Doesn’t housing just solve itself. People and businesses move to lower cost areas.
>People and businesses move to lower cost areas
Zoning/taxation/setting up business laws prevent an easy move.
Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo
411–420 of 539 posts
Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a huge market for populism in the US electorate. You would be floored by how many Obama 2008 voters are now Trump voters. Obama beat Clinton in the 2008 primaries and people believed he did it by running to left of her. People thought he was going to burn for-profit health care to the ground and deliver a single payer system, and that he'd throw the bankers who triggered the 2008 crisis in prison. The disapp…
The market only seems for the hurting other people part. Obama voters who voted for Trump didn’t vote for better healthcare. They voted to hurt healthcare insurance workers. They then voted to hurt someone else with Trump. As they first seemingly voted for universal healthcare and then voted for abolishing what public healthcare the USA had. That’s not consistent with caring about it as an issue at all. I can accept…
That’s true of Trump’s base, but I don’t know if it’s true of swing voters. A lot of them are just frankly ignorant and think they voted for “change” without understanding what that actually means.
Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo
#413I have a theory that echoes the surprising premise of the well known HN-famous article "The optimum amount of fraud is not zero" that states "The optimum amount of poverty, to governments, is not zero." It seems to me that if governments deliver too well for their citizens, if the citizens because too wealthy, if they are too well off, then they will begin to demand even more. This would cause problems for government…
>Just a theory,
As far as I'm concerned it's (almost) fact. Like the other person who respond to your post, there is also an accidental aspect to it.
Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo
#414For me, the abundance/yimby movement is an ok answer to the tantalizing but wrong question: what can do to make people's lives better through technology or public policy? For me, there is a deeper problem that this framing can't answer: the pervasive sense among all people that things have gone wrong and a lack of any kind of stable sense of identity. The maga right has been successful because they speak to that sens…
I think you're right. There's another thing, too, where the opposition is unable to provide a coherence that speaks to the pervasive sense of 'wrong' and provide stability in identity that you mention.
Indeed, their idea of being coherent is not only maintaining the status quo that enables those two things, but doubling down. When challenged, they nest in the politics that the Republicans once espoused and have left behind, than realizing that there's a reason those messages and values have shifted by the maga right's successes. It should come as no wonder then that they lose ground year after year from desperate people looking for comfort from the political class.
Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
Limiting tenants' rights is good for vast majority (95%+ at least) of tenants. The way it is there are more and more obstacles (insurance, requiring proof of contract/work, very high deposits etc.) to just rent an apartment or a house. If the government thinks everyone deserves a roof then the government should build cheap, simple housing of last resort instead of forcing the property owners to take the risk.
Tenants rights are not only about how long you get to stay without paying rent. Not being able to compel your landlord to remove pests, mold or fix noisy steam radiators is not something that would benefit the vast majority of tenants.
Yeah, sure those are needed but they are not the reason you have to jump through hooves and pay ridiculous deposits just to rent an apartment. I know quite a few landlords. None of them would complain about stricter rules and obligations when it comes to maintenance. What they think about every day is non paying or otherwise problematic tenants. This affects the process they use to decide who to rent to and the demographic they are willing to rent to as well.
The effect is that honest people find it difficult to rent an apartment because abusers run rampant and the system protects them. In some European countries you need to prove you have stable job and get recommendation from the previous landlord to even be in the consideration and then you basically have to go for an interview. It's a ridiculous and humiliating process which wouldn't exist if landlords could throw out abusers without much hassle.
Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who owns a second house on a farm that has two rental units in it, I’m skeptical of attempts to expand ‘tenant rights’ in New York. I had a tenant who decided that he did not have to pay the rent, it took months of trying to reason with him, we hired a lawyer and went through the process which took several months, in the end the tenant stayed on a few months past what would have been the eviction date but…
I've been a renter since I was born, and I have rented from both mom and pop landlords and bigger corporations, and I can tell you that whether or not the "small landlords" were good people or not, our financial interests were diametrically opposed. If I did not live in cities with good tenant protections, there would be no incentive whatsoever for the people who owned the place where I lived from providing basic ser…
Restricted property rights limit the amount of housing and thus give current landlords power over renters. If there were plentiful housing landlords would be forced to provide attractive housing, otherwise tenants would vote with their feet and leave.
Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
Setting aside the fact that if you ask people if they support affirmative action, they generally say yes… > That’s not a conflicting opinion. People support diversity, but oppose the principal approach to achieving diversity. That is a conflict! You are describing a conflict! I don’t see how the discussion proceeds from here.
It’s not a conflict, it’s a hierarchy of preferences. People’s specific opposition to race-conscious admissions and hiring outweighs their general support for diversity. That’s exactly what the Pew answer choice says: “Only take a person's qualifications into account, even if it results in less diversity .” Race blindness is more important than diversity. You see a similar pattern on many issues. E.g. people support…
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Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I would love to purchase a home, but even 10 years of a software engineering salary are not enough for that in NYC. Imagine a 1M USD studio apartment. Is 10% (100K USD) down payment feasible? Usually, banks are happy to lend 90% to people with good jobs and a good credit score.
If you’re paying a million dollars to own a studio apartment (essentially a hotel room), something has gone horribly wrong. That could be any number of things (inflation, insane property valuations, unreasonable demand for city life), but that same money could be spent very differently and go much further in a different location.
In Manhattan, in a good building, good neighborhood, 1M USD for a 25sqm studio sounds fine.
Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo
#419I've grown a little bit more skeptical of what can realistically be achieved by the passive nature of YIMBY-ism. In Portland, they passed some radical new zoning laws a few years ago that allowed anyone, anywhere the ability to zone ADUs on their property. And the cost to get permits is almost nothing. I have lots of friends and family in the area with property. But not a single one has added an ADU. It seems like it…
What does it even mean to "light a fire under the butt" of a middle class home owner who is scared to rent because they'd be unable to evict a destructive junkie? What kind of fire do you have in mind, that would scare them even worse than that possible outcome?
Whatever it is, it will probably make you or any politician who advances it very unpopular.
Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who owns a second house on a farm that has two rental units in it, I’m skeptical of attempts to expand ‘tenant rights’ in New York. I had a tenant who decided that he did not have to pay the rent, it took months of trying to reason with him, we hired a lawyer and went through the process which took several months, in the end the tenant stayed on a few months past what would have been the eviction date but…
My dad is landlord of an 8-plex in a small town. My brother is a social worker in a big city. When they get together and talk it's amazing how much their jobs overlap. So much of the job as a small time landlord these days is dealing with drug abuse, interpersonal problems, police, social services, housing authorities, etc.
That's a result of the market your dad is in. Vast numbers of renters and landlords are just ordinary people with no/not dealing with drug or social problems.