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Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

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Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#791

Post by dionidium »

danlugo92 wrote: post #789
dionidium wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sort of true, but confused, because it's land that has value, not housing, and the value of land increases when it's upzoned. [0] [0] It's of course not increased when government unilaterally constructs low-income housing without reference to market conditions, which is why it's important to assure homeowners that this is not what upzoning entails.

I'm not american but if most people in America can right now classify as low income (paycheck to paycheck) then open up the floodgates on low-income housing everywhere?

"Paycheck to paycheck" is not an official term or (to be frank) even a meaningful one. The fact is that Americans are extraordinarily wealthy and by no reasonable measure are "most" of them "low income."

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#792

Post by Ostrogoth »

hattmall wrote: post #717
lillecarl wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Sweden I haven't heard of a single person moving to a shithole because of WFH. Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö metro areas are nicer to live in than bumfuck nowhere. Probably related to public transport existing and commuting being less soul crushing.

That's Sweden though, there's a huge difference in the major metros and remainder. In the US it's far different. Outdoor recreation is a huge driver which in Sweden is very much comparatively limited. Rural / non-major metro areas homes have values have been increasing even faster as well as the rates of new construction in those areas. For one thing, public transportation is absolute garbage and basically useless ou…

As someone in the US who has lived in small/er towns for over half my life and now lives in a major metro area, the benefits of denser urban areas greatly outweigh smaller towns at this stage in my life. Outside of the western states, much of the US is private land, so outdoor recreational opportunities are limited even in rural areas. In my personal experience quality local entertainment and dining has not increased in small towns, if anything its gone down as more people source entertainment online and big corporate chain restaurants take over real estate. In my experience denser urban areas have more to offer in terms of diversity of art, culture, and thought. Economies of scale make it possible to sustain niche endeavors. Access to international airports is also a major boon.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#793

Post by naveen99 »

dionidium wrote: post #760
lispisok wrote: post #651

People debating about what kind of housing to build are getting ahead of themselves. The housing crisis is intentional. Homeowners demand the value of their home keep going up and they vote. They way to do that is to keep supply lower than demand. The first step to fixing the housing crisis isnt to figure out what kind of housing to build, it's to convince enough of the voting population there is a housing crisis tha…

This is sort of true, but confused, because it's land that has value, not housing, and the value of land increases when it's upzoned. [0] [0] It's of course not increased when government unilaterally constructs low-income housing without reference to market conditions, which is why it's important to assure homeowners that this is not what upzoning entails.

There is land, there is housing, and then there is who lives there. Some people bring value, some people take it away. Naturally the people who bring value get to keep some of it, as they can chose to bring it elsewhere if they don’t.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#794

Post by Sophistifunk »

screye wrote: post #647
Sophistifunk wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea that the problem with western society is that we allow people to live in detached houses with yards instead of inner-city apartment buildings is bollocks. People need privacy, something to work on, freedom to move about, and agency over their environment to thrive psychologically. That's why prison is the opposite of this. "Something to work on" is partially being met by video games, and it's not going well…

This would be a compelling complaint if the rest of the world didn't exist. Every complaint about apartments stems from American inner city dilapidation. My first culture shock when arriving in the US was the sorry state of American apartments. We know how to build apartments that are insulated to sound. Common building courtyards give kids safe play-areas within walking distance while supervised. Balconies can be bu…

I am not an American.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#795

Post by Sophistifunk »

JoeJonathan wrote: post #656
Sophistifunk wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea that the problem with western society is that we allow people to live in detached houses with yards instead of inner-city apartment buildings is bollocks. People need privacy, something to work on, freedom to move about, and agency over their environment to thrive psychologically. That's why prison is the opposite of this. "Something to work on" is partially being met by video games, and it's not going well…

Do people need privacy (of the sort you mean) and something to work on (meaning a house and not a body, a language, a family, friendships)? Is that why everyone in New York and São Paulo and Tokyo is so sad?

I didn't mean you need the house to work on it, FWIW, but there are a lot of hobbies that will scratch that itch, and are impossible or make you a real dick if you live in an apartment complex. Sorry for not making that clear.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#796

Post by fragmede »

nradov wrote: post #535
foxyv wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American apartments are horrible. However, that isn't a problem with dense housing itself so much as how our cities are built.

I don't understand your comment. Changing how cities are built won't prevent antisocial people from moving in next door. That's more of a social policy and law enforcement issue than an urban planning issue.

> You're going to occasionally get drug dealers (or other habitual criminals), aggressive dog owners, serious mental illness cases, couples that have screaming arguments every night, motorcyclists who rev their engines at 5:00 AM, etc.

I'm not downplaying how much those suck. but half of those problems go away if you don't have to hear them. The couple that argues at all hours of the day? How do you know they're arguing if you can't hear them? If there's a dog that barks all day long but you can't hear it, how is that a problem? Not all of the problems go away, yes, but some of them go away if apartments are built better.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#798

Post by shiroiushi »

screye wrote: post #649
scoofy wrote: post #273

Earlier 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…

The hilarious bit is how confident they all are about people wanting SFH development, yet refuse to legalize everything else. Imagine banning every android device from the US, while also proclaiming that no one would've purchased android anyway, because Apple is so popular. Apple is good because they compete and then win. If SFH demand is so high, surely legalizing vertical development would be no big deal, just like…

Last I heard, Android has about 50% marketshare in the US. That's pretty far from "struggling to gain adoption". It's not winning, but it's not losing either, it's a tie.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#799

Post by shiroiushi »

silverlyra wrote: post #321
akira2501 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We no longer build the types of urban homes that were popular when this was primarily an agrarian country, and this only happened because of zoning laws?

> when this was a primarily agrarian country it sounds ironic, but much of the shift to suburban development patterns in the USA was indeed driven by the Great Migration into cities – specifically, the migration of formerly-enslaved Black Americans out of the rural south and into cities. US public policy was very explicit about disinvesting in cities and destroying vibrant urban neighborhoods, replacing them with fre…

Many of the US's fundamental problems stem from racism.
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