What exactly is the housing shortage being discussed?
Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage
461–470 of 799 posts
Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
And no matter what you do, there will always be people who would want what they have, but cheaper. It's triply confounded by the huge group of people who simply don't understand the math behind renting (and this includes many landlords, sadly).
Also the building restrictions in a highly-populated area. I remember a person on here breaking down the costs of building multi-family housing. Basically in SF or LA you can only build high-priced multi-family housing to make any profit, otherwise it would be at a high loss and that is assuming something like rent controls, because otherwise the price would be driven up anyway.
Often the easiest thing to do is increase luxury supply (because by definition the rich have the money to buy).
And unless you have literally infinite incoming new residents or people who want to squat on unrented property, increasing the top-end supply will also increase other ranges. It might still not allow someone on minimum wage to live there, but the total number of units increases - unless you replace cheaper units with more expensive same or less density units.
Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
> Why doesn't the same logic apply to people who don't like the high prices of housing in some areas? Because the cities in question green lit the office buildings that have the job I need. If a city chooses to grow its economy, it has an obligation to allow enough housing for those new people.
Plenty of people (dare I say a majority?) commute to cities without living in them, and that often has nothing to do with the cost of housing and more personal preference.
I, for one, don't want to be forced to move every time I change jobs. I would much rather have the opportunity to take jobs in near by communities as well (assuming I didn't work from home of course).
Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every time I see a giant timber framed apartment building being constructed I'm exceptionally glad that I don't have to consider living inside of it. It's fine for your early 30s, but if you hope to be part of the "professional class" then that form of living takes it's toll exceptionally quickly.
In major cities filled with the professional class - the wealthiest communities in the US, such NY, LA, and the Bay Area, lots of them live in apartments.
What's the most common building material in those environments?
Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
It all depends on where you draw the lines. When people think of LA they think of that whole sprawling metropolis between the mountains (what is technically the LA basis or the LA metro area) - but the City of Los Angeles is a smaller denser portion of that. And when people think New York City they think Manhattan, but New York City includes quite a bit more.
The City of Los Angeles is still over 4 million people, more than most states.
And on land twice the size of Singapore.
Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it amusing that many folks here are ready to clap back at this comment about how "but people want single family homes" as if that weren't why we are in a housing crisis. Yes... people want single family homes, it's just not feasible to put 3M people into single family homes in a metro area without absorbing an unsustainable amount of costs. Here we are talking literally the cost of construction, but there is a…
we had no problem building houses for people in the 50s and 60s. Why all the sudden we can't do it in the last 20 years? There's plenty of land out there. Even in the CA, the most densley populated state, there are more acres in CA than people and yet somehow there's a huge land shortage and ridiculous amounts of regulation. Even 100 miles away from the city, you'll see houses squeezed together like some kind of conc…
>we had no problem building houses for people in the 50s and 60s. Why all the sudden we can't do it in the last 20 years?
Yea, it's actually pretty easy. Just get in a time machine and go back to 1956 when the Federal Highway Act made all that development possible, and just tell them to build sixteen-lane highways through every major city instead of two-lane highways. Explain that in 70 years, those highways will be operating overcapacity, so that a commute in and out of the city will not be able to operate at optimal speed of a vehicle, so that traveling 30 miles will not take 30 minutes, rather it will often take 60 minutes or longer, thus making central real estate more valuable. Which, in turn, creates a feedback loop that makes the viable transportation range of the urban center smaller and smaller. And, thus, makes the real estate in that smaller area more and more valuable. However, if you can get those highways doubled or tripled in size it should stop that feedback loop for now.
Once you convince them to do that, feel free to come back to 2024, and all our development concerns will go away for another 70 years, at which point, someone will have to get in the time machine to make it 38 lane highways.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal-Aid_Highway_Act_of_195...
Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage
#467It 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…
Outside of literal college dorms, where can you find apartments without kitchens?
Look up Micro studio apartments. They often are just small private rooms with a shared kitchen.
These seem to be somewhat popular in Seattle. https://www.apodment.com
Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every time I see a giant timber framed apartment building being constructed I'm exceptionally glad that I don't have to consider living inside of it. It's fine for your early 30s, but if you hope to be part of the "professional class" then that form of living takes it's toll exceptionally quickly.
> It's fine for your early 30s, but if you hope to be part of the "professional class" then that form of living takes it's toll exceptionally quickly. Why it doesn't take a toll on members of other classes?
Perhaps this dates me.. but for me and my industry, there was a standing expectation that you would stay late and work as hard as necessary to get the job done. Thankfully, labor laws in California have changed since then, but during that time, it was an exceptionally draining experience trying to "climb the ladder," and not being able to come home and experience any sort of solace was soul crushing to me. It literally became my only motivation for a year and half was to get out of that environment to somewhere I could have space and peace and quiet with zero expectations of intrusions or interruptions.
Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage
#469Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage
#470Earlier quoted context omitted.
You end up sitting in traffic for an hour instead of standing on a bus or train for an hour for your commute Why are you acting like driving a vehicle and being a passenger in a vehicle are the same experience? One is clearly more demanding and inhibiting than the other. On a train you can work, read, listen to a podcast, sometimes eat... Lots of things you can't do while in a car. Unless your job is driving. Which,…
> On a train you can work, read, listen to a podcast, sometimes eat I do all of those things in my car while driving too. Maybe not read but I’ve listened to audiobooks. I also sit in Teams meetings, read and respond to emails and IMs on my phone as well when I’m at a stop light. Maybe some people can’t do these things while driving but plenty of us do.
And you're a hazard to everyone around you doing most of the things.
But it's fine, the poors (pedestrians, cyclists) deserve to die, anyway.