!

Re: Should European housing politics be Americanized?

#38

Post by JumpCrisscross »

yladiz wrote: post #33
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are don't rise nearly as much as real estate prices in city centers Pick the low-hanging fruit. More housing outside the city centre (with requisite transit infrastructure) still means more-affordable housing. That, in turn, should relieve pressure on the centre.

Many cities and areas close to major European cities have good transit infrastructure, yet people don't want to live there, they want to live in the city. So making more housing outside of the city, again, doesn't solve the actual problem facing major European cities.

> yet people don't want to live there

This is obviously untrue if the prices have risen.

Re: Should European housing politics be Americanized?

#39

Post by ben_w »

drnick1 wrote: post #20
felooboolooomba wrote: post #14

> European policy debates often become Americanized because of the American domination of social media. No it doesn't. And America doesn't dominate social media in Europe, except repeated administration scandals, paedofiles and history's largest pedo ring cover-up.

Lol, Europeans are quick to adopt all the worst things from America related to tech, including social media, streaming services, proprietary software, iPhones, and random IoT garbage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Survivorship-bias.svg

Every European you meet on social media is necessarily the subset of Europeans who adopted social media. A subset of the population adopting a subset of the stuff doesn't mean adoption in general is as universal as you might assume.

e.g. podcast I was listening to the other day had a German complaining about their bank, after the bank suggested they send a fax.

Re: Should European housing politics be Americanized?

#40

Post by yladiz »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #38
yladiz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many cities and areas close to major European cities have good transit infrastructure, yet people don't want to live there, they want to live in the city. So making more housing outside of the city, again, doesn't solve the actual problem facing major European cities.

> yet people don't want to live there This is obviously untrue if the prices have risen.

What?
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