How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing • Hacker News Board

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#21

Post by thriftwy » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 11:41 AM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #2

I think it's worth occasionally thinking of the "economy" in simple terms, especially for the wider middle class. There are relatively few broad categories that make up most of our economic lives. For most people the "economy" mostly consists of (0) their job/income (1) food/consumable (2) stuff/durables (3) transport (4) vital services: health, education, etc. (5) housing. 1 & 2 are well served by free markets, and…

Soviet housing worked by building a huge number of small and medium cities while trying to limit number of people moving into capital and other desirable cities.

Guess what? After collapse of communism, housing in small cities depreciate rapidly, while housing in capitals skyrocket. There's much many more small cities than there's economic demand for, hence not enough jobs in those.

EDIT: Even when new factories are built by capital, they are usually not in small cities in the middle of nowhere with limited worker pool, but on outskirts of medium-to-large cities in comfortable distance of capital/large city (think Tesla Factory). This makes small cities unfit for anything other than eco-tourism.

Of course it applies more to large countries, since small ones (like Montenegro) just never had the quantities of population to form too many extra cities.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#22

Post by dalbasal » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 11:46 AM UTC

Roritharr wrote: post #13

baxtr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding a German perspective: this might be one factor among many. Other factors include - land owners who wait to sell at even higher prices - drastically reduced social housing construction (Sozialer Wohnbau) - heavy influx of foreign capital (at least in major cities) reducing existing capacities - missing holistic development concepts/strategies (one big exception is probably the Bahnstadt in Heidelberg) - on aver…

What i've lately dreamed about doing is a city-building Kickstarter. You take a piece of undeveloped land in Germany, buy it for cheap and then let people & companies pledge money to build housing at building cost with the requirement that it has to be used by the owner himself, until you get enough for a 500k-1M people city. I'd love to live in a city where every inhabitant is an owner, something drastically differe…

This something only a government could really do.

Housing is nowhere near a free market. Public decisions control what can be built/rebuilt & where, essentially dictating "supply". It's also public infrastructure, services and wider economic policies that determine the value of that supply to consumers.

A quasi-laissez faire housing market can work. The US has many of them, in the geographically unrestricted cities like phoenix or.. lots of cities. The city/country builds roads. Land gets parceled into 1,000 - 5,000 sqm blocks and cheap houses are built on them, starting at $100k + taxes and land which are cheap relative to europe.

This can produce almost unlimited (given unlimited space) housing. Infrastructure is very basic: roads, sewage, etc. They usually don't have sidewalks, nevermind trams. They also produce low-density sprawl. As things get tighter, more and more burden is on cities to plan, provide infrastructure. Rights compete.

In theory, land efficiency and shorter transit distances should balance this out. In practice, land prices (enriched by infrastructure & proximity) generally outpace these efficiencies so house prices are higher anyway. Governments also limit supply in dense areas, because they can't keep up with the infrastructure requirements.

Truly revolutionary projects out of scope for private investors. First, horizons are too long. They can't wait 15 years for the value to emerge. Second, the governments' parts in the game (infrastructure & planning) is more important than private money's. Third, the money is too big, even for today's giant piles of cash. A small city (100k people) would cost 10bn to build, at least.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#23

Post by macspoofing » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 11:47 AM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #2

I think it's worth occasionally thinking of the "economy" in simple terms, especially for the wider middle class. There are relatively few broad categories that make up most of our economic lives. For most people the "economy" mostly consists of (0) their job/income (1) food/consumable (2) stuff/durables (3) transport (4) vital services: health, education, etc. (5) housing. 1 & 2 are well served by free markets, and…

>Housing is in many places (mostly successful cities) the economic disaster. Fully exposed to financialization, business cycles, inflation prone. Rather than signalling to supply, prices adjust to whatever the median person can afford to pay

Why should housing not be to governed by market forces? Housing shortages are due to regulations, from limiting new development outright, to limiting high density buildings, to heavy rent control (disincentivizing investment and maintenance), to regulations that just make housing investment expensive. Reasonable regulations should be the guideline, but they aren't. The most aggregious local example is San Francisco.

Soviet housing never worked. More to the point the wait lists for apartments was measured in years (ripe for corruption). The buildings were shoddy and depressing (hope you like grey). Urban planning was haphazard and may or not may have corresponded to where people actually wanted to live.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#24

Post by Brakenshire » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 11:51 AM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #18

avar wrote: post #10

The reason housing is such an issue in the richest parts of the world is because zoning policy is set at the local level. The interests of prospective buyers and market incumbents are at polar opposites. Byers want cheap housing, but existing owners want their property value to rise. Since those living in the area get to vote the natural outcome is stagnation. Japan is somewhat getting around this for two reasons. Na…

> The reason housing is such an issue in the richest parts of the world is because zoning policy is set at the local level. Don't assume US insanity has sway everywhere else. Continental EU zoning models are similar to Japan's, Germany and France zoning are national/federal policies and non-exclusive zoning.

