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Profiling the "Abundance" housing bottleneck with real data

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Re: Profiling the "Abundance" housing bottleneck with real data

#41

Post by anthonypasq »

baron816 wrote: post #32

Progressives and Democratic Socialists like to pretend that the government can pass a law which would allow it to build lots of social housing/provide health care for everyone/build a lot of green energy/etc and it would just go and do that easy peasy. But building housing and infrastructure is not something you can just snap your fingers and it happens. It’s not something you can just throw tons of money at and pops…

Yet we somehow managed to build the interstate highway system?

This is just so defeatist and annoying. Building houses isnt inherently hard. we've intentionally made it hard for no good reason.

Re: Profiling the "Abundance" housing bottleneck with real data

#42

Post by vannevar »

Animats wrote: post #33
tptacek wrote: post #2

This analysis, for whatever it's worth, is wrestling with a straw man. Klein and Thompson never claim that permitting reform is the only lever available. The housing strategy Abundance documents is that of the YIMBY movement, and YIMBYs are all-of-the-above advocates. If you can get subsidized housing built, you get it built. Meanwhile, you fix exclusionary zoning and clear a path for the market (which produced virtu…

> This analysis, for whatever it's worth, is wrestling with a straw man. More like a straw army. Austin is surrounded by empty flat land. San Francisco is surrounded by water and was built out many decades ago. London suffers from being the main city in Britain. The UK is overcentralized. Most of the money and power are in London. Some countries are centralized like that, with all the good stuff around the national c…

>Austin is surrounded by empty flat land. San Francisco is surrounded by water and was built out many decades ago.

This^^^. The idea that housing starts are solely (or even substantially) impacted by regulation is a case of control bias, attributing disproportionate influence to minor factors we can control (like regulation) over major factors we cannot (land, labor and material costs).

Re: Profiling the "Abundance" housing bottleneck with real data

#43

Post by tptacek »

anthonypasq wrote: post #41
baron816 wrote: post #32

Progressives and Democratic Socialists like to pretend that the government can pass a law which would allow it to build lots of social housing/provide health care for everyone/build a lot of green energy/etc and it would just go and do that easy peasy. But building housing and infrastructure is not something you can just snap your fingers and it happens. It’s not something you can just throw tons of money at and pops…

Yet we somehow managed to build the interstate highway system? This is just so defeatist and annoying. Building houses isnt inherently hard. we've intentionally made it hard for no good reason.

Yes, with exclusive zoning and permitting rules. That's the entire point of Abundance.

The housing market dwarfs the Interstate Highway System, by the way. It's like comparing Europa to Jupiter. But the defeatism thing you're saying here: that too is an Abundance argument. It's a thing we're pissed about: that the government can't just go build things anymore.

It sounds like you're already one of us. Come on in! We have a conference and everything.

Re: Profiling the "Abundance" housing bottleneck with real data

#44

Post by tptacek »

lux-lux-lux wrote: post #38
baron816 wrote: post #32

Progressives and Democratic Socialists like to pretend that the government can pass a law which would allow it to build lots of social housing/provide health care for everyone/build a lot of green energy/etc and it would just go and do that easy peasy. But building housing and infrastructure is not something you can just snap your fingers and it happens. It’s not something you can just throw tons of money at and pops…

It’s always fascinating to see when “this is hard and expensive to do, so we shouldn’t even try” is considered a compelling argument (housing, health care) vs. when it isn’t (defense, policing, the modern panopticon).

We spend way less on policing than people think we do. A generation of progressives got turned around on this because people don't understand how overlapping taxing bodies work.

Re: Profiling the "Abundance" housing bottleneck with real data

#45

Post by tptacek »

vannevar wrote: post #42
Animats wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This analysis, for whatever it's worth, is wrestling with a straw man. More like a straw army. Austin is surrounded by empty flat land. San Francisco is surrounded by water and was built out many decades ago. London suffers from being the main city in Britain. The UK is overcentralized. Most of the money and power are in London. Some countries are centralized like that, with all the good stuff around the national c…

>Austin is surrounded by empty flat land. San Francisco is surrounded by water and was built out many decades ago. This^^^. The idea that housing starts are solely (or even substantially) impacted by regulation is a case of control bias, attributing disproportionate influence to minor factors we can control (like regulation) over major factors we cannot (land, labor and material costs).

I've read this like 5 times and I still can't make sense of it. Is this a variant of the "5-bedroom houses in Cairo Illinois only cost $40,000, there is no housing shortage" argument?

Re: Profiling the "Abundance" housing bottleneck with real data

#46

Post by tptacek »

eigenspace wrote: post #26
Plasmoid wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people also don't know that Vienna was isolated and divided for nearly 50 years during the cold war. A significant amount of the available housing is due to Vienna having a bad economy for almost a century.

