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To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

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Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#41

Post by badpun »

manacit wrote: post #32
rb808 wrote: post #8

Because big dense cities like NY are affordable?

Manhattan (and parts of Brooklyn) != NY. I wouldn't call it "cheap", but there are plenty of places in NYC where one can rent a bedroom for under $1,000 a month easily (and maybe closer to $500/m in some places). That, coupled with not having a car, actually makes quality of life very good if you're someone who seeks out city living. I know plenty of people that make $30k-$40k/y in NYC and can afford to live in Bushw…

> live with (...) a few roommates and live nice lives

Those two together don't compute for most people. I'd say only a minority of people are fine with living permanently in a dorm-like environment. Historically, having to share a house/flat with strangers has always been a sign of poverty.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#42

Post by epistasis »

rb808 wrote: post #30
sampo wrote: post #25

Just quoting the last paragraph. This is the kind of honesty people need. > Intellectual honesty requires taking numbers seriously. Either we prioritize making the Bay Area affordable for all of us or we don’t. The less housing we build, the more wealth will be trapped in high housing prices. Unless we decide to grow our housing stock to accommodate our economy, we are continuing to choose the interests of those who…

If density increases the people who will benefit the most are current landowners. If you have single family home on a big lot, its value will go up many times if you can suddenly build an apartment building on it.

Yes, in the short term, there are two things that happen: 1) land values go up, 2) housing costs go down.

The first may benefit current land owners a lot, but the second is absolutely essential for lower incomes to succeed at all.

This is not a zero-sum move, and is fact hugely beneficial to everyone. When there's fixed housing supply, that's when things are closer to a zero-sum economic game.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#43

Post by mistermann »

DataWorker wrote: post #27
ninkendo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think wklauss was expressing an opinion either way on whether a 50% increase is feasible, only what the effects would be with respect to transit.

He said the freeways can support 50% growth over 20 years. That’s lunacy. Look at the history of our freeway system. Ok, if you want to insist that flying cars will come in the next 10 years maybe. But to say congestion pricing is to say, roads for rich people, everyone else stays in their cubicle like happy inmates. Just unreal to see putatively intelligent people engage in such a discussion.

Buses could easily do it.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#44

Post by epistasis »

DataWorker wrote: post #23
epistasis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jail cells? It's not polite to put rude words in others' mouths. There are limitations on current build rates though; we'll have to massively increase the construction work force to do anything like this, as it's already not quite able to meet demand here.

You’re suggesting these people won’t drive anywhere. There’s no way to support that growth given the limitations in our roadways. Traffic is already terrible, imagine 4 or 5 hours to get from oakland to San Francisco.

This is a big change of topic. I had a different topic about allowing people to live without cars, if you'd like to talk about that, let's do it on that other comment thread.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#45

Post by alangpierce »

coding123 wrote: post #3

And the freeways can support this how?

Most people I know in San Francisco don't own cars and certainly don't make use of freeways as part of their commute. With high-density cities and good public transit, you really have much less need for cars.

Also, given that cars are inherently dangerous, cause environmental harm, and take up a lot of space, it seems like it's in the public interest to discourage car ownership/use.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#46

Post by nwah1 »

jseliger wrote: post #31
nwah1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is valid and you shouldn't be downvoted. Empirically, we know that high density of residential units is correlated with high rent. Why is this? It ultimately comes back to the Law of Rent. The amount that landlords are able to charge directly corresponds to the produce obtainable at that location over their next best alternative... and that alternative is likewise set that way up until you reach the "margi…

No, we don't: https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3... https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/californi... We know that artificially restricting the supply of housing increases prices.

I didn't mean to validate that there was a causal connection, I was just agreeing with the general claim that yes, indeed, dense places (cities)... whether in terms of supply or demand are generally more expensive than other places.

Knowing why is important, though, and the law of rent explains the mechanics.

I'm in agreement with the idea that more building should occur. I'm just cautioning that even if someone destroyed every housing regulation in existence, or even if lots of public housing were built, we shouldn't be surprised if rents remain super high.

In the technology space we're used to seeing costs plummet from year to year. A land title system, by contrast, will predictably see increasing prices over time, while simultaneously extracting a flow of rent.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#47

Post by jartelt »

conanbatt wrote: post #28
nwah1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is valid and you shouldn't be downvoted. Empirically, we know that high density of residential units is correlated with high rent. Why is this? It ultimately comes back to the Law of Rent. The amount that landlords are able to charge directly corresponds to the produce obtainable at that location over their next best alternative... and that alternative is likewise set that way up until you reach the "margi…

Henry George would shed a tear. I do believe that the thing that would change the housing stock situation for SF is to remove sales taxes and add land value taxes. Just that change alone will make workers and renters richer overnight, and would change the anti-development mindset of owners quite a bit, considering that low-dense units will pay the highest amount.

Wouldn't a decent portion of the land value tax just be passed on to renters in the form of higher rent charged by their landlord?

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#48

Post by nwah1 »

jseliger wrote: post #31
nwah1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is valid and you shouldn't be downvoted. Empirically, we know that high density of residential units is correlated with high rent. Why is this? It ultimately comes back to the Law of Rent. The amount that landlords are able to charge directly corresponds to the produce obtainable at that location over their next best alternative... and that alternative is likewise set that way up until you reach the "margi…

No, we don't: https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3... https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/californi... We know that artificially restricting the supply of housing increases prices.

Here's another article from the same columnist explaining how to achieve improved supply.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-24/faster-gr...

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#49

Post by swimfar »

rb808 wrote: post #30
sampo wrote: post #25

Just quoting the last paragraph. This is the kind of honesty people need. > Intellectual honesty requires taking numbers seriously. Either we prioritize making the Bay Area affordable for all of us or we don’t. The less housing we build, the more wealth will be trapped in high housing prices. Unless we decide to grow our housing stock to accommodate our economy, we are continuing to choose the interests of those who…

If density increases the people who will benefit the most are current landowners. If you have single family home on a big lot, its value will go up many times if you can suddenly build an apartment building on it.

You're correct, but this goes against the idea that it's greedy house owners that are causing all the problems. Maybe they're selfish (I would argue most people are), but it's in their best financial interest for the Bay Area population to increase. The land value will go up, and the relative supply of houses/people goes down. Let's say that right now only 10% (made up number) of the people in the Bay Area can own a house (because of supply, not price). In general that means that the houses are purchased by the wealthiest 10%. If the population goes up 50% now you have to be in the top 7% to afford a house. Yeah, it's a little more complex than this, but in general housing prices aren't going down by building apartments. No one buys a house because they can't find an apartment for sale.

If people really want to address the housing issues, they need to start actually listening to people who object to more housing instead of just calling them names. There are legitimate downsides to more housing and higher population that will need to be addressed.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#50

Post by sampo »

charlesdm wrote: post #39
sampo wrote: post #25

Just quoting the last paragraph. This is the kind of honesty people need. > Intellectual honesty requires taking numbers seriously. Either we prioritize making the Bay Area affordable for all of us or we don’t. The less housing we build, the more wealth will be trapped in high housing prices. Unless we decide to grow our housing stock to accommodate our economy, we are continuing to choose the interests of those who…

Who could have guessed, policy makers that serve the hand that feeds them?

> policy makers that serve the hand that feeds them?

More like, California and Federal level policymakers have been too lenient and let town and city level politicians make too much selfish policy that hurts the state and country level economy and progress.

The economic powerhouse areas don't belong only to their current residents. Everyone in the country has a right to strive for wealth and a better life by moving to economically active regions. We shouldn't create a society where your economic class is determined by where you happened to be born.

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