Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage • Hacker News Board

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#101

Post by ReptileMan » Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 5:42 PM UTC

mrkstu wrote: post #65

rybosworld wrote: post #57

Every single major population center that has distorted (high) housing costs relative to income, also has very strong protections for the existing home owners (NIMBY). "There are no coincidences..." The solution is terrifyingly simple: don't allow existing residents to block new housing developments. If they don't like it, they can move. This will probably never happen in the U.S., because the government no longer fu…

Well, depends on the level of government you're talking about. If it is local, then if local homeowners (who are local voters) don't want the development, it is eminently 'democratic.'

And yet democracy is best described as "Three wolves and sheep deciding what to have for dinner"

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#102

Post by happyopossum » Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 5:42 PM UTC

dubcanada wrote: post #32

If there is one industry that is the most resistant to change, it's the construction industry. There are still people who have been roofing for 50 years and refuse to change a single thing they do and learned 50 years ago. Saying a bunch of glulam will solve the issue is just incorrect. Wood is fantastic material. But using half a forest to build a 2000sqft house is certainly not the direction we should be going, we…

> There are still people who have been roofing for 50 years and refuse to change a single thing they do and learned 50 years ago.

This is at best a huge exaggeration. For one thing, roofing is not a 50-year career. If you know any 70 year old roofers, they've either been retired or moved on to other things decades ago - the toll that roofing takes on a body makes it a 10-15 year career at best.

Secondly, I've been working with roofers a lot lately - I have a very old style of roof that was common 50 years ago, and it's very hard to find people who can work on it, because everyone wants to do things the modern way.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#103

Post by dixie_land » Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 5:42 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #93

dixie_land wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they don't like it, they can move. It is funny how people criticize the US "colonialism" yet feel entitled that they should be able to move into any neighborhood and drive out current inhabitants.

Do you think we should not allow specific groups of people to live in certain areas?

No one is allowing or disallowing specific groups of people, the market decides.

Is Ferrari "not allow specific groups of people" (I am in that group) to buy their cars by not pricing them the same as a Honda?

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#104

Post by lanfeust6 » Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 5:43 PM UTC

dixie_land wrote: post #97

lanfeust6 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about driving out? And neighborhoods belong to municipalities, voters ultimately decide, not your small cabal of neighbors.

I agree the voters should decide, and in this case they happen to side with NIMBY

Until they don't. Which is happening country-wide.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#105

Post by giraffe_lady » Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 5:45 PM UTC

xyzelement wrote: post #98

rybosworld wrote: post #57

Every single major population center that has distorted (high) housing costs relative to income, also has very strong protections for the existing home owners (NIMBY). "There are no coincidences..." The solution is terrifyingly simple: don't allow existing residents to block new housing developments. If they don't like it, they can move. This will probably never happen in the U.S., because the government no longer fu…

You seem to be coming from the perspective that people who don't live in a place should have more say over the nature of that place than those who do live there. To put it in your terms, why does it make more sense to tell existing residents "your place has to change and you can move if you don't like it" vs channel the new residents to other places where more housing is available and is available cheaper.

They absolutely did not say that non-residents should have "more say over the nature of that place." Simply and narrowly that residents should not be able to block housing development, a much different and more straightforward position.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#106

Post by shagie » Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 5:45 PM UTC

throwitaway222 wrote: post #59

spankalee wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those studies are so often flawed will pieces. Houses begging sold or between tenants are counted as vacant. Vacancies in rural Pennsylvania and Kentucky don't matter much for the homeless in Oakland. What do you even do with that information? Ship the homeless around the country? Other studies should that the higher the vacancy rate the lower the homeless rate and the cheaper housing is. So we can just allow people…

If you do the right "step-up" programs and purchasable housing becomes extremely cheap around the country, it will solve itself. There are a lot of homeless people in Oakland that if found out they can buy a house in Kentucky and afford it with a restaurant dish-cleaning job, they would move. Stop treating the homeless as "shippable containers" they have agency.

I believe that you overestimate the ability / desire for someone to move even if there are more opportunities there.

A person's friends, family, social support... and frankly, modern culture can make moving a sticky problem.

https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/de...

The rate of people moving between states has dropped significantly.

https://www2.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/d...

The people moving within the same city has stayed rather constant, it is the distance moves that have dropped - https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat...

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I believe that if you offered homeless people in Oakland a job and a house in Kentucky that they could pay off in 10 years while working as a dish washer, you would have very few takers.

I would also suggest that the town that has the dishwashing job in Kentucky - that business is likely to close in 5 years and there won't be any more unskilled jobs in the town and they'll be out of a job and unable to pay the mortgage, get foreclosed and be homeless again -- they know that story.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't - homeless in California is known while a homeless in Kentucky is something else with even fewer opportunities out.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#107

Post by cortesoft » Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 5:45 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #81

mrkstu wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, depends on the level of government you're talking about. If it is local, then if local homeowners (who are local voters) don't want the development, it is eminently 'democratic.'

I think it's an interesting question. If I stop my neighbor from building an extension that's 1v1. Doesn't map easily to "democracy". Now, if I and the neighbor on the other side stop our middle neighbor building an extension... it's sort of democracy? The majority decides. But what if everyone else on our street wants to allow it? Now blocking is undemocratic. Thoughout all of this my neighbor might insist they don'…

Democracy is not an easily defined concept in practice.

In theory, Democracy is simply the idea that the government is formed from the will of the people... but there is no single will of the people. How do you decide, then, what the will of the people is?

Many of us have grown up with the idea that 'majority rules' is democracy, but why? What makes 51% a magic number?

Most modern democracies don't like the idea of a majority suppressing a minority, so we put restrictions on what the majority can do. Is that undemocratic? Is the Bill of Rights undemocratic because it blocks the will of the people?

There are no easy answers to these questions.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#108

Post by efsavage » Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 5:47 PM UTC

dubcanada wrote: post #32

If there is one industry that is the most resistant to change, it's the construction industry. There are still people who have been roofing for 50 years and refuse to change a single thing they do and learned 50 years ago. Saying a bunch of glulam will solve the issue is just incorrect. Wood is fantastic material. But using half a forest to build a 2000sqft house is certainly not the direction we should be going, we…

Counterpoint: I spent several years in construction, and the assistant superintendent on the project, who was at the end of a ~50 year career, often complained that so much had changed he had no idea what was going on. The tools, machines, materials, techniques, schedules, laws, etc. all changed so dramatically he was really only able to remain expert at the human elements.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#109

Post by BobaFloutist » Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 5:47 PM UTC

dixie_land wrote: post #97

lanfeust6 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about driving out? And neighborhoods belong to municipalities, voters ultimately decide, not your small cabal of neighbors.

I agree the voters should decide, and in this case they happen to side with NIMBY

Not the state's voters!

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#110

Post by ReptileMan » Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 5:47 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #93

dixie_land wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they don't like it, they can move. It is funny how people criticize the US "colonialism" yet feel entitled that they should be able to move into any neighborhood and drive out current inhabitants.

Do you think we should not allow specific groups of people to live in certain areas?

Why not - there are a lot of non-citizens in a lot of places with very hot markets. I don't see good reason why they should enjoy all the freedoms that the citizens have. This will destroy some of the demand.