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A look at Denver’s “Unlocking Housing Choices” plan

freerange.city

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Re: A look at Denver’s “Unlocking Housing Choices” plan

#61

Post by tolerance »

pessimizer wrote: post #4

The premise is that the author is a libertarian, except that housing in the neighborhood they live in should be fixed at the price that they can afford, and that the character of the neighborhood from the point that they moved into it should be preserved. It's only real gentrification when upper-middle class YIMBYs get forced out.

This may be a non-sequitur to your point—and what I'm reading as a put-down makes me less likely to read the fine article that I indeed have not (to the credit of the potency of the point that I hope I'm grasping).

Between AI and whatever housing problems are being felt by co-founders and advisors and chairs at posh institutions, the flattening of the upper-middle class is a sight to behold.

Re: A look at Denver’s “Unlocking Housing Choices” plan

#62

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cyberax wrote: post #58
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> making it easier to build makes the jobs crisis even worse Why?

It creates for companies more incentives to move to these areas, as they have easier access to a larger talent pool. Which in turn makes housing there even more expensive.

You’re describing clusters of productivity and economies of scale. It sounds like your solution to the housing crisis is people should be poorer?

Re: A look at Denver’s “Unlocking Housing Choices” plan

#64

Post by cyberax »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #62
cyberax wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It creates for companies more incentives to move to these areas, as they have easier access to a larger talent pool. Which in turn makes housing there even more expensive.

You’re describing clusters of productivity and economies of scale. It sounds like your solution to the housing crisis is people should be poorer?

This is not "economy of scale", this is more of a "pollution death spiral" and "unpriced externalities".

A factory that dumps raw waste into rivers is more efficient and can produce widgets more cheaply than a factory that takes care to clean up the waste.

A firm in a dense city core can get talent more easily, and it'll have advantage (on average, in the long run) over a firm that has a fully remote workforce. The negative externalities (living in poor conditions in an expensive city) are offloaded onto the workers. E.g. the housing square footage keeps decreasing: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-the-growing-gap-bet...

Re: A look at Denver’s “Unlocking Housing Choices” plan

#65

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cyberax wrote: post #64
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re describing clusters of productivity and economies of scale. It sounds like your solution to the housing crisis is people should be poorer?

This is not "economy of scale", this is more of a "pollution death spiral" and "unpriced externalities". A factory that dumps raw waste into rivers is more efficient and can produce widgets more cheaply than a factory that takes care to clean up the waste. A firm in a dense city core can get talent more easily, and it'll have advantage (on average, in the long run) over a firm that has a fully remote workforce. The n…

> negative externalities (living in poor conditions in an expensive city) are offloaded onto the workers

Cities are more efficient in practically every way than subsidized rural developments. It’s really weird to flip that around as an externality. (Disclaimer: I moved from New York to Wyoming. Thanks for your subsidies, I guess.)

There absolutely are jobs in remote places. But the people there aren’t as valuable as someone who will bump into like-minded colleagues and cultural expression as part of their existence in a cluster.

Re: A look at Denver’s “Unlocking Housing Choices” plan

#66

Post by cyberax »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #65
cyberax wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not "economy of scale", this is more of a "pollution death spiral" and "unpriced externalities". A factory that dumps raw waste into rivers is more efficient and can produce widgets more cheaply than a factory that takes care to clean up the waste. A firm in a dense city core can get talent more easily, and it'll have advantage (on average, in the long run) over a firm that has a fully remote workforce. The n…

> negative externalities (living in poor conditions in an expensive city) are offloaded onto the workers Cities are more efficient in practically every way than subsidized rural developments. It’s really weird to flip that around as an externality. (Disclaimer: I moved from New York to Wyoming. Thanks for your subsidies, I guess.) There absolutely are jobs in remote places. But the people there aren’t as valuable as…

> Cities are more efficient in practically every way than subsidized rural developments

No, they're not. It's the other way around, in fact. Suburbs subsidize cities (on average, again).

The dense city cores produce most of the _corporate_ income tax, because that's where the companies are headquartered. But most of _personal_ income tax comes from suburbs. This is only now getting close to flipping around.

