[HN Gopher] Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the hous...
___________________________________________________________________
Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage
Author : taion
Score : 103 points
Date : 2024-03-13 13:41 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.construction-physics.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.construction-physics.com)
| h2odragon wrote:
| > the mass timber framing uses four to five times the volume of
| wood as the light-framed wood framing.
|
| I recall helping nail 2x6's together into big composite beams, in
| the 80s in Florida. something like a 32 foot clear roof span was
| needed and I think we were doing 3 layers for a 6in x 6in final
| profile. Good job for a kid: "Here's a box of 150 nails. put them
| _all_ in these boards "
|
| I've seen a meeting hall floor that was made by laying 2x4's up
| side by side and nailing them together. They were knotted,
| warped, reject pile boards and someone collected a big pile and
| planed one side straight then laminated them into a 20ft or so
| floor over the basement of a church building. Big massive center
| beam under it and no other supports but the walls. 3+ in thick
| and that heavily nailed; no worries.
|
| It was fine finished and lovely from the top; the bottom was
| moreso to my eye: you could see how woven together it was and how
| far from perfect the individual boards were.
|
| In both cases the design was inefficient and used profligate
| amounts of wood compared to what could have been done with steel
| or other methods. In both cases the wood was extra cheap or free
| and someone was making expedient use of it.
| xattt wrote:
| > It was fine finished and lovely from the top; the bottom was
| moreso to my eye: you could see how woven together it was and
| how far from perfect the individual boards were.
|
| This seems like a fitting description of society in general.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I had an addition done where they had to bolt LVL and steel
| plate together for a rather large span with cantilever. That
| bit of support isn't ever moving.
| mikece wrote:
| > the mass timber framing uses four to five times the volume of
| wood as the light-framed wood framing.
|
| So... basically "buy more wood?" I think I'll pass.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| It's a false equivalence, light-wood framing is typically used
| in single-family homes or shorter (<5 stories) multi-family
| homes.
|
| Steel and concrete is typically used for 10-20 story
| multifamily housing.
|
| Mass timber is being pushed by the timber manufacturers as an
| alternative to steel and concrete, no one's seriously proposing
| you build your 2-story 2500 sqft home out of laminated beams
| instead of studs, trusses, and joists.
| nemo44x wrote:
| You can do things with it that you can't do otherwise. For
| instance, you can create extremely large spans that weren't
| otherwise possible in wood framed construction. This creates
| really cool opportunities when designing the interior of a
| home.
|
| Framing can be done with LVL as well and the benefit is that
| it's very stiff. This means a better frame when you have high
| ceilings and the ability to go 24" off center so you can have
| more insulation. Can do this with 2x6 as well.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Not a very convincing article. The fact that mass timber uses
| more wood is right there in the name. Everyone knows this. The
| point is you get a better building. The cavities in a wood-framed
| building cause all manner of problems with respect to heat,
| draft, cold, damp, and noise. Filling the cavity with solid wood
| variously solves such problems.
|
| All the stuff about the capital cost of making laminated wood is
| irrelevant. Only the marginal cost of the assembly matters.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Mass timber isn't meant to replace stick built buildings that
| are 5 stories or less, it's meant to replace reinforced
| concrete for buildings over 5 stories, up to around ~25 stories
| [0]
|
| [0] https://www.fs.usda.gov/inside-fs/delivering-
| mission/apply/w...
| jeffbee wrote:
| There are plenty of smaller ones. There's a 5-story one in
| downtown Oakland, for example.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| I suppose there are certain locations (Bay Area, for one)
| where the property values are high enough to include 5x the
| cost for framing and still net a nice profit, but a
| 'typical' developer maximizing their margins will almost
| inevitably stick build a 5-over-1 due to cost savings.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Filling the cavity with solid wood variously solves such
| problems.
|
| Solves some problems, sure, but not heat/cold. Wood has just
| over a third the R-value of fiberglass batting, IIRC. Better to
| increase the cavity size and uncouple the inner and outer
| studs.
| bell-cot wrote:
| The article says it's trying to rebut a recent FAS article -
| which starts with:
|
| > Mass timber can help solve the housing shortage, yet the
| building material is not widely adopted because old building
| codes ...
|
| > Mass timber can help with housing abundance and the climate
| transition.
|
| And the FAS article's call to action seems to be "Congress needs
| to increase the USDA's budget".
|
| So, yes. Easier than rebutting "warm water is dry and crumbly".
| One wonders whether the Federation of American Scientists has
| ever heard of "NIMBY", "zoning", or "environmental impact". Let
| alone "house-poor" or "local government".
| marssaxman wrote:
| Here in Seattle, an eight-story mass-timber apartment building
| was recently finished, claimed to be the first of its kind in the
| US:
|
| https://timberlab.com/projects/heartwood
|
| This was built close to my house, so I got to watch the frame
| rise. It was an interesting process, and it makes a certain
| amount of sense to emphasize timber construction in this heavily-
| forested region. I have to agree with the headline, though.
| ducttapecrown wrote:
| There's also a completed mass timber building on UW campus, on
| a grass field adjacent to the cherry groves that will be in
| bloom March 20th.
| cpursley wrote:
| To solve the housing crisis you have to build up like the Soviets
| and Chinese have. They housed a lot of people, quickly.
|
| It's really not difficult; just takes some brave people to change
| the zoning laws and rethink some of the building codes combined
| with financing it.
| cpursley wrote:
| But not like the UK and US social housing / projects. They need
| to be in master planned, well thought out and connected
| communities.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I cannot upvote this enough. We ruined today through decades
| of car centric planning, we have to give the future something
| better.
| psychlops wrote:
| This whole chain is a series of ideas that will never
| happen.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| These are not the vibes I am looking for. If you don't
| have hope, what are you even doing?
| psychlops wrote:
| Apologies, I hope our next generation of leaders are
| master planners.
| cpursley wrote:
| The issue might get forced if energy prices hit a
| threshold, debt bomb explodes, etc.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Mixed use. And also mixing all types of social, free-market
| rental and owner occupied. Quality for later two could be
| better, but it should still be next to each other using same
| services.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > But not like the UK
|
| The UK's social housing scheme was/is a stonking success,
| right up until about 1980. it completely reset the minimum
| standard of housing from slums to actually decent. It wasn't
| all a success, skelmersdale and thamesmede sucked balls.
|
| The problem with the uk's social housing came as follows:
|
| 1) the change from needing a job to have a council house to
| being a dumping ground for troubled families without support
| 2) removing the ability of councils to fund new housing 3)
| overly complex centralised funding of repairs and upkeep 4)
| selling off housing and then taking the money away that was
| needed to replace them
|
| Thats very different to the "projects"
| cpursley wrote:
| I don't know the UK situation in much depth but one of the
| things I read was how they were disconnected from the rest
| of the community (socially, services, transport, etc).
| KaiserPro wrote:
| indeed, some of it was/is. However in london it was
| (mostly) slammed in on bombsites/ex industrial places:
| https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/council-releases-
| map-of...
|
| southwark has the most council estates. the further out
| boroughs did try and put their estates far out. Places
| like thamesmede
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thamesmead) failed because
| there was literally nothing else around (thats improved
| significantly, 50 years later)
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| Has someone on onion talks said it before "the idea is there,
| it just needs implementation".
|
| https://youtu.be/DkGMY63FF3Q
| davidw wrote:
| You don't even have to do that - a lot of 3/4/5 story style
| flats (can be owned or rented) that are not concrete soviet
| blocks would do wonders in most cities. See: western Europe.
| cpursley wrote:
| Yep, Denmark and the Netherlands especially get this right.
| davidw wrote:
| It's pretty standard in most places outside of the odd
| tower block here and there.
|
| That kind of housing goes back at least as far as the Roman
| insulae, which you can still see in places like Ostia
| Antica.
| Symmetry wrote:
| The Chinese/Soviet style of a tower in a park builds tall, but
| it doesn't actually tend to give more density than more US
| style dense areas with 3-5 stories mostly filling a block. With
| the Chinese approach you get better views, but with the US
| approach you get more walkable neighborhoods and I'll take the
| later.
| cpursley wrote:
| > with the US approach you get more walkable neighborhoods
|
| Have you actually ever spent time in a post-Soviet country?
| Their cities are an order of magnitude more walkable than
| literally _anywhere_ in the US. And that 's ignoring their
| much better mix of uses (ground floor retail, etc) and access
| to public spaces (by foot).
| xyzelement wrote:
| // To solve the housing crisis you have to build up like the
| Soviets
|
| My family lived in a communal apartment[0] for about 30 years
| in the USSR waiting for a place of our own. Whatever definition
| of "housing crisis" you are operating with, is heaven on earth
| compared to the Soviet housing reality.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_apartment
| cpursley wrote:
| Please be honest, the vast majority Russians and other
| Soviets didn't live in communal apartments for the past 60
| years. Not only did they have access to new construction
| commie blocks (small and ugly, but warm and well connected),
| well over 50% of them had summer homes (datchas) and many
| still do today.
|
| Anyways, you're missing my point. Which was to solve the
| post-war housing crisis by building _up_ with prefabs. And it
| worked - rapidly.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Of course timber won't fix the housing shortage. The housing
| shortage is artificial. There are plenty of empty units across
| the country. It's a distribution issue of: owners holding vacant
| units, people wanting/needing to live in specific locations, and
| individual preferences for bigger, fancier, better school, sfh,
| etc attributes. With an almost stagnate population growth this
| isn't really a _building_ issue even if it is a supply side
| issue.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| Raise prop taxes for non-rented vacation units by 150%
|
| Raise prop taxes for rentals by %350.
|
| Raise prop taxes for airbnbs by %500.
|
| Everyone will own a home, and home prices will plummet as
| people try to unload extremely expensive property taxes. And if
| it doesn't work, double my percentages. Or just make it 100k
| per year. Those people crazy enough to keep holding them, will
| fund the creation of homeless housing. DV's are just landlords
| and other types of bottom feeders.
| louthy wrote:
| Everybody will be paying more rent
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| If that happens, just raise prop taxes to 100k per year
| (for rental units).
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Raising property taxes on rentals increases cost to
| renters. Raising taxes on vacant units is a good idea
| though (but perhaps hard to enforce).
|
| Remote work is solving the housing shortage already
| though, through opening up living to much wider geography
| (and locales that don't impede building, such as TX and
| FL). It will just take a decade or so to normalize.
|
| In-person work forced people to compete over limited
| housing in small areas
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I would say it is doing the opposite of solving the
| housing shortage right now. It is exporting it instead
| while also not doing much about the shortage at its
| origins.
|
| All those cute picturesque towns in the Mountain West
| don't have a large supply of homes to begin with, so it
| only takes a few wealthy Californians to seriously upend
| the local market with wages paid much higher than what
| locals can get for their skills.
| its_ethan wrote:
| For what it's worth - you come across as completely
| unserious if your suggestion to fix housing shortages is
| genuinely to levy a $100k tax for property owners who
| aren't currently renting out their units.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| I'll tell you what's unserious - people wanting to
| actually solve the housing crisis. Every solution is 100%
| idiotic. The way we currently operate is to build more
| housing, they are building a dramatic amount of housing,
| and the price of a house is still $400k medium. It is
| telling me they are not selling to families but instead
| to corporations, bnbers, rentals, foreign governments.
|
| https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/housing-starts
| ejb999 wrote:
| Maybe they still cost $400K, because the purchase of the
| land, the labor and the materials and the interest to
| finance the project eat up most of that $400K, not to
| mention some places charge you building permits that cost
| ten's of thousands of dollars - if not more.
|
| Nobody is going to build houses and sell them at a loss
| or at break-even price, they need to cover their costs
| and make some profit as well to keep the business alive.
| SheepSlapper wrote:
| Coming from a construction background, I can confirm all
| of this. Permits are out of control, material prices are
| nuts (not COVID nuts, but still at least 300% higher than
| the good old days), and subcontractors are both hard to
| find and more expensive. It's not crazy to build a decent
| 3-4 bedroom house and have it cost $400k all said and
| done, even in my small-big-ish town.
|
| A lot of people in here arguing, bet there are very few
| of us that have actually built houses before :)
| travisb wrote:
| I was speaking to my house builder in the middle of 2023
| and he noted that it had become impossible to build a
| starter house (2/3 bedrooms, 1.5-2 bath) for less than
| $450k CAD (~$300k USD) -- excluding land, utility
| connection, and financing costs.
|
| He also mentioned that new requirements going into effect
| this year were going to add $10-15k per house.
|
| People tend to have a poor grasp on what building a new
| house actually costs. They cost a lot to build with no
| gouging whatsoever.
| jrockway wrote:
| I mean, landlords are going to pass on their costs directly
| to tenants. If you raise property taxes, then rents simply go
| up. None of these tax increases are going to magically make a
| 20% down payment appear in someone's bank account that they
| could use to purchase something outright. None of these tax
| increases are going to prevent people who legitimately want
| to rent from renting. (Some examples: apartments that are
| $30k a month for rich people that need to live in some city
| for 3 months of the year. $8k/month assisted living
| facilities for rich people that are now old and need access
| to care while still living alone.)
|
| Probably the most realistic thing to do is to simply
| implement rent control. "You can't legally collect more than
| $X/month in rent" fixes the problem of rent being too high.
| If that makes owning rental units unpopular, so be it.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| There is absolutely nothing wrong with allowing someone to
| rent a unit for $30k per month - even if there are
| thousands of them. If we're collecting 100k in property
| taxes earmarked for certain programs - that would
| effectively fund building an entire ADU on a property per
| year for that expensive rental to exist.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. I'm tired of the HN crowd that espouses
| the benefits of building more supply, yet consider the AirBNB
| and rental-afflicted homes to be totally untouchable. Even
| worse are the ones that seem to strongly believe in
| environmentalism, yet have no problem tearing down forests to
| build more supply on them...for AirBNBs and rentals.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| There are so many people that think drugs or poor decisions
| are leading to the homeless tents all over the place. The
| drugs and poor decisions are things that come AFTER going
| homeless. The studies are showing that rising housing costs
| have directly caused the homeless crisis. WE neeed to do
| something fast.
| smolder wrote:
| Cutting down trees to build housing or furniture or
| whatever is a carbon sink. More trees can be planted.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| On top of the house that took the space where trees
| previously were? There's only so much space for trees.
| Seizing it for AirBNBs seems like a massive waste when we
| have hotels that use space much more efficiently.
| survirtual wrote:
| To add,
|
| - Make it illegal for corporations to own residential homes /
| any property in residentially zone locations
|
| - Generate policies to eliminate real estate parasites
| (illegal to have percentage profits off of sales, open data,
| low friction technological avenues to remove those jobs
| altogether)
|
| - Marginally increasing second / third / fourth property
| taxes on individuals (first home untaxed, second taxed at 20%
| market-rate valuation per year, third taxed at 50%, fourth at
| 100%, etc).
|
| - Create avenues to easily demolish HOAs when they go off the
| rails
|
| - Multi-unit housing can no longer be owned or managed by a
| for-profit entity (rent goes exclusively towards building
| upgrades and paying works for upkeep & administration, all
| transparently visible
|
| - Limit Big Lumber's ability to export Lumber outside of the
| US -- trees grown in the US should stay in it to house
| people.
|
| This would be a start to fixing the issue. The objective
| being, of course, to utterly collapse the housing market, and
| make houses homes again.
| spankalee wrote:
| Owners holding vacant units is not a significant cause of the
| housing shortage. Overly restrictive zoning and subjective
| reviews exploited by NIMBYs explains almost all of it.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| There are studies - there are more vacation units than
| homeless people in the United States - like double.
| spankalee wrote:
| Those studies are so often flawed will pieces. Houses
| begging sold or between tenants are counted as vacant.
| Vacancies in rural Pennsylvania and Kentucky don't matter
| much for the homeless in Oakland.
|
| What do you even do with that information? Ship the
| homeless around the country?
|
| Other studies should that the higher the vacancy rate the
| lower the homeless rate and the cheaper housing is. So we
| can just allow people to build where people want to live
| and solve both problems.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| If you do the right "step-up" programs and purchasable
| housing becomes extremely cheap around the country, it
| will solve itself. There are a lot of homeless people in
| Oakland that if found out they can buy a house in
| Kentucky and afford it with a restaurant dish-cleaning
| job, they would move. Stop treating the homeless as
| "shippable containers" they have agency.
| willcipriano wrote:
| The dish washer jobs pays less than minimum wage under
| the table, beacuse the government flew desperate people
| from the poorest part of the planet to town to compete
| with the existing dishwashers.
| 2024throwaway wrote:
| > beacuse the government flew desperate people from the
| poorest part of the planet to town to compete with the
| existing dishwashers.
|
| Gonna need some sources on this one.
| willcipriano wrote:
| From just last week:
|
| > The Center for Immigration Studies found last year from
| January 2023 to December 2023, at least 320,000 illegal
| immigrants were allowed to fly into the U.S. from their
| home country through a controversial program of the Biden
| administration using the Customs and Border Patrol app,
| the CBP One app that was created to let migrants apply
| for parole into the US.
|
| > The Parole program allows for two-year periods of legal
| status during which adults are eligible for work
| authorization.
|
| https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/biden-admin-
| flew-hu...
| TylerE wrote:
| If they're coming in under a government program with
| proper paperwork, they aren't illegals.
| willcipriano wrote:
| I agree. It's government policy at this point to bring in
| as many people as possible for some reason. My guess is
| to drive down wages, some others have guessed that it's
| due to a belief that global conflict is rising and the
| native population is unwilling to fight.
| TylerE wrote:
| Then you should not have said 320,000 _illegal_
| immigrants brought in, since you agree they are not
| illegals.
| exoverito wrote:
| This perspective seems to be missing the forest for the
| trees. Bribery isn't illegal for Congress, it's just
| called lobbying. Insider trading isn't illegal either.
|
| Loose immigration policy and the lack of border
| enforcement obviously exerts downward pressure on wages
| for low skill workers. It also bids up rents since
| illegal immigrants are willing to pile into a 1 bedroom
| apartment. The elite own businesses and real estate, both
| of which benefit from illegal immigration reducing wages
| and increasing demand for rent. If you take a minute to
| think about the incentives, then see the effects in the
| world around you, it's pretty obvious what's going on.
| Aloisius wrote:
| Sigh.
|
| The humanitarian parole program was created to allow
| 30,000 Cuban/Haitian/Nicaraguan/Venezuelan nationals in
| per month on a _two year_ work visa as long as they have
| a US sponsor that will financially support them and pass
| background checks.
|
| In return, Mexico is allowing the US to expel 30,000
| illegal migrants per month from those countries to Mexico
| rather than their home countries.
| willcipriano wrote:
| When is the humanitarian relief for dishwashers in
| Kentucky expected to arrive?
| Aloisius wrote:
| Not relief. Parole.
|
| The parole process has reduced the number of aliens from
| those countries entering the US _and_ government spending
| _and_ lets us do background checks, capture biometrics
| and cap how long they 're allowed to be here.
|
| There's a reason why the court tossed Texas' lawsuits
| against it this week. They couldn't find injury.
| bombcar wrote:
| It doesn't matter if they're only here for two years;
| they still need housing during that time.
|
| That's 30,000 unhoused individuals per month being added,
| and unless the expelled offsets it, they still need
| housing.
| Aloisius wrote:
| It reduced illegal border crossings by people from those
| countries by more than were admitted through the program,
| so housing requirements should be reduced overall.
| TylerE wrote:
| Such houses do not exist. A minimum wage dish washing job
| barely pays enough to eat off of.
|
| Your gross take home from a minimum wage part time job is
| $145/week. Before all taxes and deductions.
|
| You can't afford a closet is crack hiuse on that "salary"
| even in the boonies.
|
| Even in my LCOL areas places that were like $400/month 5
| or 6 years ago are over $1000/month.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| I think you missed the thread - we're making it nearly
| impossible for someone to own a rental, it would flood
| the market with purchasable homes - cratering home prices
| potentially making the medium drop from $400k to $100k
| (at least for a certain class of homes), create programs
| for homeless people to get loans - some kind of step-up,
| combined with a job, and the homeless would suddenly be
| home owners and become people contributing to the world
| again.
| TylerE wrote:
| $100k might as well be $100m to 99% of homeless people.
| Do you think they're going to qualify for a loan at a
| non-usurious rate?
|
| In case, if the market value drops, well, rich people
| will just buy them.
|
| If you're currently in a "$300k" home and can buy a
| "$400k" home for $100k... like how do any of these
| numbers make any sort of sense?
