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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

#51

Post by vannevar »

tptacek wrote: post #49
vannevar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you're making the same mistake the article did, focusing on the regulatory environment. My argument is that the zoning and other regulation is not the main reason Austin has more housing starts than San Francisco. The main reason is that land, labor, and materials are cheaper there. SF can upzone and infill to it's heart's content, it won't make land, labor and materials cheaper than Austin.

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

#52

Post by tptacek »

vannevar wrote: post #51
tptacek wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you're making the same mistake the article did, focusing on the regulatory environment. My argument is that the zoning and other regulation is not the main reason Austin has more housing starts than San Francisco. The main reason is that land, labor, and materials are cheaper there. SF can upzone and infill to it's heart's content, it won't make land, labor and materials cheaper than Austin.

Your argument is conclusory. The whole question is the extent to which the regulatory environment is preventing upzoning. If you think San Francisco should remain zoned the way it is, say that, and say why.

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

#53

Post by baron816 »

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.

I don’t think you finished reading my comment. If you want the government to build lots of housing, fine. But you just have to really commit to doing so and expect it to be a perpetual project. Building out the highway system worked because we never stopped building it. China was able to build out its high speed rail system because it planned on connecting the whole country (and it’s still building, to its own detriment).

If you’re going to build three new subway stops, or a single housing complex, you’re not going to keep any of that expertise. You hire some consultants and contractors and then they move on to something completely different at the end of the project.

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

#54

Post by vannevar »

tptacek wrote: post #52
vannevar wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're making the same mistake the article did, focusing on the regulatory environment. My argument is that the zoning and other regulation is not the main reason Austin has more housing starts than San Francisco. The main reason is that land, labor, and materials are cheaper there. SF can upzone and infill to it's heart's content, it won't make land, labor and materials cheaper than Austin.

Your argument is conclusory. The whole question is the extent to which the regulatory environment is preventing upzoning. If you think San Francisco should remain zoned the way it is, say that, and say why.

I have no opinion one way or another how SF should be zoned. I'm just saying that how it is zoned is a second- or third-order effect on the rate of home-building. Land, labor and materials are the first-order effects. Now, maybe SF is saturated, and every square foot that could have a home on it already has one. Then you'd have to rezone other areas in order to increase the supply of land. But even if you did that, as long as the land was a lot more expensive than Austin's, the rate of home construction would still be slower. And I think it would be physically impossible for SF to zone its way to a land supply comparable to Austin. Hope that clarifies.

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

#55

Post by lux-lux-lux »

tptacek wrote: post #44
lux-lux-lux wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[dead]

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

#56

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #50
specialist wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

[deleted]

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

#57

Post by anthonypasq »

baron816 wrote: post #53
anthonypasq wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don’t think you finished reading my comment. If you want the government to build lots of housing, fine. But you just have to really commit to doing so and expect it to be a perpetual project. Building out the highway system worked because we never stopped building it. China was able to build out its high speed rail system because it planned on connecting the whole country (and it’s still building, to its own detrim…

> The reason people can make a lot of money building houses is that it’s really hard and requires a lot of specialized and localized knowledge to figure it out.

I fundamentally don't believe this is true. This shit isnt hard at all. its a fucking building. Creating EUV lithography machines is hard, creating cutting edge vaccines is hard. Building a building is not hard.

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