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Portland passes low-density zoning reform

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Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#61

Post by stakkur »

shuckles wrote: post #42
stakkur wrote: post #13

I live in the area. Proponents have couched this as a 'progressive' vs. 'nimby' effort, which like the rest of life is not true at all. Housing is complex, not good vs. evil, liberal vs. conservative, urgan vs sprawl. If you doubt this, watch how much this comment is downvoted. One thing we know, based on over a century of data around the world: increasing density of housing has little effect on affordability, in the…

Accommodating more people at the same, high prices is a benefit you seem to ignore. And historic growth shouldn’t be used as an input to an estimate of demand because growth itself depends on supply.

>>And growth shouldn’t be used as an input to an estimate of demand because growth itself depends on supply

This is famously untrue with housing. Because it's so hard to match units demanded to units built, housing growth nearly always precedes demand. How? By leaning on estimates of demand (in-migration, etc.), which I mentioned above. And those estimates are almost always severe overestimates.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#62

Post by Pfhreak »

londons_explore wrote: post #41
ogre_codes wrote: post #15

> "It shouldn’t take six years for any city to agree to give itself permission to build the sort of homes that every city once allowed." This is IMO the big thing here. Cities used to allow this kind of construction. Our auto-friendly culture and the desire of landowners to keep poor people off their block has led to increasingly draconian restrictions on private property use. I understand regulations around keeping…

> I understand regulations around keeping homes safe, drainage, and fire safety, Even these, IMO, are government overreach. Instead the government should require you have insurance to pay damages to third parties incase a fire/collapse/flood happens caused by your property. Then leave it up to the insurance company to decide what standards will lower your premium. One insurance company might decide "look at Switzerla…

Your idea doesn't seem to be thought through -- who ensures the insurance companies are solvent enough to pay out? How do you deal with irreversible damage? Why invest a ton of energy into figuring out the right risk calculations for shoddy work rather than say, "This passes the threshold of really unsafe, don't do it". It's so much simpler, cheaper, and easier to understand to just draw a few lines in the sand.

No amount of compensation can bring someone back if they've been lost to a fire, a deck collapse, a sinkhole, an electrical issue, etc.

The use of lead paint causes irreversible damage to nervous tissue, and lead contamination can lie undetected in soils for years after a property removes all the lead from the buildings.

Why would we want to invest a massive amount of effort into figuring out, e.g., the actual insurance risk of poorly built structures rather than saying, "No, you cannot use highly flammable plastic cladding on your highrise."

Especially if insurance companies can go bankrupt or refuse to pay out. How do victims get made well if the insurance company refuses to pay on some technicality? The last thing I want to deal with is more insurance companies.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#63

Post by ska »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #34
jeffbee wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just reality. EVs solve a specific aspect of cars but they still have the main problem: they are unreasonably large. The future of urban mobility is also its past: walking.

I think this is easy to wish but hard to realize, considering the US population is rapidly aging. There is a balance between prioritizing pedestrians and cyclists while still supporting reasonable mobility for those not in their prime as well as daily freight/parcel services.

"automobiles" is an idiosyncratic answer to "how do we deal with mobility issue of an aging population?".

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#64

Post by stakkur »

jeffbee wrote: post #57
stakkur wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intention of the zoning reform linked to here is increasing density in existing low-density areas. Here's (only) one example of analysis of the density housing affordability relationship. Spoiler alert: density always increases housing costs in the long run. https://www.newgeography.com/content/005183-what-price-urban... There has never been a city in the US that has made housing more affordable by increasing den…

Wow, talk about missing the point. That analysis looks at the correspondence between equilibrium compactness and price. It does not look at the marginal change in price for a marginal change in density. I hope you can see the logical flaw in your statement "density increases housing costs".

From the article:

"The trend, however, is indisputable: Greater compactness increases housing costs."

The 'compactness index' they're talking about is centered around density (and the impacts of that on transportation, health, travel distances, etc.).