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| What is a rich person that already has a home going to do
| with a $100k house that costs another $100k for them each
| year?
| TylerE wrote:
| What's the homeless person that can't afford it going to
| do with it?
| giantg2 wrote:
| I don't think I missed the thread. Crating home prices is
| basically recreating half of the 20008 financial crisis
| when people are underwater and unable to move, nor have
| any financial flexibility. Giving homeless people a
| program to help them out of homelessness and into some
| form of housing can be good, but jumping them up to
| homeowners seems a giant leap. If you get them into a
| stable job and apartment, they aren't homeless anymore.
| If they're stable, they'll eventually qualify for a loan
| like everyone else.
| shagie wrote:
| I believe that you overestimate the ability / desire for
| someone to move even if there are more opportunities
| there.
|
| A person's friends, family, social support... and
| frankly, modern culture can make moving a sticky problem.
|
| https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-
| series/de...
|
| The rate of people moving between states has dropped
| significantly.
|
| https://www2.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-
| series/d...
|
| The people moving within the same city has stayed rather
| constant, it is the distance moves that have dropped - ht
| tps://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualiza
| t...
|
| ---
|
| I believe that if you offered homeless people in Oakland
| a job and a house in Kentucky that they could pay off in
| 10 years while working as a dish washer, you would have
| very few takers.
|
| I would also suggest that the town that has the
| dishwashing job in Kentucky - that business is likely to
| close in 5 years and there won't be any more unskilled
| jobs in the town and they'll be out of a job and unable
| to pay the mortgage, get foreclosed and be homeless again
| -- they know that story.
|
| Better the devil you know than the devil you don't -
| homeless in California is known while a homeless in
| Kentucky is something else with even fewer opportunities
| out.
| TylerE wrote:
| Plus that town in Kentucky is likely already dealing with
| a homelessness epidemic of their own before you start
| bussing people in from out of state.
|
| Also ignoring that many people who live in California
| would face non-trivial threats to their health and
| livelihood if they were move to a regressive Bible Belt
| state. That is not a theoretical concern, but one born
| out by numerous tragedies.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't -
| homeless in California is known while a homeless in
| Kentucky is something else with even fewer opportunities
| out."
|
| Sounds like when homeless people or people on various
| assistance sometimes turn down opportunities because
| they're afraid (sometimes rightfully do) that it will
| ruin one of their other assistance. How do you help
| people who don't want to be helped?
| 8note wrote:
| Between tenants should be considered vacant, when you
| consider that landlords have been colluding to restrict
| supply and drive up rents
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Homeless people are largely homeless because of other life
| circumstances (drug addiction, mental illness), not
| affordability.
| slothtrop wrote:
| This is wrong. Homelessness scales with affordability,
| not mental illness or addiction rates. This is why San
| Fransisco and LA have the highest rates in the country.
| Noah Smith writes about this at length, the data is very
| clear.
| shagie wrote:
| Homelessness in San Francisco doesn't kill you from the
| elements in January or July. A homeless person in
| Minneapolis or Chicago in January may die from the
| elements on an excessively cold night. A homeless person
| in Arizona in July can also die from it being too hot.
|
| It's rarely ever too hot or too cold in costal California
| cities.
| slothtrop wrote:
| > Homelessness in San Francisco doesn't kill you from the
| elements in January or July.
|
| This would be equally true of other large cities in the
| southern half (including July for many), and none of them
| have anywhere near the same rate. Notwithstanding,
| northern cities have indoor shelters and if the cold
| mattered that much, the rates would be quite small, but
| they're not. In expensive cities like NY, homelessness
| rates are high.
|
| See here https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-
| think-you-know-...
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Or to put it another way, while 33% of the homeless
| population suffers from mental illness, nearly 100% of
| the homeless population can't afford housing. 100% is a
| much bigger number than 33%. Which is why mental health,
| while a factor in homelessness, cannot possibly or
| statistically be a lead factor."
|
| The quality of the analysis and arguments are terrible.
| We can just ignore factors if they don't explain
| everything? And why is it missing a section on the
| biggest correlating factor - lack of employment? The
| severe mental health and substance abuse (with other
| factors like criminal records) greatly impact one's
| ability to get any job. Affordability is a moot point for
| people in these categories as without a job, you can't
| afford anything. It would be better to do more granular
| analysis on those who are employed but homeless. That is
| likely to be the marginal diffence explained in the
| housing cost section.
| slothtrop wrote:
| > We can just ignore factors if they don't explain
| everything?
|
| No, we just can't rely on them to explain everything! As
| you purport.
|
| Only 33% of the homeless suffer from mental illness, and
| it certainly is not a strong predictor as to why rates
| are high in some cities but not others. That's the data.
|
| > Affordability is a moot point for people in these
| categories
|
| It matters to everyone, but even if we pretend it
| doesn't, that's 67% percent of the homeless.
| shagie wrote:
| https://www.axios.com/local/phoenix/2024/01/22/arizona-
| heat-...
|
| > Between the lines: The county is also trying to address
| other health factors that put people at increased risk
| for heat illness or death, including drug use and
| unsheltered homelessness, by embedding social workers at
| cooling centers to help with finding housing and harm-
| reduction strategies, Sunenshine says.
|
| > More than half of last year's heat deaths were people
| experiencing homelessness and two-thirds involved
| substance use, she said.
|
| https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/12/texas-heat-
| deaths-20...
|
| > Green was among the 334 people in Texas who died from
| heat in 2023, according to data compiled by the Texas
| Department of State Health Services between Jan. 1 and
| Nov. 30.
|
| > The heat killed more Texans in 2023 than any other year
| on record, according to the figures, which are not yet
| final. The state's heat-related death records began in
| 1989.
|
| > Heat-related deaths are typically associated with a
| secondary factor such as mobility problems, mental
| illness, drug and alcohol use or homelessness that
| prevents people from escaping extreme heat, Dwyer said.
| That's one reason why elderly people have a higher risk
| of heat-related death, she said.
|
| https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/heat-related-
| deaths-i...
|
| California has 4.2 heat related deaths per million. (all
| of California - including Fresno).
|
| Arizona has 71.9 heat related deaths per million.
|
| Texas is 6.7.
|
| San Francisco had the third lowest ER room encounters for
| heat related emergencies at 5.1 per 100,000 residents (it
| was behind Marin and Santa Clara).
|
| While hot weather in San Francisco should not be ignored,
| it is no where near the mortality rate that is seen in
| other southern cities.
|
| ---
|
| You cannot have the same rates of unhoused people (note:
| using unhoused here because a person who is homeless
| living in a hotel room is homeless, but not unhoused) in
| northern cities because you will die in Minneapolis in
| the winter if you don't have a place to stay.
|
| https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/2023%20Hom
| ele...
|
| San Francisco has 887 homeless people per 100k residents.
| Boston has 657. Denver has 670. Minneapolis has 209.
| Chicago has 141. I'll also draw special attention to page
| 9 with the percent of the population that is unsheltered.
|
| The unsheltered per 100,000 residents:
| San Francisco 420 Denver 184
| Boston 18 Chicago 46
| Minneapolis 38
|
| ---
|
| Specifically regarding mental illness and heat -
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-
| environment/interacti...
| giantg2 wrote:
| It might be correlated, and it might making a difference
| at the margins (eg the people who have a job and can
| afford to live in a car). But the vast majority of the
| homeless population does not fit in that margin. Most of
| them do have other problems preventing them from getting
| any job, like severe mental health, substance abuse, or
| criminal records. Affordability is a moot point when
| employment is unattainable.
| slothtrop wrote:
| > Most of them do have other problems preventing them
| from getting any job, like severe mental health,
| substance abuse, or criminal records.
|
| I just showed you elsewhere that this is wrong.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Your link didn't address the other factors preventing a
| job, such as criminal records. Sure, severe mental health
| issues are _only_ a quarter. And substance use is
| something like 40%, but significant overlap. Add in
| felony convictions and see were we land.
| matchbok wrote:
| Please take a moment and think if a system where we have 0%
| vacancy. How would anyone move?
|
| Vacancy is not the issue.
| eks391 wrote:
| That stat is so impressive that I'm struggling to believe
| it. Is there a source you can point me to?
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Overly restrictive zoning and subjective reviews exploited
| by NIMBYs explains almost all of it."
|
| You seem to be ignoring the main part of my statement -
| distribution and preferences matter. "NIMBYs" can't be a
| retort to that when NIMBY is by definition local - there are
| many other areas to build in across the country.
|
| "Owners holding vacant units is not a significant cause of
| the housing shortage."
|
| It may not be the biggest cause, but it is "significant". It
| is more pronounced in some markets and sectors (apartments).
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| No, it's not. Markets with a housing shortage have record
| low inventories and record low uninhabited units.
| pitaj wrote:
| Except we know it's a building issue. Housing starts are lower
| than they were in 2000 despite adding 50 million in population.
|
| Vacancy is good - higher vacancy is related to lower prices.
| Vacancy rates are the lowest they've been in decades.
|
| We just need to build.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Except we know it's a building issue. Housing starts are
| lower than they were in 2000 despite adding 50 million in
| population."
|
| Check the timeline and distribution though. Housing starts
| dropped in 2008. Measure the population from that point. From
| 2008 on, you're looking at .5% population growth and it's
| dropping. Housing starts are still reasonable at about .5M-1M
| units.
|
| The problem is distribution. Population growth in certain
| cities has outpaced building in those cities. However, there
| are other cities where the inverse is true.
|
| "Vacancy is good - higher vacancy is related to lower prices.
| Vacancy rates are the lowest they've been in decades."
|
| Vacancy is only going to lead to lower prices if those vacant
| units are on the market. That's not necessarily the case with
| the corporate owners.
| slothtrop wrote:
| > owners holding vacant units
|
| Check the vacancy rate in major cities.
|
| > people wanting/needing to live in specific locations
|
| Where the jobs are, yes.
|
| > individual preferences for bigger, fancier, better school,
| sfh, etc attributes
|
| Mixed density and smaller builds are almost nowhere to be
| found, and small developers have incredible difficulty securing
| loans from banks to build them. The large developers focus on
| expensive projects that have more overhead and checks, and even
| there they don't build that much because they are few in
| number. People would opt for mixed density were it actually
| available.
|
| Zoning and regs are actually among the factors that make
| certain projects riskier, so reform helps in this regard. Just
| see Minneapolis. Zoning reform works. It works so well that
| there is some push back from NIMBYs in those cities pissed off
| that their areas are changing fast.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Where the jobs are, yes." "Check the vacancy rate in major
| cities."
|
| What are the vacancy rates in the smaller cities and rural
| areas? What are we doing to utilize the vacant units by
| bringing jobs to those areas? Is it really more effiecnt to
| build new housing rather than take advantage of the existing
| housing? Should we just concentrate everything in a few major
| cities and leave everyone else behind?
|
| Sure, reducing zoning will mean less rules and people can do
| more things, like build. The interesting thing is that
| building mfh was only a small part of the change - a change
| that CA also made state-wide but isnt seeing much benefit
| from. The change that made the real difference was increasing
| density for apartments and reducing parking requirements. The
| rents for apartments dropped, but sfh values have continued
| to climb as population _declines_. Bringing me back to the
| preferences and distribution part of my original comment
| -affordability is mostly driven by preferences and
| distribution.
| pksebben wrote:
| I would love to see a "landlord tax" that squeezes owners to
| either live in, rent out, or sell.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I think you mean an empty unit tax.
| pksebben wrote:
| 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.
| tempsy wrote:
| There's a shortage of detached single family homes in desirable
| cities and suburbs.
|
| If you just want to rent an apartment there's an oversupply from
| overbuilding during the pandemic.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| There's generally not room to build the desired number of
| detached single family homes (with desirable lot sizes) in
| desirable cities and suburbs. Which is why you end up with
| exurbs and hour long commutes.
|
| We need to build higher density housing in the desirable areas,
| which is often disallowed by zoning.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I think you're operating on maybe 5+ year old thinking on
| this problem. Post-COVID, the "exurbs with hour long
| commutes" have become significantly more desirable, as people
| have gone fully or partially remote. The "penalty" of the
| long commute has gone down while the benefits of space,
| affordability, and community type have gone up. The world is
| obviously figuring out the Return to Office thing but overall
| the commute is a less big deal than it once was.
|
| This dynamic means that folks who own what you correctly
| categorize as owning "detached single family homes in (or
| close) to desirable cities" who no longer care about the
| commute might be overall willing to sell these homes in favor
| of larger/more affordable homes further out, freeing up these
| homes to those for whom city proximity still matters.
|
| I think there are really two core demographics at play with a
| small middle. There are those who are all about the city life
| - don't want a car, don't want a house, want to walk to work
| and to the tinder date, be around a large number of diverse
| people and experiences, etc. Then there are those who
| primarily orient their life around home/family and want the
| space/affordability. Distance to city mainly matters as a
| factor of the commute, which itself is less relevant than it
| was before.
|
| Then there's the relatively smaller group that both wants a
| house and needs to be close to the city life. This group will
| continue to pay the highest costs because they have the
| highest demand but I think that's reasonable.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| The number of people working remote is still fairly small
| compared to the overall workforce. Many jobs simply don't
| allow for it. If you're in tech you're probably
| overestimating how big this shift has been.
| spankalee wrote:
| I don't think there's much, if any, of an over supply of
| apartments. The people I've seen who try to teach vacancies
| show that new buildings get to nearly full occupancy within a
| year or so. That's pretty reasonable if you need to rent a few
| hundred units at once.
|
| If anything, there's a massive under-supply of 3+br apartments
| large enough for families, due to double-loaded corridor
| designs that are almost required to meet fire codes. The only
| good spot for 3brs is in the corners, so you get at most 4 per
| floor.
| dwallin wrote:
| The undersupply of 3 bedrooms is real, in many neighborhoods
| in my city you just can't find them. Anecdotally, the lack of
| 3-4 bedroom apartments has been the major driver of couples I
| know, who were aiming to start families and who would
| otherwise love to stay in my city, leaving the city for the
| suburbs. 3-4 bedroom units are also popular with younger
| folk, who are often happy to have roommates, and share
| amenities in exchange for lower rent.
| hinkley wrote:
| You can skate by for a few years on a 2BR, or even a 1 BR
| with a bonus room, but not all bonus rooms have windows and
| raising a baby in a cell is probably not conducive to
| success as an adult.
|
| Once your second child hits grade school they should have a
| proper bedroom.
|
| But in "you damn kids don't know how good you got it" news,
| I'm of an age where I knew people who had to share a room
| with a sibling. And there was lots of talk about how that
| used to be more common. Those boomer kids with five
| siblings weren't living in 7 bedroom mansions. They were
| doubled up in a four bedroom house.
| hinkley wrote:
| If you build a U shaped building you get a courtyard in the
| middle and you might be able to manage 6 per floor. Maybe
| eight with the inside corners?
|
| But the last building I lived in shaped like that had a pair
| of 1 BRs at the corners, scalloped to get windows on 2 sides.
|
| When I think of 3 bedroom apartments I think of college
| towns.
| tempsy wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're talking about a specific metro or just
| generally but there is an ongoing financial crisis among
| multifamily developers. The idea that every new apartment
| complex is filled in a certain time is a very broad and
| incorrect statement.
| mjmahone17 wrote:
| There is absolutely not an oversupply of apartments in my city,
| nor in Seattle proper. it should be non-controversial to let
| the market supply as many apartments in the locations people
| want to be as people are willing to rent. Especially any
| regulatory changes that enable family sized apartments to be
| built at relatively lower cost should be encouraged.
|
| Even if there were an "oversupply", if someone could build new
| apartment buildings at 50% the cost with larger, safer, more
| comfortable units than most apartments nearby, it would drive
| rents down for existing buildings while still allowing the
| developer to make a profit. We should be enabling these
| opportunities as much as possible.
| tempsy wrote:
| How is there not an oversupply of rentals in Seattle? I
| pulled up Zillow Rentals around downtown and there's a
| comical number of listings available.
|
| If you can rent a new construction 1 bed for under $2k a
| month in a jobs center there is no apartment shortage in your
| city.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Conventional wisdom is for housing to be "affordable" it
| needs to be 1/3 of your income. 2000 _3_ 12=72000 a year.
| 72000/2050 = 35$/h.
|
| Where are grocery clerks, baristas, school teachers,
| janitors, restaurant workers, etc supposed to live?
| tempsy wrote:
| uh roommates?
| Aloisius wrote:
| > I pulled up Zillow Rentals around downtown and there's a
| comical number of listings available.
|
| And how does that tell you that supply exceeds demand?
|
| Even when there's a housing undersupply, units will still
| be available at any given moment. It's not like people stop
| dying, moving out or building altogether.
|
| To determine oversupply, you need to look at something that
| also tells you _demand_ as well. Like, what 's the average
| time available units are on the market? What's the vacancy
| rate look like?
| dwallin wrote:
| > There's a shortage of detached single family homes in
| desirable cities and suburbs.