There's also a national planning framework in the UK which dictates housing numbers, etc. Although councils are free to build houses in undesirable parts of their patch, and block development in the wealthy parts.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#25

Post by macspoofing » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 11:53 AM UTC

neilwilson wrote: post #20

dalbasal wrote: post #2

I think it's worth occasionally thinking of the "economy" in simple terms, especially for the wider middle class. There are relatively few broad categories that make up most of our economic lives. For most people the "economy" mostly consists of (0) their job/income (1) food/consumable (2) stuff/durables (3) transport (4) vital services: health, education, etc. (5) housing. 1 & 2 are well served by free markets, and…

There can never be enough jobs for everybody with 'free markets'. Structurally there can only ever be 95 jobs for every 100 people. Inflation is controlled by an unemployment buffer - because matching people to jobs doesn't clear a market in a world with full time jobs.

That makes no sense. Labour shortage is a real thing.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#26

Post by CalRobert » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 11:53 AM UTC

Roritharr wrote: post #13

baxtr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding a German perspective: this might be one factor among many. Other factors include - land owners who wait to sell at even higher prices - drastically reduced social housing construction (Sozialer Wohnbau) - heavy influx of foreign capital (at least in major cities) reducing existing capacities - missing holistic development concepts/strategies (one big exception is probably the Bahnstadt in Heidelberg) - on aver…

What i've lately dreamed about doing is a city-building Kickstarter. You take a piece of undeveloped land in Germany, buy it for cheap and then let people & companies pledge money to build housing at building cost with the requirement that it has to be used by the owner himself, until you get enough for a 500k-1M people city. I'd love to live in a city where every inhabitant is an owner, something drastically differe…

Make sure it has safe, dutch or danish-level bike infrastructure and I'll join you.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#27

Post by kikimaru » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 11:55 AM UTC

aidos wrote: post #7

afarrell wrote: post #3

> For obvious reasons there aren’t many dwellings in Tokyo dating from earlier than 1950 For those unfamiliar with this bit of history, a significant quantity of Tokyo housing stock was burnt by a US Air Force incendiary bombing operation on March 10th, 1945. It was the single most destructive air attack of WWII, though it is likely that more individuals died in the Atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

I didn’t know about that attack. Thanks. Probably a good time for this reminder: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb >>> Bat bombs were an experimental World War II weapon developed by the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with over a thousand compartments, each containing a hibernating Mexican free-tailed bat with a small, timed incendiary bomb attached. Dropped from a bomber at dawn, th…

>>>In one incident, the Carlsbad Army Airfield Auxiliary Air Base (32°15′39″N 104°13′45″W) near Carlsbad, New Mexico, was set on fire on May 15, 1943, when armed bats were accidentally released. The bats roosted under a fuel tank and incinerated the test range.

I got such a delicious feeling of Schadenfreude from this.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#28

Post by rocqua » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 12:03 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #22

Roritharr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What i've lately dreamed about doing is a city-building Kickstarter. You take a piece of undeveloped land in Germany, buy it for cheap and then let people & companies pledge money to build housing at building cost with the requirement that it has to be used by the owner himself, until you get enough for a 500k-1M people city. I'd love to live in a city where every inhabitant is an owner, something drastically differe…

This something only a government could really do. Housing is nowhere near a free market. Public decisions control what can be built/rebuilt & where, essentially dictating "supply". It's also public infrastructure, services and wider economic policies that determine the value of that supply to consumers. A quasi-laissez faire housing market can work. The US has many of them, in the geographically unrestricted cities l…

In that case, wouldn't the reasonable response to desire for higher density be, you know, demolishing single units to build high density housing?

Often, that isn't possible due to zoning in these 'unrestricted' cities. Zoning tends to be really restrictive, up to the point of placing tight limits on the density of dwellings.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#29

Post by avar » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 12:06 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #18

avar wrote: post #10

The reason housing is such an issue in the richest parts of the world is because zoning policy is set at the local level. The interests of prospective buyers and market incumbents are at polar opposites. Byers want cheap housing, but existing owners want their property value to rise. Since those living in the area get to vote the natural outcome is stagnation. Japan is somewhat getting around this for two reasons. Na…

> The reason housing is such an issue in the richest parts of the world is because zoning policy is set at the local level. Don't assume US insanity has sway everywhere else. Continental EU zoning models are similar to Japan's, Germany and France zoning are national/federal policies and non-exclusive zoning.

Something gets lost in translation when we only talk about whether zoning laws are national or not, but no, this insanity is very much the case in the EU as well, and it's even worse in some cases.

Here's an article about how Paris only recently lifted height restrictions (and then in only some areas of the city): http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2010/11/17/feu-vert-po...

Does that mean Paris has different zoning laws? I don't know, but for the purpose of this discussion it clearly amounts to the same thing. The local government is allowed to set policies which inflate the worth of existing properties by restricting the ability to build up.

I live in Amsterdam, and the zoning is extremely restrictive here, down to the level that only certain streets are allowed to have businesses of any sort, height & appearance restrictions etc.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#30

Post by rocqua » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 12:11 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #4

Interesting note about floor space, NYC has a 400ft minimum which has been had demo projects under that limit, there are some current buildings going to 490 on average so its not like Westerners cannot live in smaller spaces, many do and for similar reasons as Tokyo, the rise in single living. this 2016 article covers the NYC scene pretty well https://ny.curbed.com/2016/9/19/12970542/micro-housing-nyc-f...

Note: 400 square feet is ~37 square Meters.

I happen to write this from a 24 square meter (~260 square foot) apartment, I am very happy with.