581–590 of 799 posts
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I think you mean an empty unit tax.
Or just a tax on nonprimary residential holdings. Couldn't hurt to take a couple bucks off the folks keeping multiple pie-de-terres or managing a ton of rental units. After all, they can definitely afford it.
But they won't. Landlords pass taxes on to the tenants.
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Having to stand for 20 minutes is not such a bad deal if you’re in decent health. Hell it’s probably good for you if you spend most of your day sat at a desk.
> if you're in decent health and if you're not? Not all bad health is a character failure, you know. Some people just have diseases like multiple sclerosis in the public vs private transit discussion, all I know is that I've never been harassed by someone else in my car on the way to work, but the subway was a different story, and I've spent a lot more time commuting by car than train
Priority seating
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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…
You can easily get housing affordability crises even without single family homes, as is plainly evident right now in non-North-American cities. It's a bit of a red herring. You end up sitting in traffic for an hour instead of standing on a bus or train for an hour for your commute, and other knock-on differences like that, which can be debated for various other reasons like ecological impact, but you still end up run…
Tokyo Metro handles 6m+ riders a day with a population of 40m. So, yes, at least until you surpass 40m people.
> Or can we figure out ways to disperse and decentralize things instead of just feeding more money back into the hands of those who own and control the current cities?
“Disperse and decentralize” is exactly how every city I have ever been to is built.
It 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…
It’s more interesting to ask why people don’t want to live in multi family dwellings. For example, if hearing your neighbors is a big part of the problem, would building code requiring sound baffling in every multi family start tipping the scales? Or if crazy neighbors was the issue, what about legal structures that let residents approve of new owners? (Yes, risky territory, but humor me for a second)
Multi family is generally seen as less appealing. So if you want people to live in multi family, how do we make it appealing?
You can see small attempts at dealing with the problems in e.g. the elimination of shared metering, which invited freeloader problems that simply don’t exist with individual metering.
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Outside of literal college dorms, where can you find apartments without kitchens?
Not saying without kitchens so much as smaller kitchens. When you look at new home construction in the past 10 years, they have MASSIVE kitchens. A lot of them are bigger than my first apartment. https://www.homes.com/property/kestrel-at-waterston-north-gr...
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Oh, I believe it. That's great! I don't mind that people who want to live like that CAN live like that if they can afford it. But it should not be the ONLY way people can live. Right now our laws prevent us from building affordable and livable homes like I mentioned above. Only the richest get to live in such communities.
> Right now our laws prevent us from building affordable and livable homes Which laws are those?
It 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…
I don’t think sfh have been foisted on us by stupid or conniving urban planners. It’s more interesting to ask why people don’t want to live in multi family dwellings. For example, if hearing your neighbors is a big part of the problem, would building code requiring sound baffling in every multi family start tipping the scales? Or if crazy neighbors was the issue, what about legal structures that let residents approve…
With a SFH you can control your own destiny to some extent.
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Having to stand for 20 minutes is not such a bad deal if you’re in decent health. Hell it’s probably good for you if you spend most of your day sat at a desk.
> if you're in decent health and if you're not? Not all bad health is a character failure, you know. Some people just have diseases like multiple sclerosis in the public vs private transit discussion, all I know is that I've never been harassed by someone else in my car on the way to work, but the subway was a different story, and I've spent a lot more time commuting by car than train
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Which government? Your block? street? school district? Transit district? region? state? country? Even then, a country that needs immigrants to operate? Even then in a town here, most of the electrorate is renters, but most people who actually vote are homeowners. And a public library district found it better to "protect themselves" with a card fee for non-residents rather than open access to all state residents (like…
> Even then in a town here, most of the electorate is renters, but most people who actually vote are homeowners. At some point you have to give up; if the electorate doesn't even bother caring enough to vote, what can you do?
Currently in California, there is some push at the state level to try and move things along - and override some city rules. Also one surprising city noticed that their past gridlock is not helpful (Berkeley, CA! Surprising because they are said to have invented restrictive zoning).
Then some cities in the Los Angeles area somehow managed to never get in that rut at all, and allow construction. And they are not exactly hellholes because of that.
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The obvious one is residential only zoning. How are you supposed to be able to walk to local businesses if there are no local businesses as zoning prohibits them?
zoning laws are usually locally voted on and approved - if the locals in any given area want to allow business, they can - but lots of people don't want to live close to businesses - so they vote accordingly. People that want to live near businesses and don't, should move to places that have it - there are lots of places in the country like that. People that want to live in an entirely residential area, but don't, sh…
That doesn't make them just or a good idea.
>Why do we need a single solution for everyone, in all areas?
Because we have a severe housing shortage. Because why should a crank three blocks over get any input at all into me wanting to put a multiplex on my private property. This isn't advocating for a single solution, it is advocating for a revisiting of a set of rules that are increasingly being found to be the cause of very serious social problems that benefit very few people.
If you want to live in a place that is only SFH with no businesses, that necessarily places a restriction on a historically allowable use of someone else's private property. Zoning is a VERY recent invention.