|
| You have this backwards, it's essentially physically impossible
| for this to not be the case. Past a certain point you just
| cannot squeeze more detached single family homes into a
| reasonable distance from a city. Single family homes, suburbs,
| and the required car-centric transit they require are massively
| space and transit inefficient. If you want there to be
| affordable detached single family homes within a reasonable
| distance to a desirable city your best bet is to push for
| increased density within and around the core of the city, with
| walkable streets and excellent public transportation. The
| increase in livability and affordability in the center
| encourages more people who might otherwise be pushed out to
| stay and leaves more single family homes for those who really
| want them.
| marssaxman wrote:
| There will _always_ be a shortage of detached single family
| homes in desirable cities and suburbs, because that style of
| housing takes up a great deal of land. The only way out is up.
| tempsy wrote:
| Yes, and I'm saying that there's plenty of available high
| density apartment complexes in cities with a shortage of
| detached homes, yet people still want a home for a dozen
| reasons.
|
| America is not a country where people want to live in an
| apartment long term if they have the resources to buy a
| proper home.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| > America is not a country where people want to live in an
| apartment long term if they have the resources to buy a
| proper home.
|
| You are projecting your personal preferences on the
| American population. Some of the highest occupancy
| apartment buildings in my area are full of people who can
| afford to buy a house anywhere they want to yet clearly
| choose otherwise. Apartment living has significant
| advantages that don't disappear just because you ignore
| them. It is an explicit preference of several people I
| know.
| tempsy wrote:
| "several people" is not the majority
| buildbot wrote:
| It's not mentioned in the article, but the Brock Commons that was
| the tallest timber building is at UBC! I was there as it was
| built and finished. It's an 18 story dorm building one of several
| nearly equally sized dorms (!!) on campus. It went up fast - it
| was started and done between the 2 years I was there.
|
| UBC is huge for specifically timber engineering research, they
| claimed at one point to be the best in the world.
| romwell wrote:
| _Of course_ mass timber won 't solve the housing shortage.
|
| The housing shortage is entirely a self-inflicted problem arising
| chiefly from insanely restrictive zoning laws that prevent
| construction of high-density walkable _neighborhoods_.
|
| It's not _only_ about NIMBYism, though that alone is enough to
| cause the current crisis. Building an apartment complex in an
| area fille with single-family units is nearly impossible.
| Building a high-rise? Forget about it.
|
| It's also the fact that _mixed-use_ buildings are still a taboo
| in the US (God forbid people could work and shop where they live,
| just look at the hell that is Brooklyn, the EU, and Japan, and
| ..!).
|
| And sticking a high-rise in the middle of a suburban sprawl
| immediately faces the classic opposition of "but what about
| traffic and parking", because we can't build public
| transportation networks either (the opposition to those, of
| course, is "but nobody uses public transport").
|
| That's why the article misses the point: housing shortage is not
| a problem about _houses_.
| partiallypro wrote:
| The housing shortage is so straightforward to solve, but
| government officials and citizens alike block most measures that
| would easily solve it. It's very frustrating. Rents in Austin are
| down double digits, and the reason? They changed zoning laws and
| built more housing. Seems like every major city should be doing
| that, but apparently, it's too complex.
| dubcanada wrote:
| If there is one industry that is the most resistant to change,
| it's the construction industry. There are still people who have
| been roofing for 50 years and refuse to change a single thing
| they do and learned 50 years ago.
|
| Saying a bunch of glulam will solve the issue is just incorrect.
| Wood is fantastic material. But using half a forest to build a
| 2000sqft house is certainly not the direction we should be going,
| we should be finding ways to build with 1/2 the amount of wood we
| currently use. Or perhaps melt down all of that trash and form it
| into a house somehow...
| jcgrillo wrote:
| "The house gotta breathe" is something you still hear people
| uncritically parroting, to the point where it's become a trope
| in net zero construction.
| foofie wrote:
| > If there is one industry that is the most resistant to
| change, it's the construction industry. There are still people
| who have been roofing for 50 years and refuse to change a
| single thing they do and learned 50 years ago.
|
| I think your comment is misguided and lacks reflection. Change
| for the sake of change is never good because by definition
| there is no upside. Construction technology is also expected to
| be reliable and have long service life, and traditional
| techniques ensure that by the fact that the are tried and true.
| dubcanada wrote:
| Just the comments on my comment alone justify my comment. I
| never said it was negative, it just is a fact. There are
| plenty of good new and old methods for everything. But it is
| resistant to change because it has to have a long service
| life.
| tnel77 wrote:
| I'm not sure if this is entirely fair. I know people in the
| trades that have updated their technique and tools every few
| years the same way a software engineer would. They may be more
| resistant to change, but local building codes and such
| inherently force tradesmen to adapt at a certain point.
| ejb999 wrote:
| Honestly, if I had to choose between buying a house built 50
| years ago, or one today - I personally would take the older
| one. Nothing scares me more (relative to owning a house) than
| buying a brand new one.
|
| If it has been around for fifty years, it has been tested - may
| have some things wrong with them, but you usually know what you
| are dealing with and usually the skill was better and materials
| better. Heck, my parents house is now 250 years old, and still
| as solid as can be.
|
| A brand new one where the builder was trying to save money by
| using the latest and greatest techie products, and may or may
| not how to install it properly? No thanks.
|
| To each their own though - I know plenty of folks that wouldn't
| even consider buying a 'used' house.
| Ekaros wrote:
| 50 years I think puts here them highly in danger zone... That
| means 1970s... Which have whole host of very well known
| issues. Now 100 or even 70 year old houses... If not ruined
| in 70s-90s by renovation...
| ejb999 wrote:
| Fair enough - but point still stands, newer is not always
| better (to me). Give me a house that is still standing
| decades after mother nature threw everything it could at
| it, over a shiny new one any day.
| aclatuts wrote:
| The tried and true asbestos insulation
| whartung wrote:
| Well we recently upgraded to a new build, selling off our 50
| year old house. We had to relocated to a different area,
| because the only houses in our area were...50 year old
| houses. And swapping from one 50 year old house to another
| one didn't make a lot of sense to us.
|
| Mind, we had done remodeling, new kitchen, new baths, new
| roof, new windows, new HVAC, insulation, "more sound proof"
| dry wall, structural engineering changes (original owners
| underspec'd a new addition, and we had to get that fixed),
| relined the sewer. The two last things on our list were
| redoing the electrical panel, and landscaping.
|
| So, it had some modern elements, but at its core it was a 50
| year old house.
|
| When we had the work done, the contractor mentioned how the
| house was well built. "Good bones" as he said.
|
| Our new house is VASTLY more efficient. The foundation is
| 50-100% thicker than our old house (which had other issues).
| We have that lined plywood in the attic (one side has some
| material for efficiency), lots more insulation. The only
| "exotic" thing in there, IMHO, is the plumbing, as its the
| clear plastic tubing style plumbing (there's a trade name for
| it that escapes me), vs copper. No idea how long that will
| last, our old house was already re-piped with copper when we
| bought it (can you say "slab leak"?). But I'm assuming that
| the new plumbing is not simply cheaper (copper, oh my) but
| actually "better" for more values of "better" than not.
|
| I saw the house go up, I got to learn house geek stuff, and
| this is a solid house. We already have stucco cracks, which
| is not surprising -- I've had 4 felt quakes so far this year,
| and it's only March. 3+, one was at least 4. Been rocking and
| rolling for some reason this year, this activity is unusual,
| and, hopefully, not foretelling. But the house is solid.
| California has codes for a reason. We use stick framing for a
| reason, particularly in Southern California.
|
| I wish we didn't have to leave the area we were in, but this
| house is so far so good and appears very well built, more so
| than our older house was.
| bombcar wrote:
| I'll trade you my 40s house for a todayhouse any day of the
| week.
|
| Sure, there are bad builders and if you're having something
| custom built you need to educate yourself (or hire someone
| trustworthy to monitor), but there are so many things much
| better than a 50 year old house, at least if you're in a
| climate that has lots of degree days.
|
| Maybe in San Diego it doesn't matter as much.
|
| Of course, the shittiest 50 year old houses have mostly been
| knocked down, so the remaining stock gets better and better
| ...
| pixl97 wrote:
| Melting down trash that will offgas for the next few decades
| and putting it in close proximity to people sounds like a great
| way to boost cancer rates.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > There are still people who have been roofing for 50 years and
| refuse to change a single thing they do and learned 50 years
| ago.
|
| This is at best a huge exaggeration. For one thing, roofing is
| not a 50-year career. If you know any 70 year old roofers,
| they've either been retired or moved on to other things decades
| ago - the toll that roofing takes on a body makes it a 10-15
| year career at best.
|
| Secondly, I've been working with roofers a lot lately - I have
| a very old style of roof that was common 50 years ago, and it's
| _very_ hard to find people who can work on it, because everyone
| wants to do things the modern way.
| monknomo wrote:
| haha, I used to have a torchdown roof and I sympathize.
| Finding folks to do a similar style (with integral gutters
| and tarred gravel, etc.) was a bit challenging. Plenty of
| folks that'd put down some foam and shingles though
| efsavage wrote:
| Counterpoint: I spent several years in construction, and the
| assistant superintendent on the project, who was at the end of
| a ~50 year career, often complained that so much had changed he
| had no idea what was going on. The tools, machines, materials,
| techniques, schedules, laws, etc. all changed so dramatically
| he was really only able to remain expert at the human elements.
| bombcar wrote:
| And things that used to be quite rare are now quite common,
| which can make it look "slower" depending on how you frame
| it. 30 years ago full wrap insulation was possible, and some
| did it, but it was quite rare.
|
| Now it's standard enough that I can recognize it in new
| developments.
|
| The difference between a 90s house and 50s one is way less
| than between a 2000s and now, even.
| taion wrote:
| A big part of the point of that Construction Physics Substack
| is to explore these factors around innovation, productivity,
| and process change in the construction sector. I don't think
| it's really quite as simple as you imply:
| https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-its-hard-to-
| innov..., https://www.construction-physics.com/p/sketch-of-a-
| theory-of...
|
| Sometimes practices do reflect real constraints, rather than
| just path-dependence.
| simonklitj wrote:
| Or look into building with earth, as used to be the practice:
| https://www.calearth.org/ and https://www.rael-
| sanfratello.com/made/mud-frontiers
| benced wrote:
| > Wood is fantastic material. But using half a forest to build
| a 2000sqft house is certainly not the direction we should be
| going, we should be finding ways to build with 1/2 the amount
| of wood we currently use
|
| Wood is inherently a carbon sink. I suspect stimulating forest
| production via added lumber demand (similar to how Christmas
| tree demand stimulates tree farms) would be a net pollution
| win, albeit potentially at the cost of a nice looking forest
| somewhere.
| ducttapecrown wrote:
| We need to stimulate demand for growing forests!
| akira2501 wrote:
| > it's the construction industry.
|
| Any industry that warranties it's work. They're far less likely
| to take on new and disruptive technologies if there's no
| guarantee they're going to be supported for the necessary
| amount of time.
|
| > we should be finding ways to build with 1/2 the amount of
| wood we currently use.
|
| Different houses have different requirements. Some roofs see
| snow, others don't. Some roofs see hurricane winds, others
| don't.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Indeed! Because none of this exists!
|
| https://www.equipter.com/equipter-articles/roofing-tools-tha...
| philwelch wrote:
| Timber is a crop. Wanting to build houses with less wood is
| like wanting to make clothes with less cotton or wool; there's
| no fundamental reason to economize on a renewable resource.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Obviously someone who is familiar with the field but it's kind of
| strange that they compare these two technologies since they
| aren't used for the same construction. You've not going to use
| glulam and CLT to build your one story house. It's about building
| taller places.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I bet there are some single story houses with glulams.
| Certainly plenty of two-story houses do. I have a 30 inch tall
| glulam that spans 35 feet across my garage holding up a good
| chunk of the second floor.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Fair point. If you want wide spans with fewer supports.
| shortsunblack wrote:
| Actually CLT is wonderful for one story house. The foundation
| becomes much cheaper because of walls being low weight. This
| can massively reduce home cost (as concrete is expensive). The
| bad thing is that CLT itself is more expensive. The costs need
| to go down. Edit: I realize I made a mistake here. Americans
| use stick framing, which already is low weight. This was in
| reference to bricks and concrete (cast on site or pre-cast)
| construction. CLT allows to use its members much like concrete
| (slabs get mounted exactly same way as concrete slabs, etc). In
| such sense CLT is much better than stick framing.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I would argue that the mateiral is not the pinchpoint of the
| housing crisis. Its the lack of land, or permits to build on said
| land.
|
| _Edit_ I should say _affordable_ land. Or land that isn 't
| blocked by nimbys
| spankalee wrote:
| There's plenty of land if it were legal to build on it, and the
| permitting process didn't take forever.
| dangus wrote:
| There's plenty of land, it's just typically zoned and used
| poorly, designed to accommodate cars instead of people.
|
| 49% of San Bernidino's central city area is dedicated to
| parking.
| bombcar wrote:
| There's plenty of land, it's just not where people want to be.
|
| Around here houses are going up, land is being subdivided,
| everything is moving.
| croes wrote:
| How about converting offices to apartments?
|
| Thanks to home office there should be many otherwise useless
| offices.
| hinkley wrote:
| We've heard from people in construction that this is often a
| tear down situation. The needs of office space and apartments
| are very different. Somehow they see this as different from the
| old warehouse-loft conversion process.
| Althuns wrote:
| The common argument against this is that these buildings were
| not built for residential units (plumbing, electrical, building
| codes) and bringing them up to residential code is
| prohibitively expensive. This is not untrue, but I think this
| is a cop-out.
|
| What we need to do is create the systems that allow us to
| develop office spaces into residential spaces instead of
| complaining they don't exist. Create building technologies that
| safely convert these spaces into residential. Create the
| building codes that allow these conversions to be done safely
| but also economically. The demand is there, the supply is
| there, and our downtowns need this.
| dangus wrote:
| This can work but many buildings are unsuitable. Office
| buildings tend to have too much interior space where it's
| difficult to give all residential units access to natural
| light. There are also differences in building code for safety
| issues.
| briantakita wrote:
| Aircrete, Hempcrete, & foam housing are alternatives. All are
| inexpensive, have good insulation, & can form interesting single
| story houses.
| rybosworld wrote:
| Every single major population center that has distorted (high)
| housing costs relative to income, also has very strong
| protections for the existing home owners (NIMBY).
|
| "There are no coincidences..."
|
| The solution is terrifyingly simple: don't allow existing
| residents to block new housing developments. If they don't like
| it, they can move.
|
| This will probably never happen in the U.S., because the
| government no longer functions as intended.
| foofie wrote:
| > The solution is terrifyingly simple: don't allow existing
| residents to block new housing developments. If they don't like
| it, they can move.
|
| I think that most jurisdictions already have the legal tools
| they need to put the public good in front of special interest
| groups, in the form of eminent domain laws.
|
| It's just that the policial will is just not there.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Eminent domain is not cheap to use given the fair market
| value compensation and the almost guaranteed legal fights.
|
| Really this is a case where states should pre-empt
| localities.
| carbocation wrote:
| My impression is that you don't need eminent domain takings
| for this, you just need higher level government (e.g.,
| states) to set more rules around how restrictive local
| residential zoning is allowed to be.
| mrkstu wrote:
| Well, depends on the level of government you're talking about.
| If it is local, then if local homeowners (who are local voters)
| don't want the development, it is eminently 'democratic.'
| afavour wrote:
| I think it's an interesting question.
|
| If I stop my neighbor from building an extension that's 1v1.
| Doesn't map easily to "democracy". Now, if I and the neighbor
| on the other side stop our middle neighbor building an
| extension... it's sort of democracy? The majority decides.
| But what if everyone else on our street wants to allow it?
| Now blocking is undemocratic. Thoughout all of this my
| neighbor might insist they don't care what _anyone_ thinks
| and they should be able to do whatever they want with their
| own land.
|
| The citizens of a particular city neighborhood blocking
| development is democratic when looked at up close and
| undemocratic when looked at from afar. There aren't any easy
| answers and anyone pretending there are is fooling
| themselves.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Democracy is not an easily defined concept in practice.
|
| In theory, Democracy is simply the idea that the government
| is formed from the will of the people... but there is no
| single will of the people. How do you decide, then, what
| the will of the people is?
|
| Many of us have grown up with the idea that 'majority
| rules' is democracy, but why? What makes 51% a magic
| number?
|
| Most modern democracies don't like the idea of a majority
| suppressing a minority, so we put restrictions on what the
| majority can do. Is that undemocratic? Is the Bill of
| Rights undemocratic because it blocks the will of the
| people?
|
| There are no easy answers to these questions.
| delichon wrote:
| Two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner is
| democracy, illustrating a common failure mode of the worst
| form of government except for all of the others.
| mebassett wrote:
| I usually use "democracy" to describe a situation where
| there are regular transfers of power through reason,
| persuasion, and cooperation and not through violence or the
| threat of violence. I'm not sure that it applies to this
| case about your neighbor, unless you are stopping them
| through a threat of violence, in which case it is certainly
| undemocratic.
| II2II wrote:
| The problem with your example, and the problem in real
| life, is that people are making decisions at too low of a
| level and property rights (never mind the needs of society)
| are being overridden. They end up voting on how something
| directly affects them, and place little to no consideration
| for the rights of others. They push the problem onto
| someone else, on people who have less of a voice in the
| democracy.
|
| You're right about there being no simple solution. Even
| voting on higher level issues (like providing affordable
| housing) is perilous. Deciding upon something without
| specifics just opens up the floodgates for abuse. I've seen
| housing built on land unsuitable for construction. I've
| lived in a couple of neighbourhoods that narrowly escaped
| being razed for highways (to the point where parts were
| razed and some infrastructure was built).
|
| Even long term urban planning, something specific enough
| for voting on and distant enough to avoid being personal,
| has proven to be less than successful.
| bombcar wrote:
| The whole thing gets complicated because people end up
| not being willing to hash out exactly what they want, and
| what others want, and how to work out compromises.
|
| And general ideas always lose out to specific ones (which
| is why you can have an entire city that is pro-affordable
| housing but each example thereof is strongly fought
| against).
| creer wrote:
| Claiming "DEMOCRACY!" doesn't prevent people from having
| rights. Rights are not about majority rule but about the
| kind of place "people" (sometimes a minority) think
| "people" (often a minority) deserve to live in.
|
| In this case, it is fair for the middle neighbor's outcome
| to depend on more than his two direct neighbors. And it's
| also fair for the middle to balance their own wants with
| the ones of their neighbors. But for sure everyone
| gridlocking each other is not a solution for progress.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| And yet democracy is best described as "Three wolves and
| sheep deciding what to have for dinner"
| geodel wrote:
| Previously there were two wolves, it seems now they have
| gotten super majority.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Putin would tell you that Comrade Wolf turned tail
| shellygoodman wrote:
| Well, I'm convinced! Dictatorship it is then.
