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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

#251

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

happyopossum wrote: post #92
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…

> because the government no longer functions as intended This seems contrary to what you're stating - local government exists to represent the interests of local residents. Protecting those residents from external forces is completely in-line with their mandate. > If they don't like it, they can move. A person who owns land somewhere should have more sway over local politics than a megacorp developer from another sta…

> A person who owns land somewhere should have more sway over local politics than a megacorp developer from another state or country.

The developer's interests come from the local non-land owning residents...

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

#252

Post by ska »

robocat wrote: post #194
ska wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A major issue with housing is that it is a primary driver of wealth for many Americans. This was a very unfortunate trap that many western governments fell into in the latter part of 20th century. It's not really about wealth per se. but forced saving for retirement (i.e. reducing government responsibility for elder care).

> reducing government responsibility for elder care That's a bit of a non-sequitur. The economy pays for elder care no matter what, and mostly our governments remain responsible if people haven't saved. Plus we get emergent outcomes in our economies for systemic reasons - blaming our governments as though they are effective at controlling everything makes little sense. Even if true it seems unlikely to be a primary r…

> and mostly our governments remain responsible if people haven't saved.

That's the point of it being "forced saving".

Look, I'm not saying the government steered everything or even that they thought it through very far. I'm saying that they constructed a bunch of programs (in US, Fannie/Freddy, mortgage tax break, etc. similar other countries) to subsidize and incentivize house ownership in ways that economists hate (creates market distortions). Couple this with policies that support growth of houses as an asset class effectively has people saving pretty aggressively in a way that will typically be available to them in retirement. Less people with no assets upon retiring means less load on government programs. Implicit in this is left to their own devices, most people don't save as effectively.

The trap part is this: once this system has momentum any abrupt policy change will result in a lot more people being directly dependent, or more directly dependent on government programs in their old age. This will have massive budget impacts and governments know it.

The second part of the trap, which we are seeing now, is that if you make housing too effective as an investment vehicle, it will be financialized and further distorted away from effectively functioning as housing.

It's not just financialization of housing - as you note there are emergent outcomes in complex systems. For example, end of life care would probably look a lot different if it wasn't often effectively drawing down some of these savings.

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

#253

Post by jghn »

kevingadd wrote: post #218
jghn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tipping fees What is a tipping fee

Waste disposal. Construction and remodeling both produce huge amounts of waste and it needs to be disposed of in specific ways.

Huh. Have never heard that called a tipping fee. When we've had work done there's just a line item for dumpster/removal/etc

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

#254

Post by KerrAvon »

gadflyinyoureye wrote: post #209
shortsunblack wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is fine, if they are willing to pay the full cost of it. suburbia is massively subsidized.

Is it? Those same people work and pay taxes. If they couldn’t live in a city due to cost that city would have less revenue as a result of fewer employed people buying goods and services.

Are you seriously suggesting that everyone in the USA should be forced to live in apartment blocks, or am I misreading you?

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

#255

Post by giantg2 »

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.

It might be correlated, and it might making a difference at the margins (eg the people who have a job and can afford to live in a car). But the vast majority of the homeless population does not fit in that margin. Most of them do have other problems preventing them from getting any job, like severe mental health, substance abuse, or criminal records. Affordability is a moot point when employment is unattainable.

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

#256

Post by comte7092 »

zdragnar wrote: post #169
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…

> If they don't like it, they can move. Why doesn't the same logic apply to people who don't like the high prices of housing in some areas? There's plenty of affordable housing in the country, but it doesn't all exist in the places people want to live.

Affordable isn’t only about price, but price relative to income.

Not everyone can have a location independent job. Many places that seem “affordable” lack decent paying jobs. And the areas with the highest paying jobs are filled with people who scream that people should go live somewhere else.

These are people who started the race a mile ahead and think they are superior runners. They’ve done very little to earn what they have and are fighting like hell to avoid even mild inconveniences to themselves (e.g. an affordable development for low income seniors or teachers).

Before you say “well this is what voters want” voters at the state level got legislation through that mandated changes and the minority of voters in a handful of well off areas are actively disregarding that law.

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

#257

Post by dh2022 »

tptacek wrote: post #140
happyopossum wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because the government no longer functions as intended This seems contrary to what you're stating - local government exists to represent the interests of local residents. Protecting those residents from external forces is completely in-line with their mandate. > If they don't like it, they can move. A person who owns land somewhere should have more sway over local politics than a megacorp developer from another sta…

There are limits to the acceptable protections Home Rule local governments can supply, and a growing consensus that single-family zoning is not one of those acceptable protections, which is leading states to preempt local governments on that question.

Well, the growing consensus is not big enough to sway the local governments. I guess you need to wait for it to grow until is big enough....

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

#259

Post by nradov »

Jomus wrote: post #210
nightski wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's hard to believe that many people are simply happier living in their own single family home and have little desire for the urban lifestyle.

I know it's hard to believe that many people just want affordable housing

I would like for all of the things I buy to be cheaper, including housing. No one finds that hard to believe. But reducing housing costs will require making tough decisions and some special interest groups will end up as net losers, so it's just hard to build political consensus for any major changes.

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

#260

Post by tptacek »

dh2022 wrote: post #257
tptacek wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are limits to the acceptable protections Home Rule local governments can supply, and a growing consensus that single-family zoning is not one of those acceptable protections, which is leading states to preempt local governments on that question.

Well, the growing consensus is not big enough to sway the local governments. I guess you need to wait for it to grow until is big enough....

The point of the comment you're responding to is that we're approaching a policy equilibrium where local governments don't matter anymore on this question, because they're not allowed to rule on it. See: California.
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