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

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

#341

Post by majormajor »

yitianjian wrote: post #330
majormajor wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't sit on the train for an hour. In properly designed large cities the metro beats the car by a huge time margin unless they made cars so expensive by policy that nobody has a car and there is no traffic at that city as a result. You should meet some of my old coworkers in large cities in Asia... (you don't SIT on the train at all in rush hour!) In a smaller city it can work great! But in a small NA city, ev…

The traffic in a medium sized NA city like Atlanta or Dallas can be a lot better than it is now, and it's definitely not comparable to Shanghai, London or Tokyo.

Do you have any examples in mind of 6-10M cities with stress-free comfortable commuting and affordable housing for all? Off the top of my head, but without a lot of first- or second-hand experience, Rome seems like the commute is probably a lot better than the larger cities, but my perception is that the affordability is pretty poor? Otherwise most of my experience is in larger or much smaller places.

Something that I think often makes this discussion tough is that there are a LOT of well-known historical European cities that are at under-2M population that I don't think Americans typically realize are THAT much smaller than, say, an Atlanta. I think the challenges of serving a growing city of 5M+ are much harder than a well-established old city of 2M.

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

#342

Post by foxyv »

adamisom wrote: post #294
tpmoney wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue more than that the housing crisis is an “urban crisis” and a “fraying of the social fabric” crisis. By the first I mean the continued destruction of smaller towns and semi-rural areas. Even if single family homes are more expensive to build than multi family apartments, the fact is we have ridiculous amounts of space in this country. But most people for various reasons don’t want to live where the space…

I just went to Panda Express for lunch--yeah yeah, it's not fancy at all, but it's a step above McDonald's--and someone begged me for food. Cue a bunch of online warriors on their high horses implying I'm a bad person for not prioritizing their need over my negative experience. I'm still going to second-guess going out to eat a little bit, though. I want to create my own beautiful bubble, and that might be home. Ever…

If you want to live in a mansion and can afford it I say "All the power to you!" But all the rest of us will be happy to live in an affordable place where we can get a slice of pizza and a cold beer without driving 20 minutes. Also, I know I want to see that homeless person begging for food living in an affordable community that has plenty of extra economic power to provide all the Panda Express he can eat!

You are not a bad person for wanting to live in a mansion or even just a bungalow far away from the city center. That's honestly pretty great! In fact, it's my hope that building walkable, affordable communities will make it even easier for you to afford and live in such a place.

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

#343

Post by adverbly »

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…

I'd argue the solution is even simpler and has been known for decades.

Land value tax.

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

#344

Post by nightski »

mdorazio wrote: post #262
stronglikedan wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> suburbia is massively subsidized That's a common argument that no one has been able to sufficiently prove.

The mortgage interest tax deduction by itself is enough to refute you.

I'd imagine practically no one actually takes that because the standard deduction is more lucrative. Unless you live in a far above average priced home with a jumbo loan.

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

#345

Post by ejb999 »

eikenberry wrote: post #293
akira2501 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do these laws serve no other purpose other than to prevent building? Which of these laws can be discarded to 'solve' the housing problem? Which should we keep?

The obvious one is residential only zoning. How are you supposed to be able to walk to local businesses if there are no local businesses as zoning prohibits them?

zoning laws are usually locally voted on and approved - if the locals in any given area want to allow business, they can - but lots of people don't want to live close to businesses - so they vote accordingly.

People that want to live near businesses and don't, should move to places that have it - there are lots of places in the country like that.

People that want to live in an entirely residential area, but don't, should move to those places that are.

Why do we need a single solution for everyone, in all areas?

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

#346

Post by giantg2 »

slothtrop wrote: post #298
giantg2 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Most of them do have other problems preventing them from getting any job, like severe mental health, substance abuse, or criminal records. I just showed you elsewhere that this is wrong.

Your link didn't address the other factors preventing a job, such as criminal records. Sure, severe mental health issues are only a quarter. And substance use is something like 40%, but significant overlap. Add in felony convictions and see were we land.

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

#347

Post by someguydave »

marcusverus wrote: post #333
foxyv wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The results of multiple studies have validated this claim: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53dd6676e4b0fedfbc26e...

So the suburbs are net recipients of infrastructure taxes, which is a bad thing. Got it. Shall we also apply this to other government services? It would be kind of shameless to complain about suburbanites being the net-beneficiaries of one service, while expecting them to be net-contributors to literally every other government service in existence, right?

It would be amusing if the end result of harassing net-productive taxpayers (suburbanites) is that they exit even further into wholly private areas where the government provides almost no services and nearly all the "local tax" is spent on upkeep of only the private community.

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

#348

Post by [deleted] »

qwertyuiop_ wrote: post #270
foxyv wrote: post #177

It takes significantly less materials to build a multi-dwelling apartment/condo/townhouse structure than a single family home. In addition, the required square footage per person drops by huge amounts when people can walk to nearby community centers, restaurants, kitchens, theaters, and bars. We are building massive 3-4k sq. ft. homes for families of four because all of their food, entertainment, and social needs are…

I live in a multi housing building and its a NIGHTMARE. A drug dealer moved in next door and he smokes all kinds of synthetic drugs 24/7 the shared walls and gaps are so thin the drugs leak in to my home. The person above me has some sort of mental condition, he wakes up at 12:45 am and starts drumming the floor with his hands, runs around and moves the furniture all night everyday. There isnt a damn thing i can do a…

[deleted]

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

#349

Post by pksebben »

giantg2 wrote: post #304
pksebben wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see a "landlord tax" that squeezes owners to either live in, rent out, or sell.

I think you mean an empty unit tax.

Or just a tax on nonprimary residential holdings. Couldn't hurt to take a couple bucks off the folks keeping multiple pie-de-terres or managing a ton of rental units. After all, they can definitely afford it.

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

#350

Post by nradov »

foxyv wrote: post #177

It takes significantly less materials to build a multi-dwelling apartment/condo/townhouse structure than a single family home. In addition, the required square footage per person drops by huge amounts when people can walk to nearby community centers, restaurants, kitchens, theaters, and bars. We are building massive 3-4k sq. ft. homes for families of four because all of their food, entertainment, and social needs are…

Denser housing sounds good in theory; I support it myself and vote accordingly. The problem is that it comes with other people. The more immediate neighbors you have, the greater the risk that one of them will be an antisocial asshole who makes life hell for everyone else. You're going to occasionally get drug dealers (or other habitual criminals), aggressive dog owners, serious mental illness cases, couples that have screaming arguments every night, motorcyclists who rev their engines at 5:00 AM, etc. And the police/code enforcement/apartment manager usually won't do anything to fix the problem. It only takes one bad neighbor experience to send a family fleeing to a single-family house in the exurbs regardless of costs or environmental impacts. So far I haven't seen the YIMBYs propose serious solutions to the antisocial behavior problem, or even acknowledge that it's an obstacle to their goals.
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