| tnel77 wrote:
| A major issue with housing is that it is a primary driver of
| wealth for many Americans. Obviously, this comes at the expense
| of our fellow Americans who do not own a home. I was able to
| buy shortly out of college (1% down loan) so rising home prices
| don't impact me as much since my home has also gone up in
| value. I was able to sell the first house and roll that equity
| into the next house.
|
| As long as it's the main store of wealth for your average
| citizen, there will be very little incentive to change that.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| Capitalism in a nutshell. Oh, the value creation!
| tptacek wrote:
| Upzoning is a win-win for existing homeowners. Land doesn't
| get expropriated to build multifamily; it's purchased.
| Multifamily is a more efficient use of a lot than SFH, so
| it's purchased at a premium.
|
| NIMBYs worry that the mere existence of nearby multifamily
| will decrease their home value. In rare and unsympathetic
| cases (places like Winnetka in Illinois) that may be true.
| But in the bedroom neighborhoods of big cities and their
| inner ring suburbs, it's not; allowing missing-middle
| multifamily will revitalize neighborhoods and help shift the
| cost burden from SFH property taxes to sales tax (retail
| follows rooftops).
| PheonixPharts wrote:
| > NIMBYs worry that the mere existence of nearby
| multifamily will decrease their home value. In rare and
| unsympathetic cases ... that may be true.
|
| It's not rare. I've known multiple people, myself included,
| who have decided not to make an offer on a single family
| home because it neighbors a gross apartment building.
|
| The vast majority of home buyers _want single family
| homes_. I don 't know where HN obsession with vertical
| housing comes from, maybe because the majority are young
| and still live in apartments, but this isn't reflective of
| most home buyers
|
| The only adults I know who will even consider purchasing a
| condo are single with no pets and no intention of having a
| family. Even among most childless couples, once they live
| in a single family home they would never go back.
| benced wrote:
| Yes, it's totally rational to want to live in a SFH.
| That's the beauty of allowing (not requiring) other types
| of construction: people like me who don't want to live in
| a SFH can and people who want to live in a SFH can
| continue to.
|
| I even suspect SFH owners will see some benefits. Their
| underlying land will become more valuable as the parent
| explains but SFH buyers will no longer be competing
| against people who don't really want a SFH but have to
| rent or buy one because that's all that's available. A
| lot of my friends end up doing a group house thing with
| 4-5 people because they have to live somewhere without
| apartments.
| tptacek wrote:
| You're allowed to have preferences! You don't have to
| live next to a "gross apartment building". You can
| achieve your preferences by (a) paying more or (b)
| accepting a larger commute from the nearest urban center.
| Property values don't scale with your particular
| preference. Among many things, they're a function of:
|
| * (Probably foremost, in IL at least) the perceived
| quality of the school districts
|
| * The property tax burden
|
| * The diversity and quality of amenities
|
| Missing-middle multifamily improves all of these things.
|
| SFZ neighborhoods and munis are locked into a death
| spiral on property taxes and schools: residents are
| incentivized to plow money into schools (attract new
| residents -> increase home prices; you "get the money
| back" you put into schools) which quickly gets you across
| a threshold where the only rational buyer of property in
| your muni is a family with children. Multifamily allows
| for aging-in-place (rather than moving out when your kids
| graduate, a phenomenon sometimes called "renting the
| schools") and diversifies the tax base.
|
| Amenities scale with foot traffic and usage. Expensive
| bedroom communities tend to be commercially moribund. In
| addition to not being fun to live in, it also shift the
| levy towards property taxes and away from sales tax and
| licensing fees, which in turn depresses home prices.
|
| The first answers you get on this policy question always
| seem to come from people who think it's dispositive that
| they and people like them don't want to live near
| apartments. Municipalities make policy decisions for the
| welfare of the entire mix of people who will reside
| there. When you do the math on overwhelmingly SFZ munis
| you sometimes realize that the people loudly complaining
| about multifamily are a minority interest to begin with.
| robocat wrote:
| Your list of drivers of property values is missing the
| single most important factor:
|
| * how much can one borrow?
|
| Mortgages drive house prices so long as demand outstrips
| supply: which it always does in desirable places. Demand
| can always increase in a healthy city - I want to have
| multiple houses in different parts of the city and I
| could even AirBnB them out to defray costs or make a
| profit.
|
| I live in Christchurch, where we had a _lot_ of houses
| selling at below 1/2-price for a while because the bank
| rules forbade giving mortgages on those houses. This was
| after our 2010 earthquake and banks would not lend on
| uninsurable houses. The houses were often safe and
| liveable but uninsurable due to fine print (e.g. require
| even floors <50mm drop across entire footprint). They
| were often economically fixable, but to fix them needed
| money or a mortgage! There are still "as-is" uninsurable
| houses on the market - the price discrepancy isn't
| because of demand per se but because of
| mortgage/insurance restrictions - although the pricing
| gap has significantly narrowed (flippers and cash-buyers
| create enough demand for the very few as-is properties
| that now go on the market). I bought a spare as-is
| property and there's reasons not to sell it (even though
| I can't insure against say fire).
|
| Christchurch zoning rules were relaxed for a while plus
| our government was committed to more housing so
| Christchurch now has _many_ more houses than a decade
| ago. House prices are going up even though you can
| effectively only get variable mortgages in New Zealand at
| 7%. We have more house supply but demand is outpacing
| that because we also have high immigration (30% of NZ
| population was born overseas and we still encourage
| immigration).
|
| As an individual buying a house the market dynamic is
| visible - I borrowed as much as I possibly could to buy
| the best place I could afford for my home. Bank lending
| rules drove my pricing. The "market" price for the house
| did not set my price (low competition blind deadline bid
| - I could not know what others bid and a price could not
| be accurately calculated for my property). Market price
| is set by competition between buyers - most buyers are
| borrowing as much as they can.
|
| The economically worst part is that it is a zero-sum game
| with everybody competing for how much money they can give
| to banks for interest payments. We all lose.
|
| The graph of sold house prices in a city looks strange -
| a severe cut-off just below the median price. Investigate
| the underlying cause for that and everything will be
| revealed?
| bombcar wrote:
| > We have more house supply but demand is outpacing that
| because we also have high immigration (30% of NZ
| population was born overseas and we still encourage
| immigration).
|
| This is a huge part of it, as is _anything_ that drives
| housing demand (for example, as more people end up
| divorced, more housing is needed).
|
| And _most_ people go to the bank and ask how much house
| they can buy (based on what monthly payment they can
| stomach), and _then_ go looking for the best they can get
| for that.
|
| But there _is_ another floor even without banks and
| mortgages; the cost to build new housing. If the minimum
| viable house is $250,000 to build (assuming minor builder
| 's profit, etc) than you're going to be hard pressed to
| find new housing less than that.
| ska wrote:
| Conversely, I know several couples who have gone back,
| especially after child rearing.
|
| What people want is far more complicated that "single
| family homes", but a range of preferences. Most prefer a
| detached home from any thing non-detached. Most prefer
| access to good schools (while/if they have school age
| children) opposed to poor schools. Most prefer being
| close to work over a long commute. Most prefer easy
| access to cultural/social aspects of a city over not
| having access. Etc. etc.
|
| Every buying choice is a set of tradeoffs unless you are
| almost unfathomably wealthy (20m detached home in a dense
| city with a helicopter pad ticks a lot of boxes). I think
| a lot of focus not so much on "vertical housing" but
| density and "missing middle" housing is just the fact
| that current (US, anyway) city design is hitting some
| walls, and "more of the same" isn't going to work.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| Plenty of people in Europe live in flats and have kids,
| pets and all that, myself included.
| com2kid wrote:
| > The vast majority of home buyers want single family
| homes.
|
| The vast majority of home buyers have a quality of life
| they want to achieve at a given price point, and SFHs as
| built in America fulfill the requirements (other than
| costs) better than the MFH that gets built.
|
| Moved out of a townhome into my current house when we had
| a kid, I actually looked at quite a few condos and
| townhomes first but multi-family housing in America is,
| ironically, not built for families.
|
| The townhome community I had live din actually had a
| _lot_ of families in it, but my particular unit was not
| conducive to family life.
|
| The complex had 2 yards, one huge field for hosting
| parties complete with a fireplace, lots of tables and
| chairs, and bathrooms right off the court yard. Kids are
| playing together outside all the time! The other smaller
| grass patch was for people with dogs to take them out.
|
| After moving into a house, my yard is now smaller than
| what I had before, go figure. Also there are fewer kids
| running around on my block than at the complex I moved
| out of.
|
| Unfortunately those nice lifestyle complexes aren't being
| built anymore, instead what you get is 8 or 12 narrow
| townhomes scrunched up together with the government
| required minimum amount of greenery outside.
|
| IMHO the 4 story town homes that are being built all over
| the place are foolish on many fronts. They aren't good
| for babies (stairs) they aren't good for anyone over 50
| (stairs) and they waste a ton square footage (on all the
| stairs).
|
| But if I could buy a 3 (+ den) or 4 bedroom flat in a
| large complex that had huge green spaces and places for
| activities? Sure! The QoL of living in a well managed
| complex is better than doing all the home owner stuff
| myself, and it turns out when services are being ordered
| for 100 households (window cleaning, pressure washing,
| deck cleaning, etc) you can get some good group
| discounts!
|
| The large complexes that I do see being built around my
| city (Seattle) are all rental units, which has a ton of
| down sides - bad for the local economy, money doesn't
| stay in the community, residents don't build value in
| their house, prices go up dramatically year over year,
| etc.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| I don't want to live next to a huge building, so I selected
| a town where that was not allowed. So don't tell me
| changing this is a win win for me. It isn't.
| jachee wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious: Why not? What difference does it
| make to you what's next door?
| baggy_trough wrote:
| sound, privacy, views, for example.
| tptacek wrote:
| I'm speaking only to overall property values, because
| that's the argument I was replying to. I don't care about
| your preferences.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| I am responding to your first sentence, which is
| "Upzoning is a win-win for existing homeowners", which is
| not true in general.
| tptacek wrote:
| It is true in the sense that I meant it, about property
| values.
| lolinder wrote:
| Nor do you apparently care about the fact that "NIMBYs
| worry that the mere existence of nearby multifamily will
| decrease their home value" is a false stereotype.
|
| A NIMBY straight-up told you that their motivations are
| about lifestyle and not money and your response is "I
| don't care about your preferences".
| ihaveajob wrote:
| I suppose you didn't buy the entire town, so you can't
| preclude your neighbors from wanting their property to
| appreciate, their lives to become more social, and their
| environment to change.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| The neighbors collectively agreed to the previous zoning.
| Now some outside body is forcing that to change.
| tptacek wrote:
| Once upon a time, neighbors also collectively agreed to
| zone by race and ethnicity, until Buchanan v. Warley in
| 1917 put an end to that practice and created the minimum-
| lot-size SFZ proxy system we have today. You can argue
| persuasively for respecting SFZ, but you probably can't
| do it from a moral high horse (which is just to say: you
| can't rest your argument on a moral right).
| singleshot_ wrote:
| I'm not sure the implication that those of us who don't
| enjoy sharing walls are immoral racists is particularly
| justified.
| tptacek wrote:
| It's a historical fact. I'm not saying you're a racist.
| Those zoning ordinances though definitely are.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| Zoning laws, deed restrictions, the whole of it in the US
| comes from people not wanting to live near different
| races; that's true and it's ugly. We agree so far.
|
| I kind of wanted to argue the point but the more I think
| about it, the more I tend to agree that relying on laws
| rooted in racism to ensure my happiness feels a little
| icky.
|
| The problem is we could slip right down the slope to
| discard all of property law on that justification. This
| would create more problems than it solves, which makes me
| suspicious of the justification.
|
| Anyway you changed a guy's mind on the internet, so
| there's that.
| mlsu wrote:
| It's not a win for you then. It is a win for the 100
| people who can move into that apartment building.
|
| Are you really that important?
| lolinder wrote:
| What about the 100 people who _also_ owned homes within a
| few blocks of that apartment building and are _also_
| opposed to the change that it brings to the neighborhood?
| Zoning laws don 't exist because of one loudmouth, they
| exist because solid majorities of the people who live in
| a given area _like having them_.
| tptacek wrote:
| In your example, your side is outnumbered by the
| residents of _a single apartment building_.
|
| This whole thread is kind of silly, in that high-density
| apartments aren't what's going to get built on SFZ blocks
| in cities and inner-ring suburbs; 3-flats are.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Well but aren't you giving a great example of how that wealth
| is illusory?
|
| The purpose of this comment is to make this conversation
| interesting instead of rehashing BS about NIMBYs.
|
| Don't get me wrong, measuring billionaires' wealth by
| multiplying stock price and stock count is flawed too, for a
| different reason. But both your wealth and that wealth are
| really measuring "taxable wealth in the marginal transaction
| case." Not a super interesting measurement IMO.
|
| If you were an immigrant from the Soviet Union like my
| parents were for example, sure you were dirt poor but you
| might have an education, which turned out to be much more
| valuable in every sense, in most cases, than a house, for
| baby boomers this century.
|
| Like isn't being educated being "wealthy?" On the flip side,
| Russia today has 30 percentage points more higher educated
| people than the US, so tell me Obama, what did that education
| get them?
|
| There's no reductive lens for this stuff. One POV is that
| maybe the average American is myopic, their house value
| number goes up and they regard that as real wealth, just like
| billionaires do. But it's not just a matter of understanding
| what house values are because "that number going up and
| therefore you become wealthier" isn't strictly speaking
| flawed. IMO what we lack is leadership: politicians who have
| the patience and motivation to figure these things out and
| inform the public, as opposed to merely being reactive to the
| hottest crisis on social media.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > Well but aren't you giving a great example of how that
| wealth is illusory?
|
| It is mostly, since your purchasing power doesn't increase
| because all house prices rise.
|
| But: people don't live forever, and when your home-owning
| parents die, you now have two homes instead of one, and
| you'll get much more than if housing price was half the
| price. Same when your in-laws die too.
|
| Obviously this is entirely unsustainable and is a huge
| driver for the political despair that is spreading in
| Western countries.
| betaby wrote:
| > and when your home-owning parents die, you now have two
| homes instead of one
|
| While I absolutely believe it's a thing for someone. It's
| not a thing for anyone I know.
|
| Two factors there.
|
| People live longer. An then parents die (70+), they kids
| ( avg. 2) are at the age of 55+. At that point they
| housing situation is figured out. Also if ( big if in
| Canada) house was paid off you inherit half of it (
| unless you are single kid which was rare 50+ years ago in
| Canada).
|
| However in Canada what I see is that houses were reverse-
| mortgaged to supply income on pension and/or live in a
| retirement home, and thus my friends got trivial
| inheritances in a tune of tens thousands of CAD dollars
| after estate liquidation.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > People live longer. An then parents die (70+), they
| kids ( avg. 2) are at the age of 55+. At that point they
| housing situation is figured out.
|
| That's exactly what I mean when I say people end up with
| two homes. In fact, if the home was given to children not
| owning their home, we would still be in the wealth
| illusion situation.
|
| > However in Canada what I see is that houses were
| reverse-mortgaged to supply income on pension and/or live
| in a retirement home, and thus my friends got trivial
| inheritances in a tune of tens thousands of CAD dollars
| after estate liquidation.
|
| This is not something we see a lot in my country (France)
| because so far we had decent pensions... But obviously
| situations vary a lot between countries.
| ska wrote:
| > A major issue with housing is that it is a primary driver
| of wealth for many Americans.
|
| This was a very unfortunate trap that many western
| governments fell into in the latter part of 20th century.
| It's not really about wealth per se. but forced saving for
| retirement (i.e. reducing government responsibility for elder
| care).
| robocat wrote:
| > reducing government responsibility for elder care
|
| That's a bit of a non-sequitur. The economy pays for elder
| care no matter what, and mostly our governments remain
| responsible if people haven't saved.
|
| Plus we get emergent outcomes in our economies for systemic
| reasons - blaming our governments as though they are
| effective at controlling everything makes little sense.
|
| Even if true it seems unlikely to be a primary reason,
| although it could be a partial reason.
| ska wrote:
| > and mostly our governments remain responsible if people
| haven't saved.
|
| That's the point of it being "forced saving".
|
| Look, I'm not saying the government steered everything or
| even that they thought it through very far. I'm saying
| that they constructed a bunch of programs (in US,
| Fannie/Freddy, mortgage tax break, etc. similar other
| countries) to subsidize and incentivize house ownership
| in ways that economists hate (creates market
| distortions). Couple this with policies that support
| growth of houses as an asset class effectively has people
| saving pretty aggressively in a way that will typically
| be available to them in retirement. Less people with no
| assets upon retiring means less load on government
| programs. Implicit in this is left to their own devices,
| most people don't save as effectively.
|
| The trap part is this: once this system has momentum any
| abrupt policy change will result in a lot _more_ people
| being directly dependent, or more directly dependent on
| government programs in their old age. This will have
| massive budget impacts and governments know it.
|
| The second part of the trap, which we are seeing now, is
| that if you make housing too effective as an investment
| vehicle, it will be financialized and further distorted
| away from effectively functioning as housing.
|
| It's not just financialization of housing - as you note
| there are emergent outcomes in complex systems. For
| example, end of life care would probably look a lot
| different if it wasn't often effectively drawing down
| some of these savings.
| bombcar wrote:
| The momentum is why the "quick fixes" don't work - you
| need "slow, long term" fixes to undo slow, long term
| problems.
| robocat wrote:
| > That's the point of it being "forced saving".
|
| It isn't really savings: it is a giant Ponzi scheme that
| depends upon the population cohorts aging and working and
| getting mortgages.
|
| I'm in New Zealand and immigration is a primary driver
| for our house prices. Overseas owners will also drive
| house prices when we allow that again (our economy is
| strong but I suspect we will need to sell the family
| silver eventually).
|
| If you are below 50 it is difficult to apply your
| implicit knowledge of the current steady-state to the
| future.
|
| Italy and Japan have houses for sale at $0.
|
| > saving [that] will typically be available to them in
| retirement
|
| _Currently_.
|
| I'm suggesting to try and take care to avoid inductive
| reasoning when looking locally at older cohorts and
| applying your knowledge of their experiences to your
| planning.
|
| Of course as an individual you don't have a lot of
| choices to avoid the economics of your particular cohort.
| Understanding and mitigating your personal economic risks
| is tres difficult.
|
| Using the word "savings" for your house is extremely
| self-deceptive in the longer term IMHO. Especially
| because the vast majority of what you spend is on
| interest not principal. I'm not saying paying for
| interest is avoidable or worthwhile, just that using the
| word savings misleads oneself.
|
| Plus I deeply mistrust governments to do long term
| planning. The biggest drivers of our economic wealth
| seems to be unplanned emergent results of capitalism.
| Governments will turn to taxation and other means when an
| aging population turns out to be a problem. Our Green
| Party in New Zealand with about 10% of the MMP vote
| already suggested a policy of a wealth tax if you had
| saved over $1 million.
| lolinder wrote:
| This is a common refrain from the YIMBY crowd, but I'm
| skeptical that the driving force of NIMBYism is wealth.
|
| My own experience is that I couldn't care less about my
| property value: I view my mortgage as mostly a locked-in
| monthly payment, a guard against rent increases and against
| being forced to move if the landlord decides to do something
| different.
|
| However, I would actively campaign against a large multi-
| family housing development being built within a few blocks of
| me. I don't want the added traffic it would bring, I don't
| want the added noise, and I don't want the more frequent
| turnover. I enjoy being able to recognize all of my
| neighbors, not just because it's nice but because it makes me
| _feel_ safer.
|
| If you actually went out and interviewed NIMBYs instead of
| just reading the stereotypes on the internet, I suspect that
| the motivations I describe above are much more common than
| wealth. It's not as exciting or provocative as "the upper-
| middle class just wants to get richer", but it's the reality
| that many of us live in.
