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

construction-physics.com

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

#111

Post by rootusrootus »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #105
xyzelement wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the residents don't have the most say, who is the authority that is enforcing housing development? How would that not be non-residents?

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

#112

Post by taion »

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…

A big part of the point of that Construction Physics Substack is to explore these factors around innovation, productivity, and process change in the construction sector. I don't think it's really quite as simple as you imply: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-its-hard-to-innov..., https://www.construction-physics.com/p/sketch-of-a-theory-of...

Sometimes practices do reflect real constraints, rather than just path-dependence.

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

#113

Post by shagie »

lanfeust6 wrote: post #95
Auracle wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeless people are largely homeless because of other life circumstances (drug addiction, mental illness), not affordability.

This is wrong. Homelessness scales with affordability, not mental illness or addiction rates. This is why San Fransisco and LA have the highest rates in the country. Noah Smith writes about this at length, the data is very clear.

Homelessness in San Francisco doesn't kill you from the elements in January or July. A homeless person in Minneapolis or Chicago in January may die from the elements on an excessively cold night. A homeless person in Arizona in July can also die from it being too hot.

It's rarely ever too hot or too cold in costal California cities.

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

#114

Post by delichon »

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'…

Two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner is democracy, illustrating a common failure mode of the worst form of government except for all of the others.

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

#115

Post by geodel »

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…

LOL. So people who have been living in an area should have no say but people from planning to move must have a say.

> This will probably never happen in the U.S

Thank god for that.

Maybe checkout in other countries like Canada, UK, France, Germany or even eastern europe, further in Asia on how they are doing on housing front. For sure they couldn't be having housing policies as bad as US.

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

#116

Post by simonklitj »

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…

Or look into building with earth, as used to be the practice: https://www.calearth.org/ and https://www.rael-sanfratello.com/made/mud-frontiers

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

#117

Post by ryukafalz »

dixie_land wrote: post #103
cortesoft wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The market is not deciding when municipalities are legally prohibiting denser, lower-cost housing from being built.

To use your example, it's as if we were to restrict car production to mostly only Ferraris. And then if someone can't afford a Ferrari, we tell them to buy a Honda - but there aren't many of them to buy.

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

#118

Post by matchbok »

throwitaway222 wrote: post #36
spankalee wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owners holding vacant units is not a significant cause of the housing shortage. Overly restrictive zoning and subjective reviews exploited by NIMBYs explains almost all of it.

There are studies - there are more vacation units than homeless people in the United States - like double.

Please take a moment and think if a system where we have 0% vacancy. How would anyone move?

Vacancy is not the issue.

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

#119

Post by mebassett »

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'…

I usually use "democracy" to describe a situation where there are regular transfers of power through reason, persuasion, and cooperation and not through violence or the threat of violence. I'm not sure that it applies to this case about your neighbor, unless you are stopping them through a threat of violence, in which case it is certainly undemocratic.

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

#120

Post by carbocation »

foofie wrote: post #63
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…

> The solution is terrifyingly simple: don't allow existing residents to block new housing developments. If they don't like it, they can move. I think that most jurisdictions already have the legal tools they need to put the public good in front of special interest groups, in the form of eminent domain laws. It's just that the policial will is just not there.

My impression is that you don't need eminent domain takings for this, you just need higher level government (e.g., states) to set more rules around how restrictive local residential zoning is allowed to be.
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