And my 'argument' is not about the negative effect of density--it's that I don't believe that density makes housing more affordable.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#65

Post by shuckles »

stakkur wrote: post #61
shuckles wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accommodating more people at the same, high prices is a benefit you seem to ignore. And historic growth shouldn’t be used as an input to an estimate of demand because growth itself depends on supply.

>>And growth shouldn’t be used as an input to an estimate of demand because growth itself depends on supply This is famously untrue with housing. Because it's so hard to match units demanded to units built, housing growth nearly always precedes demand. How? By leaning on estimates of demand (in-migration, etc.), which I mentioned above. And those estimates are almost always severe overestimates.

You have no evidence for your last statement. Did Portland build empty units for the million people who never showed up but were expected to?

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#66

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #49
noelwelsh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2500 square feet is considered a large house in most of the world. I have lived with a group of students, a nuclear family, and with multiple generations in houses smaller than that. It is definitely fine for all the use cases you list.

Most of the world lives in housing poverty compared to American norms.

[deleted]

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#67

Post by toomuchtodo »

jeffbee wrote: post #47
toomuchtodo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is easy to wish but hard to realize, considering the US population is rapidly aging. There is a balance between prioritizing pedestrians and cyclists while still supporting reasonable mobility for those not in their prime as well as daily freight/parcel services.

That's why you can't have a city based on cars. The very old cannot drive! I don't know why this perfectly obvious and globally well-known fact is so little-known to Americans.

There are entire retirement communities where the elderly use their golf carts and cars to get around (Sun City, FL, The Villages, FL, etc).

Not only do the very old still drive, many prefer it because they’re old.

Go talk to some old folks. I did when I put together a community funded Tesla Model 3 rideshare for them in a retirement community. The pool is their preferred exercise method to walking, especially in inclement weather (you ever walk a mile in the July Florida/Texas/Arizona heat? I have in all three, and I would not recommend it).

EDIT: @jeffbee Responding here as HN has throttled my comment replies.

> That's contrary to all available data. People over 70 are the least-likely group of adults to have drivers' licenses and have the highest public transport mode share or any group, take the fewest trips, and travel the smallest distance per day. The elderly are arguably the people who stand to gain the most from compact patterns of development.

And yet, they choose to live in low to medium density areas that require an automobile versus urban areas. Behold the revealed preference!

https://www.prb.org/which-us-states-are-the-oldest/

https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/de...

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat...

https://i2.wp.com/www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/...

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#68

Post by londons_explore »

Pfhreak wrote: post #62
londons_explore wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I understand regulations around keeping homes safe, drainage, and fire safety, Even these, IMO, are government overreach. Instead the government should require you have insurance to pay damages to third parties incase a fire/collapse/flood happens caused by your property. Then leave it up to the insurance company to decide what standards will lower your premium. One insurance company might decide "look at Switzerla…

Your idea doesn't seem to be thought through -- who ensures the insurance companies are solvent enough to pay out? How do you deal with irreversible damage? Why invest a ton of energy into figuring out the right risk calculations for shoddy work rather than say, "This passes the threshold of really unsafe, don't do it". It's so much simpler, cheaper, and easier to understand to just draw a few lines in the sand. No a…

> Why would we want to invest a massive amount of effort into figuring out, e.g., the actual insurance risk of poorly built structures rather than saying, "No, you cannot use highly flammable plastic cladding on your highrise."

Wouldn't the insurance company say the same thing? Or rather they would say "we won't insure that thing". Which amounts to "You cannot build that thing if insurance is a requirement".

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#69

Post by jeffbee »

stakkur wrote: post #64
jeffbee wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, talk about missing the point. That analysis looks at the correspondence between equilibrium compactness and price. It does not look at the marginal change in price for a marginal change in density. I hope you can see the logical flaw in your statement "density increases housing costs".

From the article: "The trend, however, is indisputable: Greater compactness increases housing costs." The 'compactness index' they're talking about is centered around density (and the impacts of that on transportation, health, travel distances, etc.). And my 'argument' is not about the negative effect of density--it's that I don't believe that density makes housing more affordable.

It doesn't really matter that the article duplicates your logical error. The evidence in the article is much more ambivalent than you suggest.
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