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| You can live in what ever reality you want, but NIMBY
| behavior is inherently rent-seeking.
|
| That being said, I don't hold it against people from paying
| themselves rent and taking a profit when they sell. But if
| you have kids, you do have to come to terms with the fact
| that you're creating a situation where they likely won't be
| able to afford to live in the neighborhood where they grew
| up or near you at all.
| Spivak wrote:
| > the government no longer functions as intended.
|
| On the other hand it seems like it's functioning exactly as
| intended. The interests of the people who live in <area> and
| who elect the city council are being represented just as they
| should be.
|
| The argument could equally be if you don't like it, build
| somewhere else.
|
| Do you believe communities have any right to self-
| determination? I would feel a bit peeved if I and all my
| neighbors built this nice neighborhood and then am told too bad
| people really like your neighborhood so we're letting Alliance
| Residential buy up a bunch of property for a huge apartment
| complex. The neighborhood I grew up in is going through this.
| They were a bunch of lower-middle class people who bought
| houses in a "rough" area because it's what they could afford,
| made it nice and then developers saw dollar signs. They don't
| have the kind of pull to keep them out so it's about to get
| steamrolled with gentrification.
| pixl97 wrote:
| This gets problematic as what is the right of others over
| your private property. What is the right of an individual
| property owners self determination versus the communities?
| Spivak wrote:
| If you've got an answer for how to strike that balance
| you'd best start writing essays for the Federalist Papers
| 2nd Edition.
|
| Because obviously you can do whatever you want with your
| property: well not open a business because it's not zoned
| for that, and not build too close to the property line, but
| anything else! Oh and you can't make too much noise after
| 9pm that's just rude, or fix your own electrical work
| because if you do a shoddy job it'll catch your neighbor's
| house on fire, and...
| foobarian wrote:
| Well, clearly it was someone else's property first, and
| what *they* decided they want to do with *their* property
| is to parcel it out and sell to newcomers, but with some
| strings attached such as: no opening businesses, no
| building too close to the subdivided property line, no
| noise after 9pm, no fixing own electrical, ... :-)
| dixie_land wrote:
| If they don't like it, they can move.
|
| It is funny how people criticize the US "colonialism" yet feel
| entitled that they should be able to move into any neighborhood
| and drive out current inhabitants.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Who said anything about driving out? And neighborhoods belong
| to municipalities, voters ultimately decide, not your small
| cabal of neighbors.
| dixie_land wrote:
| I agree the voters should decide, and in this case they
| happen to side with NIMBY
| slothtrop wrote:
| Until they don't. Which is happening country-wide.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Not the state's voters!
| cortesoft wrote:
| Do you think we should not allow specific groups of people to
| live in certain areas?
| dixie_land wrote:
| No one is allowing or disallowing specific groups of
| people, the market decides.
|
| Is Ferrari "not allow specific groups of people" (I am in
| that group) to buy their cars by not pricing them the same
| as a Honda?
| ryukafalz wrote:
| The market is not deciding when municipalities are
| legally prohibiting denser, lower-cost housing from being
| built.
|
| To use your example, it's as if we were to restrict car
| production to mostly only Ferraris. And then if someone
| can't afford a Ferrari, we tell them to buy a Honda - but
| there aren't many of them to buy.
| iteria wrote:
| But there are reasons for municipalities to do that.
| Namely infrastructure. The city next to mine allowed
| uncontrolled building of housing and that city is a
| shitshow right now. The roads are clogged and often
| gridlocked. They deal with all kinds of failure modes in
| their utilities due to high usage. No.
|
| My town is being more strategic about it. They allowed
| businesses to come in first and expanded out the
| robustness of the local coop's electric grid and only
| then did they allow appartments and they are doing them
| in stages to make sure the area can handle it. This is
| important in an area where not everyone is even hooked up
| to the city's water supply or has access to city sewage.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Sure, municipalities do need to consider infrastructure.
| I was just responding to someone saying that the market
| decides who can live in an area, which just isn't the
| full picture.
|
| In areas where the power grid is struggling to keep up
| with demand, the municipality will need to plan with that
| in account. If you expand housing in an area where you've
| made driving the only transportation option, that will
| straightforwardly lead to more cars on the road. And so
| on.
|
| But at least in my area, municipalities largely seem to
| be trying to keep housing density at or below the level
| it's at now, which is a problem when we're facing a
| housing shortage.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Why not - there are a lot of non-citizens in a lot of
| places with very hot markets. I don't see good reason why
| they should enjoy all the freedoms that the citizens have.
| This will destroy some of the demand.
| cortesoft wrote:
| So we would have a rule that you aren't allowed to move
| out of the neighborhood you grew up in?
| alright2565 wrote:
| "drive out current inhabitants" by offering one of them an
| entirely voluntary and mutually beneficial deal?
|
| Or do you mean that existing owner should be required to get
| their neighbors' consent to do what they want with their own
| property?
|
| Anyone selling their home would, all other things being
| equal, prefer to sell their home to an neighbor with which
| they have a relationship then to a random person. The
| neighbors should make an offer if they really care.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > because the government no longer functions as intended
|
| This seems contrary to what you're stating - local government
| exists to represent the interests of local residents.
| Protecting those residents from external forces is completely
| in-line with their mandate.
|
| > If they don't like it, they can move.
|
| A person who owns land somewhere should have more sway over
| local politics than a megacorp developer from another state or
| country. How about that developer moves their project somewhere
| else if they don't like it?
| tptacek wrote:
| There are limits to the acceptable protections Home Rule
| local governments can supply, and a growing consensus that
| single-family zoning is not one of those acceptable
| protections, which is leading states to preempt local
| governments on that question.
| dh2022 wrote:
| Well, the growing consensus is not big enough to sway the
| local governments. I guess you need to wait for it to grow
| until is big enough....
| tptacek wrote:
| The point of the comment you're responding to is that
| we're approaching a policy equilibrium where local
| governments don't matter anymore on this question,
| because they're not allowed to rule on it. See:
| California.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > A person who owns land somewhere should have more sway over
| local politics than a megacorp developer from another state
| or country.
|
| The developer's interests come from the local non-land owning
| residents...
| xyzelement wrote:
| You seem to be coming from the perspective that people who
| don't live in a place should have more say over the nature of
| that place than those who do live there.
|
| To put it in your terms, why does it make more sense to tell
| existing residents "your place has to change and you can move
| if you don't like it" vs channel the new residents to other
| places where more housing is available and is available
| cheaper.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| They absolutely did not say that non-residents should have
| "more say over the nature of that place." Simply and narrowly
| that residents should not be able to block housing
| development, a much different and more straightforward
| position.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| If the residents don't have the most say, who is the
| authority that is enforcing housing development? How would
| that not be non-residents?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Residents do have the most influence and the most
| concentrated control. That's not quite the same as being
| the only authority, or having absolute influence however,
| and this is a correct allocation of power.
|
| Residents don't and shouldn't expect to have the final
| say on who can live in their area. This is explicitly
| acknowledged by, for example, racial housing covenants
| being illegal these days.
| aclatuts wrote:
| The NIMBYs don't only block new residents moving in. They
| also block existing residents from building new housing that
| reflects changing tastes and trends.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| "But a government should represent the interests of the
| locals" when it comes to housing seems like a motte-and-
| bailey argument where you use an agreeable platitude to
| launder in the less agreeable scenario of local home owners
| just voting for "fuck you, I got mine" and suggesting that's
| best for a city and the rest of its residents.
| creer wrote:
| 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 nearly all other
| public libraries around them, and like the state financially
| encourages.)
|
| So yes, it makes sense for the voters to have only so much
| power and influence. Sometimes it would be nice if someone in
| that pile concerned themselves with a longer term vision than
| "my lawn, right now". And that doesn't mean their political
| hobby either.
| bombcar wrote:
| > 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?
| VHRanger wrote:
| New residents don't just include immigrants: it's also all
| future inhabitants of the place.
|
| Your perspective amounts to existing residents extracting all
| the economic value in a location simply because they bought
| land there first.
|
| That's ridiculously inefficient and toxic at a national
| scale. Or even at a local scale, over 40-50years.
|
| One important paper on the topic calculated 50% GDP losses in
| the US because of large metro areas being too expensive to
| move into [1]
|
| 1. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w21154/w2
| 11...
| xyzelement wrote:
| // Your perspective amounts to existing residents
| extracting all the economic value in a location simply
| because they bought land there first.
|
| I think people mainly think of it as "their home and their
| community" rather than "economic extraction"
|
| // calculated 50% GDP losses in the US because of large
| metro areas being too expensive to move into
|
| Doesn't that strike you as obvious bullshit?
| samstave wrote:
| While I agree with you, places that used to be 'burbs - are
| now under an obsolete civil engineering design... you think
| SF is going to be able remain SF over the next 50 years?
|
| So all the outlying neighrborhoods/cities/areas -- MANY of
| which were built out in 40s to support the war effort as we
| were building liberty ships in the bay at an alarming rate -
| and all those women workers needed housing (rosie the
| riveter)...
|
| So all these tiny packed neighborhoods needed for the 1940s
| workforce resulted.
|
| Now we have a 2040 workforce need in the exact same way for
| building Liberty LLMS! (Expect of poisoning the dirt with war
| chemicals - we will find another similar metaphor digitally)
|
| (most of saily city, alameda, treasure island, hunters point,
| candle stick, dog patch, etc - were all heavy industry for
| these ships and the naval base - and they were massive
| amounts of toxics buried in the dirt.
|
| This is why hunters point was always ghetto - because they
| knew it was a Super Site - and so many people have gotten
| sick from it. Which is also why it was a very slow process to
| build stuff out new because new laws require environmental
| impacts which include soil sampling which reveals Super Site
| chemicals...
|
| The very tip of Alameda Naval base was also a dumping pit now
| Super Site -- they decided that its cheaper to pound giant
| metal posts as a barrier to prevent the chemicals leeching
| into the bay - rather than spend 10 times as much to clean up
| the site properly.
|
| and this just happened in the last 20ish years.. its been
| leaking into the bay since WWII
| bigmanjon wrote:
| Thats the core of cities, they change! Imagine if 150 years
| ago, all the farmers and ranchers could block their neighbors
| from selling/buildings because it "ruins the rural character
| and will bring bad humors". Most of these communities would
| have never been built.
| geodel wrote:
| LOL. So people who have been living in an area should have no
| say but people from planning to move must have a say.
|
| > This will probably never happen in the U.S
|
| Thank god for that.
|
| Maybe checkout in other countries like Canada, UK, France,
| Germany or even eastern europe, further in Asia on how they are
| doing on housing front. For sure they couldn't be having
| housing policies as bad as US.
| 10000truths wrote:
| You are falsely assuming an equivalence between homeownership
| and residency. Renters and household dependents make up a
| significant portion of residents in large cities.
| sydbarrett74 wrote:
| Canada and the UK have woeful housing shortages. They're not
| doing much, if any, better than the US is.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'd guess that is the point of the comment. In the US we
| can blame zoning, NIMBYs, and car-centric society for
| housing problems. But what about those other countries?
| What's the reason there?
|
| I suspect important drivers of home pricing are:
|
| - Young people not getting married and starting a family
| right out of school, making average household size drop
| considerably
|
| - Increased standards for construction and rental quality
|
| - Everyone wants more space, houses are pushing twice the
| size they were 30+ years ago
|
| I think these are more plausible than just zoning and cars.
| I'd guess those are only serious problems in a handful of
| very dense cities which are constrained geographically.
|
| The household size issue will probably level out, you can't
| really go below 1. Lowering standards won't happen. But
| smaller homes might. Bring back starter homes.
| slothtrop wrote:
| > What's the reason there?
|
| The same. Canada's population grew by 3% last year but
| housing supply remains inelastic. Small developers have
| difficulty getting loans, zoning, NIMBYs sue projects,
| etc.
|
| > I think these are more plausible than just zoning and
| cars.
|
| It may be more complex than "just" zoning, but it's
| certainly more-so zoning than the conceit that people
| want larger houses. People want houses period.
| sydbarrett74 wrote:
| Another thing to add is that Boomers would rather age in
| place than be shipped off to a nursing home until they
| require extensive care hard to administer in a non-
| hospital setting. There's nothing wrong with that
| sentiment, but it does somewhat restrict the housing
| inventory that otherwise would be freed when they
| downsize or move into a facility.
| geodel wrote:
| Agree with all of it. I will give an example of place
| where in practice there is no NIMBYism, one can build
| more or less any shape or size of building depending on
| lot size. Apartments are priced as much as $200-250K
| which adjusted to purchasing power parity would be like 2
| million dollar condo/home in US. Now they are suffering
| huge water shortage due to over exploitation of
| resources.
|
| This is leading to people running away from the city[1]
|
| 1. https://www.deccanherald.com/india/karnataka/bengaluru
| /techi...
| ejb999 wrote:
| Based on what I have read, Canada is doing far, far worse
| than the USA - affordability problem up north is
| ridiculous.
| acover wrote:
| How can you fix the incentives so locals actually want
| densification?
|
| I always liked the idea of more local taxes rather than
| federal. Then the larger tax base would improve services or
| do a direct transfer.
| bombcar wrote:
| The "old way" that nobody talks about is that part of the
| city would become a slum/shithole, drop in value, be
| gobbled up by redevelopers, and made into nicer/denser
| city.
|
| But the other thing is that density is only the solution if
| you insist people live in certain areas - the US has
| experienced tremendous growth in many time in history, and
| not all of them were handled by densification.
| notahacker wrote:
| Strong homeowner protection is almost universal throughout the
| developed world, including regions where the cost of housing is
| low relative to wage levels, so whilst it may be true to say
| that expensive parts of the US and Europe are homeowner
| friendly and have restrictive planning laws it doesn't indicate
| any actual correlation. New York isn't super expensive because
| other places take advantage of greater ability to build to a
| higher density.
|
| In most lower middle income countries with relatively limited
| property rights, urban housing that can actually be bought is
| actually much more expensive relative to local median incomes,
| though these do have more options in the form of dorms and
| slums...
| bombcar wrote:
| Homeownership protection is strong because it's one of the
| things that people will most strongly fight for - it's "the
| castle".
|
| And almost no matter where you live, there's someplace (even
| nearby!) that's better (and usually more expensive).
| oramit wrote:
| The incredible thicket of state, county, and municipal rules
| all layer and combine to make housing incredibly difficult to
| build. It's the technical debt of the material world.
|
| Seriously, look up your local zoning rules. It's not "you can't
| build a chemical plant next to a preschool" like it's so often
| portrayed. It's minimum size for the lot, max square footage of
| the house based on lot size, max/min frontage, height
| allowances, max garage sizes, minimum number of trees, number
| of windows.... etc.
|
| It really just goes on like that, and then to top it off, you
| can be totally compliant with code and still not be approved.
| Either because of local incompetence (building permits stuck
| "in review" for years) or because of local opposition.
| __egb__ wrote:
| Many of the zoning rules you list, and far many more that you
| don't, exist for valid reasons. Those reasons may not be as
| obvious as the chemical plant/preschool rule, but that
| doesn't mean they're not just as valid.
|
| I live near a cove that comes off of the Chesapeake Bay. We
| have many of those zoning rules here for environmental
| reasons. Water movement and erosion are huge concerns here.
| Rules that affect density, frontages, trees within 100' of
| the water...they are all necessary for the common good of the
| entire area.
|
| We actually have a case on the other side of the
| neighborhood. A guy bought some land near his property for
| cheap. It's not zoned for development because much of it is
| wetlands. He thought he could pressure the local zoning board
| to rezone it so he could make a handsome profit reselling it
| to a developer. As part of that effort, he diverted a creek
| and filled in the wetlands...and now several houses in the
| adjoining neighborhood flood (and there are legal
| repercussions for our entire neighborhood).
| MostlyStable wrote:
| This is exactly the kind of Motte-and-Bailey argument the
| commenter you are replying to is talking about. Sure, you
| can justify some of the regulations, much like you can
| justify not allowing a chemical plant next to a school, but
| there are, in many places, hundreds to thousands of such
| rules and the vast majority of them are _not_ that
| important. How does not wanting houses to flood relate to
| setbacks, minimum square footage, lot size, etc.
| requirements? Literally no one is saying "get rid of every
| single development regulation". So bringing up one of the
| _extremely_ small number of regulations that are worth
| having does not address the argument about the _hundreds_
| that are not worth having.
| __egb__ wrote:
| > ...hundreds to thousands of such rules and the vast
| majority of them are _not_ that important.
|
| And you base that on...?
|
| > How does not wanting houses to flood relate to
| setbacks, minimum square footage, lot size, etc.
| requirements?
|
| Here, minimum lot sizes are based on public/private
| water/sewer. We're on well water so we need room for the
| well. We're on public sewer, however, so we don't need
| room for a septic tank.
|
| As mentioned in other comments, minimum lot size also
| relates to infrastructure requirements. Here, it's not as
| simple as just widening the current road or building
| another road through the narrow parts of our peninsula.
|
| Setbacks are also related to stormwater management. Tree
| protection requirements, again, stormwater management and
| erosion control.
|
| > Literally no one is saying "get rid of every single
| development regulation".
|
| But you think that there are only an "_extremely_ small"
| number of valid regulations. You and the other comment I
| replied to seemed dismissive of specific rules that are
| vital to the survival--not just value, but physical
| survival--of my neighborhood.
| oramit wrote:
| I definitely listed the most egregious rules first. Those
| silly and overbearing laws exist though and have the same
| force as entirely valid ones like keeping trees along the
| coast to avoid erosion.
|
| In isolation each rule is defensible (to varying degrees),
| but when we step back and look at the whole, we've created
| a regulatory environment that is hostile to development at
| every step. It's death by a thousand cuts. Big government
| through a massive collection of tiny rules.