The reason "many people dont know" about that is that it didnt happen. You just made it up.

That's a pretty uncivil way to say "you're wrong". People are wrong about things all the time; I'm sure you have been too.

Re: Profiling the "Abundance" housing bottleneck with real data

#47

Post by specialist »

tptacek wrote: post #6
theluketaylor wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hugely in favour of adding non-market housing anywhere it can be added, but the author declaring it a different fix to the housing crisis from zoning is naive at best. Non-market housing is subject to the exact same complex local regulations as market housing, plus all the complexity of government projects, a patchwork of subsidies, grants, and loans to get funding, and even more intense public scrutiny. Trying t…

Worth mentioning here that appeals to social housing have over the last 20 years been absolutely classic NIMBY arguments. People raise it because they know significant amounts of social housing won't get built, but if you fix the gating factors for the market, it will. But this is also a factional concern; for reasons I don't understand, the Democratic left polarized hard against "abundance" (and thus YIMBYism). So t…

> the Democratic left polarized hard against

As I understand stuff, "abundance" is perceived as a threat to, a means to neuter, YIMBY urbanism advocacy (a la , Strong Towns, Sightline, War on Cars, etc).

Criticisms I've read are:

1) guilt by association

2) exasperation with neoliberal faith in markets, to the exclusion of other strategies

3) punching left, while ignoring the perfidy and obstructionism of the right, as though only "the left" has agency

4) being anti-democratic, by ignoring (or underplaying) the necessity of rebuilding state administrative capacity

Wanting a lot more housing, I'm pro "abundance" by default.

Even so, I've been hurt before. So I try to remain cognizant of "the left's" criticisms. Being confused by the food fight over abundance, I'd describe "the left" as being wary.

Re: Profiling the "Abundance" housing bottleneck with real data

#48

Post by vannevar »

tptacek wrote: post #45
vannevar wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Austin is surrounded by empty flat land. San Francisco is surrounded by water and was built out many decades ago. This^^^. The idea that housing starts are solely (or even substantially) impacted by regulation is a case of control bias, attributing disproportionate influence to minor factors we can control (like regulation) over major factors we cannot (land, labor and material costs).

I've read this like 5 times and I still can't make sense of it. Is this a variant of the "5-bedroom houses in Cairo Illinois only cost $40,000, there is no housing shortage" argument?

No---did you read the original article? The comment and the parent will make more sense. Basically the article compares Austin and San Fransisco and attributes the difference in building rates entirely to disparities in regulation. Which is obviously not an accurate framing, for the reasons mentioned in our respective comments.

Your comment is more addressed at affordability, which is largely a function of wealth disparity: as the wealthy get richer with respect to the lower percentiles, they absorb an increasing share of the home market and drive prices up.

Re: Profiling the "Abundance" housing bottleneck with real data

#49

Post by tptacek »

vannevar wrote: post #48
tptacek wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read this like 5 times and I still can't make sense of it. Is this a variant of the "5-bedroom houses in Cairo Illinois only cost $40,000, there is no housing shortage" argument?

No---did you read the original article? The comment and the parent will make more sense. Basically the article compares Austin and San Fransisco and attributes the difference in building rates entirely to disparities in regulation. Which is obviously not an accurate framing, for the reasons mentioned in our respective comments. Your comment is more addressed at affordability, which is largely a function of wealth dis…

I did; the top comment on this thread is my response to the article. I don't think you fully get the argument: San Francisco needs to upzone and do large amounts of infill development. Most of the most important areas of economic opportunity in this country are landlocked; San Francisco's challenge isn't unique.

Re: Profiling the "Abundance" housing bottleneck with real data

#50

Post by tptacek »

specialist wrote: post #47
tptacek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth mentioning here that appeals to social housing have over the last 20 years been absolutely classic NIMBY arguments. People raise it because they know significant amounts of social housing won't get built, but if you fix the gating factors for the market, it will. But this is also a factional concern; for reasons I don't understand, the Democratic left polarized hard against "abundance" (and thus YIMBYism). So t…

> the Democratic left polarized hard against As I understand stuff, "abundance" is perceived as a threat to, a means to neuter, YIMBY urbanism advocacy (a la , Strong Towns, Sightline, War on Cars, etc). Criticisms I've read are: 1) guilt by association 2) exasperation with neoliberal faith in markets, to the exclusion of other strategies 3) punching left, while ignoring the perfidy and obstructionism of the right, a…

No, Abundance is the semi-official home of YIMBYism in the Democratic party. The opposition to it from the left is uniformly anti-YIMBY.

(Strong Towns and YIMBYism aren't totally aligned.)

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