Cities also have YUUUUGE expenses that simply don't happen in sparse areas. E.g. infrastructure like water or sewer is wildly expensive in cities because of the planning overhead. Case in point: San Francisco spent almost half a billion rebuilding a few blocks of road.

Cities also require EXPENSIVE public transit. One ride on a bus/subway in the US costs around $20. I'm talking about the true cost (number of trips / total expenses), not the farebox cost. And with capex it's almost incalculable, with crazy numbers like $50 per ride for Seattle.

The TLDR; version:

1. Infrastructure in suburbs might end up being a bit more expensive on a per-capita basis. Or it might not, depending on the way you do accounting.

2. In any case, this difference is not at all significant.

3. Suburbs are _not_ subsidized, and in fact generate most of the wealth in the US.

Re: A look at Denver’s “Unlocking Housing Choices” plan

#67

Post by tpm »

AuthAuth wrote: post #44
armenarmen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never considered this nor have I heard it brought up before. Good point!

I am only aware of this because we actually ran into the problem. We started allowing more subdivisions and densification in our city and the waste water infrastructure got quickly pushed to its limits now we have to halt construction while the new water infrastructure is upgraded to accommodate for the massively increased zoning density.

That's interesting - naively I would expect the wastewater infrastructure to be overbuilt enough to manage larger than normal rains, which are usually several times over typical household wastewater production.

Re: A look at Denver’s “Unlocking Housing Choices” plan

#68

Post by anon7000 »

ecshafer wrote: post #7

Fixing housing is incredibly easy: 1. Remove Zoning / Deed Restrictions / Parking Minimums 2. Remove Red Tape (Environmental impact assessments, time cap approvals to a couple weeks, at cost fees) 3. Land Value Taxes Watch as Gentrification suddenly goes away and infill development occurs. These complicated schemes are unnecessary.

Infill development is synonymous with gentrification to most people.

Some cheap side of town where a new apartment complex is built on a parking lot of a half-dead strip mall? If it’s “new” it’s going to cost new. Local neighborhood residents won’t be able to afford commercial rent for a mom & pop restaurant compared to bougie-looking expensive shops. That’s gentrification, practically caused by infill development.

I agree that development is crucial, and agree with a lot of your comment. The fact of the matter is that new developments are by definition more expensive to rent out, so any kind of development in a rundown neighborhood will have a tendency to increase prices & drive out residents. There’s no easy way around that fact without government intervention.

The best we can hope for is maxing our development in dense spaces to the point that it won’t need to undergo another such drastic change any time soon, and having government programs to help the people impacted.

Re: A look at Denver’s “Unlocking Housing Choices” plan

#69

Post by gucci-on-fleek »

tpm wrote: post #67
AuthAuth wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am only aware of this because we actually ran into the problem. We started allowing more subdivisions and densification in our city and the waste water infrastructure got quickly pushed to its limits now we have to halt construction while the new water infrastructure is upgraded to accommodate for the massively increased zoning density.

That's interesting - naively I would expect the wastewater infrastructure to be overbuilt enough to manage larger than normal rains, which are usually several times over typical household wastewater production.

> naively I would expect the wastewater infrastructure to be overbuilt enough to manage larger than normal rains, which are usually several times over typical household wastewater production

It depends on the city—some cities do indeed handle rainwater with the normal sewer system, but most have an entirely separate system for rainwater [0]. But either way, if you pave more roads, you're always going to have more rainwater to deal with, regardless of which system of pipes you use.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_drain#Combined_sewers

Re: A look at Denver’s “Unlocking Housing Choices” plan

#70

Post by em-bee »

hibikir wrote: post #28

No, we can't. Once could lower the rate of increase of housing prices (and, more realistically, land values), but "gentrification" isn't really just about pricing, but a change in preferences: Areas close to urban centers had low prices because people wanted to live in deep suburbs, far away from city crime and bad schools. Now they are desirable, and thus people far more affluent are going to bit outbidding the comm…

well actually...

the city of vienna mandates that 2/3rd of any new housing is subsidized. so instead of controlling the price all over, you control the price of a part, and make sure that every neighborhood has room for low income families. in other words you enforce mixing. singapore is another city with a lot of subsidized housing.

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