|
| Therein lies the real problem and why this keeps getting
| worse. There's no political will (probably because there's
| no political reward) in doing that sort of systemic
| analysis of the rules. What is actually essential? What is
| nice to have? What would be great but increases costs so
| much that it's not worth it?
| sd-response wrote:
| Sure - zoning laws are often a good thing! But you also
| have zoning laws like this regarding SRO units:
| https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/01/09/micro-apartments-
| coul...
|
| Do you think zoning rules like this - that Washington state
| is currently trying to change - exist for valid reasons? I
| really don't see a good reason, other than `NIMBY-ISM`.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| >If they don't like it, they can move.
|
| Can't you say the same for people trying to move in? There's
| plenty of places in the US that you can still get a house for
| under 200k.
| mhuffman wrote:
| >There's plenty of places in the US that you can still get a
| house for under 200k.
|
| I bought 3 houses all for under $20k each over the past 2
| years. I use them all as rental houses. You can get waaay
| under $200k. The problem when you bring this up to people
| online is they say, "well I would never want to live there".
| So they are very happy to tell people that already live
| somewhere that they can move if they don't want new large
| housing complexes built, but if you tell them that they can
| move to somewhere more affordable, they act like you are
| attacking their human rights.
| bombcar wrote:
| And no matter what you do, there will always be people who
| would want what they have, but cheaper.
|
| It's triply confounded by the huge group of people who
| simply don't understand the math behind renting (and this
| includes many landlords, sadly).
| mhuffman wrote:
| Also the building restrictions in a highly-populated
| area. I remember a person on here breaking down the costs
| of building multi-family housing. Basically in SF or LA
| you can only build high-priced multi-family housing to
| make any profit, otherwise it would be at a high loss and
| that is assuming something like rent controls, because
| otherwise the price would be driven up anyway.
| bombcar wrote:
| Often the easiest thing to do is increase _luxury_ supply
| (because by definition the rich have the money to buy).
|
| And unless you have literally infinite incoming new
| residents or people who want to squat on unrented
| property, increasing the top-end supply will also
| increase other ranges. It might still not allow someone
| on minimum wage to live there, but the total number of
| units increases - _unless you replace cheaper units with
| more expensive same or less density units_.
| zdragnar wrote:
| > If they don't like it, they can move.
|
| Why doesn't the same logic apply to people who don't like the
| high prices of housing in some areas? There's plenty of
| affordable housing in the country, but it doesn't all exist in
| the places people want to live.
| vondur wrote:
| Exactly this. We should be giving people incentives to move
| the Midwest where there is affordable housing. Not everyone
| can live on the coasts. Here in California, the
| infrastructure has not kept up with the population increases.
| As a result, houses are being built in areas that were
| previously wilderness and now we have fires burning through
| entire towns.
| admax88qqq wrote:
| Is the affordable housing that exists int he Midwest not an
| incentive? Or do you think we should be giving people even
| more?
| zdragnar wrote:
| Many people find the Midwest winters unpleasant, and many
| Midwest states lack variety in outdoor terrain.
|
| On top of that, finding a job can be quite a bit more
| work if it is a career that can't work from home and you
| don't want a long commut., Many types of jobs are much
| easier to come by in urban areas, even in the Midwest.
|
| That said, there's plenty of great places to live here,
| and significantly lower costs of living too.
| bombcar wrote:
| Or to factor it out, the incentive should be (perhaps)
| for _businesses_ to allow "state agnostic" remote work,
| or give incentives to move to lower cost of living areas.
|
| The problem with those things is the main decision is
| made by people who are not affected by the high cost of
| living; Musk doesn't notice the difference in housing
| cost between Texas and California, even if his employees
| would.
| ihaveajob wrote:
| San Francisco, the densest city in the state, is 3/4
| suburbia. There's no reason why it couldn't host 4 times
| the population without resorting to Hong Kong style
| urbanism (which would be great IMO, but that's a separate
| story). The infrastructure argument would make sense if
| homes in remote areas didn't also need that infrastructure,
| while suffering from lower efficiency in all measures.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| [deleted]
|
| No more fever posting
| pchristensen wrote:
| I'd love to hear how you came up with that.
| danking00 wrote:
| I was surprised by the last clause in your last sentence,
| but you're absolutely right. https://www2.census.gov/geo/
| docs/reference/ua/ua_list_all.tx...
|
| LA edges out NYC: 7000 to 5300. Presumably in individuals
| per square mile.
| bombcar wrote:
| It all depends on where you draw the lines. When people
| think of LA they think of that whole sprawling metropolis
| between the mountains (what is technically the LA basis
| or the LA metro area) - but the City of Los Angeles is a
| smaller denser portion of that.
|
| And when people think New York City they think Manhattan,
| but New York City includes quite a bit more.
| pchristensen wrote:
| The City of Los Angeles is still over 4 million people,
| more than most states.
| bombcar wrote:
| And on land twice the size of Singapore.
| bitcurious wrote:
| During/post covid there has been a massive migration out of
| urban centers into rural places. Thus far the effect has
| been that affordable places are less affordable, while
| expensive places stayed expensive.
| creer wrote:
| 1. High population areas are also concentrations of jobs. It
| doesn't make sense to both say "They" can live somewhere else
| and "They" should please work here.
|
| 2. Governance problems is unfortunately not a monopoly of
| high population areas.
| mey wrote:
| Two reasons I haven't moved - my community
| (friends) are here - any cheaper place I would move is
| a political nightmare
| graeme wrote:
| Do you think those inexpensive homes are empty? Or that you
| could build to brooklyn density in those areas to build no
| problems.
|
| Your proposal merely shuffles the problem around, it doesn't
| increase housing supply.
| comte7092 wrote:
| Affordable isn't only about price, but price relative to
| income.
|
| Not everyone can have a location independent job. Many places
| that seem "affordable" lack decent paying jobs. And the areas
| with the highest paying jobs are filled with people who
| scream that people should go live somewhere else.
|
| These are people who started the race a mile ahead and think
| they are superior runners. They've done very little to earn
| what they have and are fighting like hell to avoid even mild
| inconveniences to themselves (e.g. an affordable development
| for low income seniors or teachers).
|
| Before you say "well this is what voters want" voters at the
| state level got legislation through that mandated changes and
| the _minority_ of voters in a handful of well off areas are
| actively disregarding that law.
| lolinder wrote:
| > Affordable isn't only about price, but price relative to
| income.
|
| > Not everyone can have a location independent job. Many
| places that seem "affordable" lack decent paying jobs.
|
| We don't have to hand wave about areas that "seem
| 'affordable'": we actually have the data for both income
| and home prices. The math isn't complicated: housing is
| affordable to the average person in much of the US [0].
|
| The conflict here isn't driven by people who couldn't
| afford to move elsewhere, the conflict is driven by the
| sheer number of people who _choose_ to live on the west
| coast. One group of those people already owns homes along
| the west coast and wants their neighborhood to stay the
| same. Another group would _really_ like for there to be
| affordable housing along the west coast.
|
| But at the end of the day, there isn't anything stopping
| _either_ group of people from getting a job in one of the
| green or yellow areas in the map below and living there
| with a very decent ratio of income to expenses.
|
| [0] https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.i
| t%2Fg...
| cheriot wrote:
| > Why doesn't the same logic apply to people who don't like
| the high prices of housing in some areas?
|
| Because the cities in question green lit the office buildings
| that have the job I need. If a city chooses to grow its
| economy, it has an obligation to allow enough housing for
| those new people.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Plenty of people (dare I say a majority?) commute to cities
| without living in them, and that often has nothing to do
| with the cost of housing and more personal preference.
|
| I, for one, don't want to be forced to move every time I
| change jobs. I would much rather have the opportunity to
| take jobs in near by communities as well (assuming I didn't
| work from home of course).
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| Why should people get to build walls around the gardens of
| edens and kick out the ladders of those on the other side?
|
| Property rights are a shared fiction we adopted because
| they're (largely) in the best interest of society. When they
| instead act as subsidies and hand outs to some fortunate few,
| we need to rethink how things are done.
| ClarityJones wrote:
| > The solution is terrifyingly simple: don't allow existing
| residents to block new housing developments. If they don't like
| it, they can move.
|
| The problem with new housing development is that only large
| corporate investors are allowed to develop. I am very NIMBY as
| it relates to building apartments next-door, because _I_ am
| prohibited from building apartments on _my_ lot.
|
| I'm all for reducing land use restrictions, but it should be
| done in a neutral fashion that doesn't advantage those with the
| capital to hire real-estate lawyers.
| mlsu wrote:
| Why is it a problem for large corporate investors to develop?
| I've never understood this. New things are being built, who
| cares who builds them?
| ClarityJones wrote:
| I care because I want to develop my own land.
| jahewson wrote:
| a) What major population center does _not_ have distorted
| (high) housing costs relative to income?
|
| b) Does the answer to a) have slums?
| adverbly wrote:
| I'd argue the solution is even simpler and has been known for
| decades.
|
| Land value tax.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| I think that construction timber benefit as a Carbon sequester is
| too often downplayed or simply ignored while it could be
| significant.
|
| Timber has many advantages compared to concrete, including
| longevity.
|
| The housing shortage won't last forever thanks to demography, but
| we'll need to replace many badly aging buildings anyway, and it
| takes time to grow trees and build the whole infrastructure
| around this construction technique, we should try to not sit and
| wait for a change.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Why not bricks - they are eco friendly, we are not running out of
| clay soon, amazing thermal buffers and isolation, while energy
| intensive to produce you could fire them with renewables
| eventually. Change the shape a bit so they are easier to lay fill
| the cavities and we are in the business.
| ducttapecrown wrote:
| Bricks are a nonstarter on the West coast because of earthquake
| safety is what I was told as a kid in California.
| maxglute wrote:
| Why would it? You can solve the housing problem with corrugated
| shanty towns and plastic tarps if right regulations eased enough.
| adversaryIdiot wrote:
| I will take a house made out of mud at this point
| kingkawn wrote:
| I don't get the impression that materials are the rate limiting
| element of the housing crisis
| foxyv wrote:
| 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
| not met by their community. Everyone has their own bar,
| restaurant, theatre, and community center. There are 8 unit
| apartment buildings that are smaller than some of these houses.
|
| The housing crisis is an urban planning crisis.
| nightski wrote:
| I know it's hard to believe that many people are simply happier
| living in their own single family home and have little desire
| for the urban lifestyle.
| shortsunblack wrote:
| which is fine, if they are willing to pay the full cost of
| it. suburbia is massively subsidized.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > suburbia is massively subsidized
|
| That's a common argument that no one has been able to
| sufficiently prove.
| foxyv wrote:
| The results of multiple studies have validated this
| claim:
|
| https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53dd6676e4b0fedfbc
| 26e...
| bitcurious wrote:
| I'll admit that I merely skimmed the study, but as I read
| it states that local/municipal property taxes in many
| cases don't cover the road infrastructure required to
| support those homes. To make the argument that they are
| subsidized you'd also have to factor in municipal and
| state income taxes.
| comte7092 wrote:
| Subsidies are about relative costs. Tax collection is an
| interesting thing to look at in addition, but ultimately
| if we are to determine whether the suburbs are
| subsidized, it would require analyzing cost to deliver
| city services per capita.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| They don't cover them to the tune of many tens of
| percentage points where I live. It's to the degree that
| the state basically has to redistribute wealth from the
| cities to the counties where the roads are built.
|
| If the communities served by a road had to pay the full
| price of the road you'd see a lot of little 8-10 house
| hamlets with 10 million dollar bridges pack up and leave.
| throwaway14356 wrote:
| long ago in the netherlands the road in front of your
| house was your responsibility. You could agree with your
| neighbors to a crappy road but with loss of status and
| probably the value of the home. (The last remnant was the
| requirement to remove weeds. That was how I found out.)
| bluGill wrote:
| I keep reading that claim. Then I look at old streetcar
| suburbs which have successfully a repaired thier roads
| over decades (including removing the old tracks). They
| have also added water, sewer, electric, phone, catv since
| being built.
|
| which is to say it doesn't pass the smell test. I don't
| know where the studies go wrong but something isn'c
| adding up.
| marcusverus wrote:
| So the suburbs are net recipients of infrastructure
| taxes, which is a bad thing. Got it. Shall we also apply
| this to other government services? It would be kind of
| shameless to complain about suburbanites being the net-
| beneficiaries of one service, while expecting them to be
| net-contributors to literally every other government
| service in existence, right?
| someguydave wrote:
| It would be amusing if the end result of harassing net-
| productive taxpayers (suburbanites) is that they exit
| even further into wholly private areas where the
| government provides almost no services and nearly all the
| "local tax" is spent on upkeep of only the private
| community.
| oblio wrote:
| City dwellers are taxed more in terms of density of
| infrastructure. Lots of people using less infrastructure
| and paying more taxes in aggregate.
| someguydave wrote:
| assuming his numbers are correct, that shows that in one
| town in one state, the local taxes don't seem to cover
| the cost of infrastructure. But what about state taxes?
| Do they reimburse the locality? Federal funds?
| mdorazio wrote:
| The mortgage interest tax deduction by itself is enough
| to refute you.
| nightski wrote:
| I'd imagine practically no one actually takes that
| because the standard deduction is more lucrative. Unless
| you live in a far above average priced home with a jumbo
| loan.
| walthamstow wrote:
| US suburbia's externalities are not properly priced in.
| Gasoline tax is 18c a gallon and hasn't changed since
| 1993.
| comte7092 wrote:
| It's a fairly intuitive thing to understand, the suburbs
| require significantly more infrastructure per capita.
| More roads, power lines, sewer/water lines, etc.
|
| Just look at something as simple as trash pickup. In the
| burbs you have to travel a significantly greater distance
| per household.
| bluGill wrote:
| But most of the cost isn't distance it is time to empty
| the cans once there.
| namdnay wrote:
| easy: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
|
| how much did you pay for emitting all that Co2?
| gadflyinyoureye wrote:
| Is it? Those same people work and pay taxes. If they
| couldn't live in a city due to cost that city would have
| less revenue as a result of fewer employed people buying
| goods and services.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| >work and pay taxes
|
| Implying that particular city job isn't subsidized.
| Bullshit jobs are mostly city jobs
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Are you seriously suggesting that everyone in the USA
| should be forced to live in apartment blocks, or am I
| misreading you?
| gadflyinyoureye wrote:
| You're misreading me. I replied to the idea that suburbs
| are subsidized. The view was that people should be taxed
| to off set their supposed subsidies. I don't think the
| suburbs are really subsidized.
| compiler-devel wrote:
| It's not though, this is one of those "we take less taxes
| if you pay mortgage interest" type arguments. That isn't
| subsidizing.
| denimnerd42 wrote:
| hardly a factor for most nowadays with the increase in
| standard deduction
| ska wrote:
| Although it's not really that much of a factor these
| days, it effectively is equivalent to a subsidy. So is
| government backing of mortgages for that matter.
| someguydave wrote:
| that's a strong statement to make across hundreds of
| thousands of different tax/cost situations in localities
| spread over all 50 states.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| I'm not an expert on municipal expenses, but I'd wager
| that it takes a pretty unusual cost situation to render
| it cheaper to pave/trench/replace more miles of
| road/pipe/wire and maintain more service entries to serve
| fewer people.
| Jomus wrote:
| I know it's hard to believe that many people just want
| affordable housing
| nradov wrote:
| I would like for all of the things I buy to be cheaper,
| including housing. No one finds that hard to believe. But
| reducing housing costs will require making tough decisions
| and some special interest groups will end up as net losers,
| so it's just _hard_ to build political consensus for any
| major changes.
| foxyv wrote:
| 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.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > Right now our laws prevent us from building affordable
| and livable homes
|
| Which laws are those?
| foxyv wrote:
| To Start: Zoning laws, land use restrictions, parking
| minimums, property covenants and restrictions, traffic
| flow requirements, and minimum offsets.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Do these laws serve no other purpose other than to
| prevent building? Which of these laws can be discarded to
| 'solve' the housing problem? Which should we keep?
| eikenberry wrote:
| 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?
| ejb999 wrote:
| 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, should move to those places that are.
|
| Why do we need a single solution for everyone, in all
| areas?
| foxyv wrote:
| Local elections have notoriously low voter turnout and
| candidates are often supported by developers and real
| estate brokers. Often local city council members are
| outright bribed by people who have an interest in only
| approving their own projects. In addition, sometimes city
| counselors will prevent zoning changes to increase the
| value of their own property. City officials are often the
| biggest bang for your buck when it comes to corruption.
|
| A really prominent case in Moreno Valley, CA exposes how
| this often works:
|
| https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-
| offices/losangeles/news...
|
| And LA: https://www.dailynews.com/2024/01/26/13-years-in-
| federal-pri...
|
| And Dallas: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/dallas-
| city-council-mem...
| akira2501 wrote:
| > Local elections have notoriously low voter turnout
|
| The flaw in democracy, manifest.
|
| You simply can't say "We literally do not need anyone.
| Things are fine. If there's an emergency we can convene
| something, but outside of that, I don't actually want a
| body convened with the responsibility of changing things
| randomly. I'm busy and I don't have the time to keep an
| eye on these goofs."
|
| It should be that if voter turnout is less than 25%, the
| election is canceled and either held again, or the seat
| just left vacant until the next election. Or you are
| elected, but without power until an emergency is
| declared, then you have the standard powers but only for
| that temporary period.
| joshlemer wrote:
| > 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.
|
| By this logic, it would seem impossible to critique
| really anything that any democratically elected
| government does.
| sd-response wrote:
| In Oregon, it became legal to build ADU's a few years
| ago. [0]
|
| In Washington, certain cities put restrictions on SRO
| units. The state is passing legislation to make that
| easier. [1][2]
|
| These are just cities I've lived in. I would imagine
| other cities are facing similar zoning questions.
|
| Some of us think that more housing is a good thing, and
| laws preventing units like ADUs or SROs are prima facie
| misguided.
|
| [0] https://www.oregonlive.com/hg/2021/09/put-a-spare-
| home-or-tw...
|
| [1] https://www.seattle.gov/sdci/vault/micro-housing
|
| [2] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-
| estate/once-curbe...
