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Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

nytimes.com

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Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#141

Post by pandaman »

cglan wrote: post #12

Definitely not against this, since any housing is good, and I hate letting perfect be the enemy of good, but not sure why we are so intent on scaling the concept of a single family home down to 200sqft. Townhouses in NYC have existed for over a hundred years, and generally across the world are an extremely viable concept for dense and cheap housing. It's perfectly possible to build cheap townhomes that can house 6 or…

You cannot build anything on-site "dirt cheap". Check out labor and materials costs in construction. This is why all these "tiny houses" are brought up, apparently they are built off-site and do not cost nearly as much as the traditional construction. Can you ship a townhouse overseas in a container ship? If not, it's not going to be dirt cheap even if the land, and planning and permitting are free.

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#142

Post by TexanFeller »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #20
thriftwy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just not sure how you get these problems unironically. What's so hard about having a grocery store and reliable transit to downtown? The notorious St. Petersburg's Murino district is located outside city's boundary but it has a metro station, several grocery stores, bakeries, bars and other shops. It's not like US poor have no disposable income at all. Kudrovo has worse transit options but features an absolutely…

I don't know, but many cities do not have reliable transit. Hourly busses that stop after 9pm doesn't help at all. And thars the case for a lot of the western part of the US. Also, thst grocery store may not exactly be profitable and be worth keeping up. Especially if Walmart or something use to station there and then left.

And groceries from the grocery store downtown will cost 2x what the grocery stores outside of downtown will. Basically every good or service you buy downtown doubles in price so is it really a benefit to have poor people try to live there and wonder why they fail?

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#143

Post by cyberax »

wolverine876 wrote: post #140
cyberax wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What makes downtowns "misery centrals"? Having to live without a backyard and in a small space, crowded with other people, and having to deal with constant traffic. > In most cities, they are the most expensive places to live - they are the most expensive, nicest places to live in the world. And that's EXACTLY what makes downtowns "misery centrals". An average person will NOT be able to afford a large comfortable a…

It sounds like it would be miserable for you, a preference you are entitled to, of course. At the same time, many, many people love it. In NYC alone millions of people pay astronomical rents and mortgages for the privilege of living in tiny spaces in close quarters, no yards, etc. They have for generations. And then we can add everyone in all the other cities, all over the wealthy part of the world, doing the same. A…

> At the same time, many, many people love it.

Sure. That's what people tell themselves. Realistically, most people would prefer to live in a less dense area, but they can't do that because there are no jobs for them there.

> In NYC alone millions of people pay astronomical rents and mortgages for the privilege of living in tiny spaces in close quarters, no yards, etc.

Exactly. And it's getting _worse_ with every generation, right now NYC is at 530 square ft. per capita, down from 700 in 1980. It's even worse for Manhattan.

> It's not 'misery central', just something where you have a different preference.

Yes, it's misery central.

> Where does that come from? I understand we won't all have data all the time (I sure don't always), but until then, it's words.

I analyzed a database of all real estate sales in the US for the last 25 years. There is plenty of other research that found similar results. The _best_ outcome was something like transient single-digit percentage decreases in rents near new construction.

I don't have the links on my phone, but you can google the "Supply Skepticism" paper from the Furman Center. It's a nice overview of the literature, and it's written from the viewpoint of pro-density (to prevent questions about bias).

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#144

Post by [deleted] »

cyberax wrote: post #137
JeffSnazz wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you build them elsewhere you're not going to do much about the unhoused population downtown. That just leads to using police violence to forcibly segregate by class.... Anyway, housing is kind of fucked so long as americans consider it a private investment rather than a common good. How do you think we got in this mess to begin with?

> Well if you build them elsewhere you're not going to do much about the unhoused population downtown. Newsflash: neither would tiny houses. On the West Coast, the downtown homeless population is almost 100% drug addicts these days. No amount of housing can fix that. And for the sane population (i.e. not fentanyl addicts), being AWAY from downtowns is a blessing. > Anyway, housing is kind of fucked so long as america…

[deleted]

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#145

Post by thriftwy »

wolverine876 wrote: post #125
thriftwy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is an unique US situation where you are unable to scale down Walmart. Just make a Walmart Lite with no jeans or TVs but only food. Then these can be built practically everywhere, offering the same competitive prices. There are half dozen of chains like this in Russia and they often open on the other sides of same street.

Are there places in Russia without grocery stores nearby?

Yes but they are usually really small. Like a village with 20 person permanent population small. Get it to 50 and a tiny shop will spring up.

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#146

Post by lukas099 »

brudgers wrote: post #83

As intended, I read the headline and the beginning of article picturing tiny houses. Which sounds like treating the unhoused like I would want to be treated. Then: most of its homes lack bathrooms and kitchens And it all made sense, it’s a campground. But written so I imagined tiny houses.

This is one of the main rhetorical techniques that 'progressive'-type nimbys use to suppress housing. "This new housing isn't good enough. We should treat our homeless better than this."

Completely failing to see that the fact that people are choosing to live in these houses is proof that they were the best available option to at least some people, and that for many the alternative is homelessness.

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#147

Post by lukas099 »

wyldfire wrote: post #30
crooked-v wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason you don't see those is that middle-density housing is indirectly or directly illegal in almost every major US metro area. Developers would love to build that kind of thing because it gets snapped up immediately wherever it's available, but they're not allowed to do so.

Townhomes are present all over the city of Austin and surrounding areas. At least in this case it's not an obstacle.

Of course they are present. That doesn't mean the market is supplying them in anywhere near the quantity demanded.

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#148

Post by lukas099 »

crooked-v wrote: post #75
wyldfire wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Townhomes are present all over the city of Austin and surrounding areas. At least in this case it's not an obstacle.

Philadelphia is another of the rare counterexamples, as the zoning there allows new row houses and townhouses almost everywhere.

Philly is an old city. It probably already had townhomes everywhere, and would benefit from allowing further stages of density.

Re: Austin takes a bet on tiny homes to ease homelessness

#149

Post by earthling8118 »

hamandcheese wrote: post #91
faeriechangling wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not make sense, vehicle usage is expensive, becoming more expensive due to energy costs increasing over time, and car owners are not paying for the true cost of their cars because externalities like the environmental impact of cars isn’t priced in. A major policy objective is to get climate change under control, sprawl directly makes that problem worse. Also think about why it is that some cities are so big.…

You seem to be ignoring reality. In most of America, a car is the only form of reliable transportation, and there is little to no bike infrastructure. Even if there was good bike infrastructure, everything is too damn far apart. A 50 year plan for infrastructure to change that doesn't do anything for homeless today. But a car might.

You seem to be ignoring their words and also reality. Yes, there is not a good solution in America that doesn't involve a car. That's the problem they are trying to speak about. Applying short term bandaids to the problem will absolutely help the people current experiencing struggles but isn't going to make it any less important to solve this at a societal level.
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