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| Actually yes they do more than just prevent building,
| they were also implemented to keep "undesirables" out of
| more affluent areas by making it too expensive for them.
| This is covered extensively in the book The Color of Law
| by Richard Rothstein, and is a great read.
|
| Specifically:
|
| - Huge min lot sizes
|
| - Offsets
|
| - Covenants*
|
| We can start by removing/revising those.
|
| (*Certain covenants are no longer enforceable today)
| VintageCool wrote:
| https://indyweek.com/news/opinions/op-ed-the-purpose-of-
| zoni...
|
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-
| materials/2021/06/17/...
|
| Some of the housing regulations were legitimately put in
| place for safety reasons to protect people. Others were
| put in place to keep black and Asian people out.
| Especially after government initiatives to prevent
| discrimination in housing like the 1968 Fair Housing Act,
| efforts to keep out minorities became cloaked in the garb
| of "public safety", and minority-excluding regulations
| were sanitized into affordability-excluding regulations.
| tomcar288 wrote:
| but it's a lot more than that. Blue cities are by far the
| worst offenders at anti-housing regulations. part of it
| must be that people are funadamentally extremely
| conservative when it comes to housing.
| drivers99 wrote:
| minimum lot size, setback requirements (not sure if
| that's the same as offsets you mentioned)
| MattGrommes wrote:
| Google 'missing middle'. There are tons of laws
| restricting what kind of homes can be built so we end up
| with whole swaths of cities being a single kind of home
| that is unaffordable and doesn't work for a lot of
| people.
| akira2501 wrote:
| 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?
| silverlyra wrote:
| > 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 freeways and parking
| lots.
|
| today, large portions of US cities are zoned for
| exclusively single-family homes, and other zoning
| requirements like parking minimums, and minimum setback
| and lot sizes continue to slow urban, transit-oriented
| redevelopment.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > the migration of formerly-enslaved Black Americans out
| of the rural south and into cities
|
| My understanding is this is where it started but the mass
| migration of everyone off of the farm really started to
| happen when gasoline engines became standard equipment
| and replaced beasts of burden.
|
| > and lot sizes continue to slow urban, transit-oriented
| redevelopment.
|
| I'm not convinced this is the entirety of the problem,
| fortunately US policy is not a monolith, and several
| cities are experimenting with different configurations.
| It will be interesting to see if "developers" start
| opting for the multiplex configurations that are now
| being allowed in traditional single family zones.
| jorvi wrote:
| Plus, if the choice is going to be between great family
| homes for some + terrible quality ultra-expensive
| appartements for most, or decent reasonably priced
| appartements for everyone but few family homes.. then yeah,
| screw family homes.
| nico_h wrote:
| It's also possible it's like that because the city and
| apartments they are familiar with suck. I used to live in a
| small, admittedly rich, city, and had all amenities within 7
| minutes walk, park within 3 minute walk. The city policy is
| that there is a primary school within kids walking distance.
| We had 4 apartments in the city with these characteristics,
| and didn't hear the neighbors (much) except for the above
| neighbors heels in one of them.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Not everyone likes to share a wall. I'm glad there are options,
| since I'm one of them. I can walk from my single family home to
| nearby community centers, restaurants, kitchens, theaters, and
| bars in 15 minutes. Not everyone likes to be that close to that
| stuff, and that's okay. I'm glad we have options, since I'm not
| one of them. There's plenty of space to build new homes of all
| types. It's an entitlement crisis.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Every time I see a giant timber framed apartment building
| being constructed I'm exceptionally glad that I don't have to
| consider living inside of it. It's fine for your early 30s,
| but if you hope to be part of the "professional class" then
| that form of living takes it's toll exceptionally quickly.
| foxyv wrote:
| American multi-family dwellings are constructed so poorly
| compared to other countries. You should not be able to hear
| your neighbors in a modern apartment building or hotel.
| Unfortunately since building permits and zoning
| restrictions are so tight, many MFD owning/renting
| Americans are living in buildings that are over 50 years
| old.
| akira2501 wrote:
| The only apartment that I lived in and would consider
| moving back to was a 1940s constructed "solid" concrete
| apartment building in northern Minnesota. That thing was
| built to a standard that is rarely used anymore. The only
| thing you heard was people walking past your door.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| In major cities filled with the professional class - the
| wealthiest communities in the US, such NY, LA, and the Bay
| Area, lots of them live in apartments.
| akira2501 wrote:
| What's the most common building material in those
| environments?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| That's a good question: Obviously the taller buildings
| much use steel or similar, but there are lots of smaller
| buildings. What's your point?
| sombrero_john wrote:
| What kind of toll are you talking about?
| foxyv wrote:
| I don't think they have ever lived in such a structure.
| They are probably talking about living in a two story
| light timber frame apartment from the 70s/80s. The walls
| are paper thin and you can wake up your neighbor walking
| in slippers to get a drink of water.
|
| These mass timber buildings are SO much better.
| badpun wrote:
| > It's fine for your early 30s, but if you hope to be part
| of the "professional class" then that form of living takes
| it's toll exceptionally quickly.
|
| Why it doesn't take a toll on members of other classes?
| akira2501 wrote:
| Perhaps this dates me.. but for me and my industry, there
| was a standing expectation that you would stay late and
| work as hard as necessary to get the job done.
| Thankfully, labor laws in California have changed since
| then, but during that time, it was an exceptionally
| draining experience trying to "climb the ladder," and not
| being able to come home and experience any sort of solace
| was soul crushing to me. It literally became my only
| motivation for a year and half was to get out of that
| environment to somewhere I could have space and peace and
| quiet with zero expectations of intrusions or
| interruptions.
| foxyv wrote:
| > There's plenty of space to build new homes of all types.
|
| Unfortunately this is not the case in North America. Very
| little land is zoned to allow such communities. Those areas
| that are have become so insanely expensive only the extremely
| wealthy can afford to live in them.
| pojzon wrote:
| So the issue is cost which is raised by limited space
| matching infrastructure criteria.
|
| So if we had 100x more of the land that matches that
| criteria:
|
| - ppl could pay a lot less to build houses there
|
| - ppl would pay more ?
|
| Ps. Its just an infrastructure issue our moron leaders
| failed to account for. Any 3rd grade RTS player understands
| that.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Very little land...in all... of North America. That's a big
| place for such a tight summary lol.
|
| The communities,, space, and zoning are out there, but
| often many facing the housing issues just aren't willing to
| move. There's more to it than this obviously, but for every
| person slamming their lifestyle and expenses against the
| wall in a trendy area, there are others picking up and
| moving to Philly, St. Louis, Lexington, etc.
| tpmoney wrote:
| I would argue more than that the housing crisis is an "urban
| crisis" and a "fraying of the social fabric" crisis.
|
| By the first I mean the continued destruction of smaller towns
| and semi-rural areas. Even if single family homes are more
| expensive to build than multi family apartments, the fact is we
| have ridiculous amounts of space in this country. But most
| people for various reasons don't want to live where the space
| and "affordable" housing is or can be built. The more our
| population drifts to major metro areas for economic reasons and
| the more jobs go to where the people are, the worse housing
| affordability will be, even if we build huge sky rises and cram
| everyone into Tokyo size apartments.
|
| By the second I mean that people want their own bars, theaters
| and restaurants at home because in a lot of cases going out to
| the shared versions of these sucks, sometimes a lot. There's an
| overall lack of respect for being in public that just seems to
| permeates the American culture right now.
|
| In my own experience just this past week someone was completely
| oblivious to the fact that I was leaving a parking space and
| their doors were open and they were flitting about making
| leaving unsafe. It only broke through to them when a gust of
| wind caught their door and slammed it into my car, to which
| they hurriedly apologized and swore it would "buff out" and
| then ran away.
|
| Or the taxi driver who parked in the middle of the lot lane
| waiting for their fare blocking the whole exit.
|
| There was the restaurant patron loudly having an argument on
| their cell phone. The cashier who was so stoned or distracted
| they needed 3 tries to get the order right. Or the waiter who
| got into a literal shouting match with their co-worker to which
| management did nothing but watch.
|
| The theater floor is stickier than a fly trap and the seats
| aren't much better. The food is awful, and over priced. The
| cost of just a few games of pool at the bar is crazy, even
| before factoring in your drink will cost you 4-6x what you
| could get it for at home and be lukewarm.
|
| Why would people want to go to these shared places or live
| where they can't have the space for their own version when this
| is more and more the norm.
| foxyv wrote:
| A huge reason these shared spaces are so miserable is because
| the communities around them cannot support them. Parking
| minimums and low density means that not only are these
| commercial properties insanely expensive, but also that not
| enough people can access them.
|
| A huge upside to increasing density is that the theatre goes
| from having 100 people within 4 miles of it to 10,000. In
| addition, instead of having a 400 car parking lot surrounding
| it like a moat, people just walk right in off the sidewalk.
| This means the theatre makes more money and pays less in
| rent. This means they can hire more people to keep it clean
| and safe.
|
| You start to get theaters like this: https://www.google.com/m
| aps/place/Path%C3%A9+Rembrandt+Utrec...
| 10u152 wrote:
| Cost is a factor but you can have all this and car parking.
| Plenty of developments in my city are mixed use. 3 or 4
| levels of underground parking, then retail, supermarkets on
| ground floor then bars, gyms, pools, restaurants on the
| next few and and 20 or 30 levels of apartments on top. And
| people can walk straight off the street into the building.
| foxyv wrote:
| It sounds like you live in a very affluent area. There
| are ways to build cities like you live in that are
| affordable to everyone. But minimum parking standards
| make it almost impossible.
| adamisom wrote:
| I just went to Panda Express for lunch--yeah yeah, it's not
| fancy at all, but it's a step above McDonald's--and someone
| begged me for food.
|
| Cue a bunch of online warriors on their high horses implying
| I'm a bad person for not prioritizing their need over my
| negative experience.
|
| I'm still going to second-guess going out to eat a little
| bit, though. I want to create my own beautiful bubble, and
| that might be home.
|
| Everyone on Earth should curate their own bubble--should live
| the life they want. This is not at all contradictory with
| efficient aid to help the unfortunate.
| foxyv wrote:
| If you want to live in a mansion and can afford it I say
| "All the power to you!" But all the rest of us will be
| happy to live in an affordable place where we can get a
| slice of pizza and a cold beer without driving 20 minutes.
| Also, I know I want to see that homeless person begging for
| food living in an affordable community that has plenty of
| extra economic power to provide all the Panda Express he
| can eat!
|
| You are not a bad person for wanting to live in a mansion
| or even just a bungalow far away from the city center.
| That's honestly pretty great! In fact, it's my hope that
| building walkable, affordable communities will make it even
| easier for you to afford and live in such a place.
| tomcar288 wrote:
| eating out at panda express or other fast food
| restaurants is quite the luxury and not achievable every
| day for most of society. I'm always perplexed that a
| poorer person would ask for something so costly. At
| costco I can get whole wheat for about 70c per pound.
| Which means I can make an entire days worth of bread for
| just 80c. Beans, 2$/day, greens are mostly free if you
| know what to look for and where, or grow it. These are
| all about x10 to x20 cheaper than panda express or other
| fast food.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| What is your reasoning here? Cities are 'bad' from
| something as minor as that? We all deal with things we
| dislike, such as stoplights, rain, or bad news on TV. Let's
| not even start on traffic! Where will you find this idyllic
| place to call home?
|
| FWIW, it might be alien at first but there's nothing to be
| afraid of from people who want some food, any more than
| from anyone else. That is based on long experience with
| zero problems in many places. Those are the vulnerable
| people; it's the powerful ones you need to watch out for.
|
| > Cue a bunch of online warriors on their high horses
|
| You violated HN guidelines before anyone even replied!
| rangestransform wrote:
| > there's nothing to be afraid of from people who want
| some food
|
| not OP but FWIW my roommate was followed into an ATM
| vestibule while depositing his (5 figure) casino
| winnings, begged at aggressively, and then the destitute
| person kicked his suitcase, I'd say that's definitely
| something to be afraid of. now I don't use ATMs with
| people sleeping in the vestibule.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > now I don't use ATMs with people sleeping in the
| vestibule.
|
| Yeah, I don't do that either. It's possible I don't have
| problems because I don't do stupid sh-t, but that goes
| for most things in life. When I cross the street, I watch
| the cars to see if they're stopping and don't just assume
| they will obey the lights (and that I read the lights
| correctly). When Covid struck, I kept my distance from
| people whether or not someone required me to.
|
| I don't know what happened with your roommmate - that
| would be pretty alarming. There's no way someone is
| following me into an isolated ATM vestibule; I just keep
| walking if there's a question. And I'm not pulling out
| that kind of money anywhere but a bank teller window.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| > By the first I mean the continued destruction of smaller
| towns and semi-rural areas.
|
| Self-destruction. They are not victims.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> Everyone has their own bar, restaurant, theatre, and
| community center.
|
| As opposed to all the "urban lifestyle" people who readily
| offload their basic needs onto others. Some people are happy
| cooking their own basic foods. Others want them to be prepared,
| and their dished cleaned, by a team. Some people are happy with
| a beer fridge. Others want to go to a bar and pay a young
| person to smile and flirt while concocting a fancy drink in a
| silly glass. To each their own. But having a basic kitchen in
| an apartment is not a luxury any more than having a cupboard
| for cleaning supplies, a service that can also be outsourced by
| those too lazy to clean up after themselves. A desire for a
| modicum of self-sufficiency is not a vice.
| comte7092 wrote:
| I think the point is that these giant houses provide a lot
| more than a "modicum" of self sufficiency.
|
| I live in an apartment and cook plenty, for example.
| jajko wrote:
| People turn to things like viewing world only in extremes,
| if it subconsiously validates their viewpoints or life
| choices. We all fall into this trap to certain extent.
|
| Another case point - lived my whole life in apartments
| (thats how much of Europe runs), and preferred to buy
| another one instead of almost similarly-sized house. And I
| like cooking a lot and currently getting a maybe bit too
| much into various cuisines via youtube.
|
| Once you grok few basic concepts and rules its amazing how
| much one can achieve with little and some skills. Plus its
| creativity to the max, which everybody appreciates too.
| Also improves your health (better ingredients, you can make
| stuff with less sugar/fat).
|
| Bad thing is, your average restaurant wont feel that fancy
| anymore.
| foxyv wrote:
| I'm not saying we should ban 4000 sq.ft. detached homes on
| large sprawling lots. They just shouldn't be the ONLY type of
| home being built. Give people options so they can choose.
|
| In fact, if you want to have that beautiful home surrounded
| by nature and not suburban cookie cutter houses, then it's
| also in your interest to see that cities stay in the cities.
| Too many orchards and farms have been demolished to build
| miserable tracts of poorly constructed wood frame houses.
| coltonv wrote:
| Exactly this. People act like it's a "big government
| takeover" trying to make multi-family housing against
| peoples wishes. The real fact is it's the exact opposite.
| "Big government" policies were created forcing people to
| only build single family homes on massive lots. Current
| proposals are to remove those regulations, and ironically
| people see it as the government coming for them.
| alistairSH wrote:
| When a large chunk of the middle-class is counting on
| their home value to facilitate retirement, they're
| rightfully concerned about urbanization of their
| neighborhood.
|
| I personally believe they're mostly wrong - urbanization
| probably won't harm home values. And done well, might
| improve the values even more.
| trgn wrote:
| I agree. Nice cities are just attractive places to be.
| Even for people who live in the single family homes near
| them. An expensive city is expensive everywhere,
| regardless the type of housing,
|
| > they're rightfully concerned
|
| Yeah for sure. A lot of the pushback against development
| is a gut feel concern, the fear of losing something, it's
| not rational. The "rightfully" part I guess is because
| institutions groom people in borrowing for single family
| homes, and specifically that e.g. Try financing a multi-
| family on the same favorable terms. Few people enjoy
| pensions at an old age, so you're kind of thrown for the
| wolves if you don't own a home. The system really is
| maladjusted.
| alistairSH wrote:
| When our son moved out and we decided to right-size our
| home, we went looking for condos, but there was very
| little available in our area, at least nothing that was 3
| bedroom + priced in our range + located near the subway.
| We found one condo that had size and location, and while
| the purchase price was less than a TH across the street,
| the monthly condo fees were somewhere near $1000/month.
| That ended up making the monthly expense >30% higher than
| the TH across the street (which is where we ended up).
| WheatMillington wrote:
| >They just shouldn't be the ONLY type of home being built
|
| They're not, as evidenced by the literally millions of
| apartments in existence.
| alistairSH wrote:
| By area, SFHs are generally what's allowable.
|
| Here's Fairfax CO VA. Everything in yellow or green is
| largely zoned for SFHs (with differing # units/acre). htt
| ps://fairfaxcountygis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/i
| ...
| tpmoney wrote:
| Where do you live that 4k sqft homes are the only new
| construction? I live in a major metro area and sure in the
| outskirts and suburbs there's plenty of McMansion
| developments, but there's also a whole host of new
| townhomes and apartments. And the entire downtown is
| practically being rebuilt into massive multi story
| apartments. And this is hardly the center of YIMBY land.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| It's getting better now, but the OP could live in
| Seattle: [0]. Anywhere white on that map it was illegal
| through 2019 to build anything but a single-family home.
| Just an appalling waste of land.
|
| [0]: https://i0.wp.com/publicola.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2022/01/S...
| TheGRS wrote:
| Interested to see how it shakes out in Portland, we put
| in infill laws a few years ago and I've seen a handful of
| multi-family additions on previously single-family land,
| and even a handful of trailer or tiny homes setup on
| driveways (this was approved in the infill laws). And it
| does seem like nobody is super happy because the
| neighborhoods are losing a lot of their classic
| aesthetic. But IMO we need to let go of that eventually,
| otherwise everyone just has to move out to suburbs and
| fill that space instead (which is also happening).
| sanderjd wrote:
| I'm seeing this in my area too. But I _wasn 't_ seeing it
| ten or fifteen years ago when these debates first came
| onto my radar. What it looks like to me is a success
| story of identifying a problem and working toward
| improvement, but simultaneously far more slowly than the
| proponents of the solutions want and far more quickly
| than opponents want.
|
| A decade ago, YIMBY-leaning people and groups were mad
| but mostly obscure and NIMBY-leaning people and groups
| were powerful. Now both sides are mad, the YIMBY side
| because it is still taking a long time to build enough to
| see affordability improve (especially with the interest
| rate shock), and the NIMBY side because they can see all
| those new townhomes and apartments going up in suburbs
| and smaller towns and densification projects in the city
| center, and dislike that.
|
| I remember I used to complain that housing was so
| expensive and you never saw anything getting built
| despite there being plenty of great places to build
| things. And then one day I realized that a lot of
| construction was happening in a lot of those places I was
| thinking of, and I should stop complaining, since what I
| wanted to see happen was actually happening!
|
| It's hard to feel like it's "better" for both sides to be
| mad while affordability is still bad, but I do think it's
| better than what seemed more like an insurmountable
| problem to me a decade ago.
| foxyv wrote:
| Texas.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Reston, VA - for new construction, we see a mix of large
| SFHs (3000-6000sqft), large THs (2500-4000sqft), and mid-
| rise and high-rise apartments (vast majority of which are
| 1-2 bed).
|
| What's missing is smaller apartment blocks (4-8 units),
| small THs or SFHs (<3000sqft), or duplex/triplex/etc.
|
| That is beginning to change, largely as a result of
| rezoning around the Metro corridor. More mixed use, more
| low-rise condos. But, this is limited to areas that are
| suitable for complete redevelopment (mostly old low-rise
| offices within 1/2 mile of a Metro station).
|
| Nuking the SFH zoning to allow market forces to drive
| development outside the immediate Metro-adjacent plots
| would help. Allows ADUs and "granny flats". Allow a SFH
| to be split into a duplex or rebuilt as 3-4 THs. Etc.
| BytesAndGears wrote:
| What a weird straw-man.
|
| I live in a 600sq ft 2-bedroom apartment with my wife, and we
| cook nearly every meal at home, we rarely go out to bars, or
| spend much money in the city.
|
| But we have 6-7 cute cafes within a 5 minute walk, so we stop
| in for a coffee now and then. We have a big park that we can
| picnic in, three blocks away. There are a ton of fun things
| to do for cheap or free nearby.
|
| We don't need a ton of space at home because our city
| provides us a lot of happiness.
|
| If you can walk to handle all of your basic needs, then you
| don't need to have so much at home, is the point that the GP
| was making.
|
| For example, we keep much less food at home in Europe than we
| used to in the US, because I can just drop by the veggie
| stand or mini-grocery on my walk/bike home from work and get
| a fresh version of whatever I want to cook that night.
|
| We don't need a beer fridge because there is a beer store
| selling cold beer cans within a block of us, and with way
| more selection.
| trgn wrote:
| It's impossible to explain this qualitative difference in
| life to somebody who hasn't experienced it.
|
| When the outside environment is attractive, apartment
| living is glorious. When the outside is gnarly (e.g. no
| amenities, bad neighbors, ...), apartment living is hell.
|
| There's a weird tipping point, where all the negatives of
| living in an apartment evaporate. But it's hard to put it
| into numbers. You just "know", experience it.
|
| Similar for houses, there's a weird tipping point where all
| the negatives of a home just congeal, and it's a drag and
| anchor, and the house starts to own you more than the other
| way around.
| BytesAndGears wrote:
| Yeah, that's a great way to put it.
|
| I have also had great experiences in a detached home
| (living with my wife's family for a short while). They're
| kind of out in the beyond-suburbs, but we were able to do
| lots of trail running and hiking nearby, and they had a
| bigger house so we could all spread out and do different
| activities without disrupting each other.
|
| (Though, honestly, the extra maintenance and upkeep that
| they had would've been exhausting, if it were actually my
| home and I had to do it long-term)
|
| Neither is better, exactly, but there are a ton of hidden
| benefits to living in an apartment in a great part of a
| city (Amsterdam in my case)..
| evandale wrote:
| It's also hard to explain this difference in life to
| somebody who doesn't want to live that life.
|
| When I tell people I hate driving so much that I'd rather
| sit on public transit (or even walk!) for 1 hour if the
| alternative was a 20 minute drive they are flabbergasted.
|
| I go to the grocery store 3-5 times a week and that
| amazes people because the default assumption is a grocery
| trip involves getting in your car and buying a cart full
| of groceries for a week. People find it so hard to
| believe that I actually enjoy my 30 minute outings to the
| grocery store and carrying my groceries home. I got a
| granny cart for Christmas one year because my family
| thought "oh hey we can save him time if he can bring a
| bigger load of groceries home" but it doesn't occur to
| them that I don't even want that.
| trgn wrote:
| Haha, love the concern of your family and got you a
| granny cart!
| cassepipe wrote:
| While I agree with your general point I am really not sure
| it's as binary as you present it. I live in a apartment
| building and I cook all of my food and clean my dishes... in
| my kitchen. I also fix/do diy in my apartment. I can repair
| my bike in the basement area.
|
| If I were hunting/growing my own food, sure I'd want to live
| in a house with terrain around but that's a level of self-
| sufficiency that's quite rare in suburbia last time I
| checked.
| oblio wrote:
| Beer fridge? Is that supposed to be a fridge just for beers?
| majormajor wrote:
| > We are building massive 3-4k sq. ft. homes for families of
| four because all of their food, entertainment, and social needs
| are not met by their community.
|
| You assume it's a necessity thing instead of a desire+wealth
| thing. Yet the history of the wealthy and powerful "escaping"
| to large estates goes back centuries (millenia!).
|
| Additionally, the housing affordability crisis is also
| happening in European cities with 4+ story buildings everywhere
| and shops and restaurants on every corner.
|
| If you misunderstand what exactly the problem is and what
| exactly is being desired and what is being purchased then any
| sort of "build it and they come" attempts to provide
| alternatives will be limited by the misconceptions, and any
| sort of enforce-through-policy change will by stymied by lack
| of popular support.
| foxyv wrote:
| If I can walk less than a mile to a theatre and pay $10 to
| watch a movie on a giant screen, I won't want to pay $10k to
| create a home theatre. If I can get food from around the
| world by walking 10 minutes to 20+ restaurants, I won't want
| to pay $20k to have an 800 sq.ft. kitchen. If I can entertain
| my guests at a community center or beer garden, I won't need
| to have a $15k patio and outdoor bar area.
|
| People pay absurd amounts for these things because they can't
| get them in their own community.
| majormajor wrote:
| > If I can walk less than a mile to a theatre and pay $10
| to watch a movie on a giant screen, I won't want to pay
| $10k to create a home theatre.
|
| What theater are you used to that lets you pick what's
| shown for $10, vs just a dozen or two movies at once?
|
| > If I can get food from around the world by walking 10
| minutes to 20+ restaurants, I won't want to pay $20k to
| have an 800 sq.ft. kitchen.
|
| What restaurants are you going to where it's cost-effective
| to eat every meal out instead of doing some of your cooking
| at home?
|
| > If I can entertain my guests at a community center or
| beer garden, I won't need to have a $15k patio and outdoor
| bar area.
|
| What community center are you going to where there's never
| scheduling conflicts or events? Where you can choose your
| own landscaping and plants to grow, and do whatever hobbies
| you want? Where your pet can bask in the sun all day?
|
| Get a bigger imagination about why people want personal
| space!
|
| (You might also be suprised by how many people in the US
| can already drive <=10minutes to all the things on your
| list - and wouldn't see that as a big hindrance compared to
| walking - and STILL get versions of them in their own home
| too, to point at some existing evidence to the contrary.)
| foxyv wrote:
| I'm not saying that no one will want their own mansion
| far away from the city. I'm just saying that a lot of
| people don't want to pay for their own movie theatre and
| restaurant size kitchen. Some people just want a tiny
| kitchen in a house near a theatre and some amazing
| restaurants that costs 1/10th of what a mansion costs.
| typewithrhythm wrote:
| Density spoils many of these examples, being in close
| proximity to a random collection of people has downsides.
| Why would I go to a theatre with people who cough and talk,
| when I can spend a couple of months wage to have a better
| experience? Why would I go to a crowded expensive bar when
| I could have the space to host at home?
|
| People pay for the better experience, there are very few
| places where the apartment experience is desirable, only
| some where it's a bit less shit.
| foxyv wrote:
| I'm not saying that no one would build their own home
| theatre or restaurant sized kitchen. But a lot of people
| honestly wouldn't bother if they had other options in
| their community. It moves the cost/benefit curve over by
| a standard deviation or two.
| typewithrhythm wrote:
| I think you are advocating for trying to make the
| experience of apartment living less shit, based on some
| idea that density is inherently good. However there is no
| example where this is the case, as less density always
| allows individuals more control over their immediate
| environment. I don't believe people choose community
| options deliberately, people who use them simply have no
| alternative. There is no positive evaluation being done,
| or cost/benifit it's simply the only affordable option.
| dividefuel wrote:
| I think these preferences just aren't universal is the
| problem, as shown by the disagreement in this thread. For
| me, many of these things I'd rather enjoy in my own home
| because the additional comfort and privacy is something
| that I highly value. That is, I'm willing to pay more not
| because my community doesn't offer it, but because I value
| being able to define my own experience.
|
| That said though, I do agree that community options are
| missing in many American towns/cities today, and I wish
| people at least had the choice.
| marcinzm wrote:
| Now have fun doing all that with 2 young kids in tow and
| the cost of paying for them.
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| I live in a multi housing building and its a NIGHTMARE. A drug
| dealer moved in next door and he smokes all kinds of synthetic
| drugs 24/7 the shared walls and gaps are so thin the drugs leak
| in to my home. The person above me has some sort of mental
| condition, he wakes up at 12:45 am and starts drumming the
| floor with his hands, runs around and moves the furniture all
| night everyday. There isnt a damn thing i can do about this
| other than pack and move. the hoa is an exercise in futility. I
| am now literally nauseously averse to "muti-unit" housing.
| foxyv wrote:
| I agree, I've lived in such apartments and hated them.
| However, you will notice that such buildings are usually 50+
| years old and barely maintained. The reason for this is the
| cost to create new ones is absurdly high due to planning
| restrictions at the city level. Any attempts to make modern
| and more livable structures are thwarted by local opposition.
|
| Also, the lack of competition in the MFD housing market means
| that landlords can barely maintain them and people will not
| have other options. This is why it often costs $2k+/month to
| live in apartments that look like they may collapse at any
| moment.
|
| However, if you can afford to live in a single family house I
| would say "Wonderful! Please do!"
| trgn wrote:
| Nothing kills the vibe of apartment living like trash
| neighbors. Same with houses, but it's just so much more
| pronounced in a multi-unit house.
|
| Construction plays a large part. Apartment buildings in the
| US are flimsy (usually). In other cities, they're often built
| like vaults.
| foxyv wrote:
| I have had problems with bad neighbors in my old apartment
| as well as out on county land. It's just a universal
| problem honestly. You are definitely right about American
| apartments sucking. But they have to get the money for
| parking from somewhere and it's usually building quality
| that suffers.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| What a dystopic vision, living in 50sqm pods and having our
| basic needs attended to by market participants, eschewing all
| self-reliance.
| foxyv wrote:
| I do not know how you arrived at these odd conclusions, but I
| would recommend reading a few books on urbanism to understand
| exactly what I'm proposing.
|
| The High Cost of Free Parking - https://a.co/d/7NIZHp9
|
| Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American
| Prosperity - https://a.co/d/19DDeTU
|
| Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places -
| https://a.co/d/8F0cWzl
| namdnay wrote:
| > eschewing all self-reliance
|
| that's the thing though, the suburban/rural individual house
| lifestyle is a a bit of a cosplay self-reliance - it's
| completely dependent on someone else providing you with
| staggering quantities of fossil fuels
| foxyv wrote:
| No one is more reliant on other people than someone living
| on a farm or out in the middle of nowhere. This is why
| rural neighbors are often so friendly. When something goes
| wrong you only have each other.
|
| Suburbia relies almost entirely on urban centers or
| something like a military base or university to survive. I
| remember when Bill Clinton closed March Air Force Base in
| California and the city surrounding it died like a plant
| that was watered using bleach.
| scoofy wrote:
| 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 also the cost of infrastructure, and the cost of
| transport. The _reason_ we have a housing crisis is because as
| much as we all love single family homes, they aren 't
| universalizable. If everyone were to live in a single family
| home, then after the transportation infrastructure reaches
| capacity, there is a cascade of issues that leads a region
| becoming totally unaffordable and ultimately unsustainable.
|
| I would recommend the Strong Towns organization for anyone more
| interested in the interaction between long-term affordability
| issues and surburban infrastructure problems:
| https://www.strongtowns.org
| majormajor wrote:
| 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 running into the same
| issues around ability to do new, denser constrution, desire
| of new, denser construction, and political issues and
| resistance to change _regardless_ of if your urban area is
| full of SFH or 5-story buildings.
|
| Is "make today's cities larger and denser forever" really the
| solution? 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?
| novok wrote:
| You don't sit on the train for an hour. In properly
| designed large cities the metro beats the car by a huge
| time margin unless they made cars so expensive by policy
| that nobody has a car and there is no traffic at that city
| as a result.
|
| Americans often think the shitty experience they have in
| their country applies universally. Ex: The bus & light rail
| is bad and slow, so therefore it will always be bad
| everywhere. Americans haven't lived or even travelled to
| places in europe and asia with functional transit systems
| and do not realize what they are missing.
|
| Another common american assumption is: apartments are only
| for the poor, so they will always be made shitty with bad
| soundproofing when you can make them with good
| soundproofing as a standard and a good amount of square
| feet. Or metros are always dirty, dangerous and the gross
| homeless live there, while that is also a pure policy
| choice of america.
|
| I grew up in north america, lived in places with good
| metros and good apartments, and then moved to America.
| America doesn't know how bad they have it.
| majormajor wrote:
| > You don't sit on the train for an hour. In properly
| designed large cities the metro beats the car by a huge
| time margin unless they made cars so expensive by policy
| that nobody has a car and there is no traffic at that
| city as a result.
|
| You should meet some of my old coworkers in large cities
| in Asia... (you don't SIT on the train at all in rush
| hour!)
|
| In a smaller city it can work great! But in a small NA
| city, everything is a 5-to-10-minute drive from
| everything and everyone's also happy about that. That's
| easy mode. But London, NY, Paris, Beijing, etc - those
| are the cases that are somewhat broken everywhere,
| affordability-wise and commute-wise.
| novok wrote:
| In China right? You know they are the equivalent of
| people in LA who live so far away from their job and have
| 2 hour car commutes right?
| majormajor wrote:
| Not just in China. China is maybe the most _interesting_
| point of comparison with big cities in the US, though,
| since its cities are both much denser than most AND more
| sprawling than most.
|
| And I don't follow your second question. If the trains OR
| freeways are full of people who can't afford to live
| closer to their jobs and have hours-long commutes, isn't
| that bad? And if it can happen even with extensive public
| transit, what does that tell us about fundamental
| assumptions about "city should grow forever, number must
| always go up!"?
| kurthr wrote:
| China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan... I can break it down by
| city, but the idea that people don't commute more than an
| hour in any of these places is pretty laughable. HK is a
| bit better, because it's so small, but unless you're
| really wealthy or willing to live with your family in
| 100m2 even that is challenging. It's not that there
| aren't places to live (eg in Tokyo), but most people with
| a family and moderate incomes would rather live outside
| the city, and that means long commutes, standing during
| rush hours.
|
| I once had a commute longer than 15min in Silicon Valley
| and decided I'd never do it again.
| yitianjian wrote:
| The traffic in a medium sized NA city like Atlanta or
| Dallas can be a lot better than it is now, and it's
| definitely not comparable to Shanghai, London or Tokyo.
| majormajor wrote:
| Do you have any examples in mind of 6-10M cities with
| stress-free comfortable commuting and affordable housing
| for all? Off the top of my head, but without a lot of
| first- or second-hand experience, Rome seems like the
| commute is probably a lot better than the larger cities,
| but my perception is that the affordability is pretty
| poor? Otherwise most of my experience is in larger or
| much smaller places.
|
| Something that I think often makes this discussion tough
| is that there are a LOT of well-known historical European
| cities that are at under-2M population that I don't think
| Americans typically realize are THAT much smaller than,
| say, an Atlanta. I think the challenges of serving a
| growing city of 5M+ are much harder than a well-
| established old city of 2M.
| kiba wrote:
| If you want stress free comfortable commuting, you're
| going to need to build an efficient way to move people.
|
| Cars are not really an option when it comes to moving
| people en mass. It's just too low capacity.
|
| Rome's metro system in particular is stymied by buried
| Roman artifacts and laws for archaeology. That's not
| really the worst thing, given that NYC subway
| construction cost are some of the highest in the world.
|
| That said, I saw what Atlanta looks like. Aside from down
| Atlanta, a lot of Atlanta is literally just low rise,
| even downright suburban sometime. It's a smaller city
| than people thought, given that only half a million
| people lives within its border proper, but nonetheless
| traffic is somehow a nightmare.
| Retric wrote:
| Internationally the statistics depend quite a bit on how
| the data is collected so it's hard to international
| comparisons accurately.
|
| I will say using US definitions, commute times are very
| sticky around the 30 minute time period. Longer commutes
| and people have a large incentive to move closer, short
| ones and they don't generally bother.
|
| So in the US Tulusa Oklahoma population 400,000 (1M
| metro) has a 20 minute commute and NYC population
| 8,800,000 (20M metro) is 50% worse at 32 minutes average.
| https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/planes-trains-
| and-...
|
| Edit: This suggests allowing people to move easily move
| around the metro area would meaningfully lower the need
| for transportation infrastructure. I suspect NYC has
| issues with people living in rent controlled apartments
| having long commutes but being unwilling to leave their
| cheap apartment, but don't have data backing it up.
| stouset wrote:
| > Do you have any examples in mind of 6-10M cities with
| stress-free comfortable commuting and affordable housing
| for all?
|
| "Do you have examples of cities that are literally
| utopia? No? Checkmate, urbanists!"
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > In a smaller city it can work great!
|
| The best transit is generally thought to be in NYC.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| In the US? Very likely. And given the status of NYC and
| the US in the world, even that is embarrassing.
| mlsu wrote:
| We only have 2 cities in the United States that even
| approach a "medium sized" Asian metro in population. Los
| Angeles and NYC. Only NYC has a usable public transit
| system.
|
| This is actually an argument for transit systems. Los
| Angeles, San Francisco/San Jose, Dallas, Phoenix -- could
| be (and should be) a global metropolises, with a
| populations and cultural relevance rivaling Tokyo or Hong
| Kong. They would be, if not for the car. There are people
| who commute _daily_ from the suburbs of Stockton to the
| SF bay area.
| looofooo0 wrote:
| With mixed zone neighbourhoods with 30.000+people/km2 you
| get everything for daily needs in Walking distance and
| close by metro. There is also a 120 years old concept for
| such neighbourhoods.
| https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockrandbebauung
|
| Also can be done in today s time:
|
| https://youtu.be/XfonhlM6I7w?si=ZcnbH6lmNWuQ6oE9
| chgs wrote:
| Is singapore properly designed?
|
| About 10 years ago I had a project and stayed in an
| apartment in haugong, a residential area about 6 miles
| from my office. Uber was the only realistic commute -
| about 15-20 minutes. Public transport was about an hour
| to do the journey.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > America doesn't know how bad they have it.
|
| This may be changing. You see a growing awareness of the
| shabbiness of certain American norms in parts of so-
| called "populist" circles (left and right).
| rayiner wrote:
| > In properly designed large cities the metro beats the
| car by a huge time margin unless they made cars so
| expensive by policy that nobody has a car and there is no
| traffic at that city as a result.
|
| What's a properly designed city? Even in Tokyo a car
| usually beats the train unless it's an inter-regional
| trip. Im a huge Japan nerd and love their train system.
| But I just got back from carting three kids around Tokyo
| and daily life is just far easier in my American exurb.
|
| Do Americans have it bad? The median Parisian spends 69
| minutes per day commuting:
| https://www.mynewsdesk.com/eurofound/news/budapest-paris-
| and.... The median commute time in Dallas is under an
| hour round trip:
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/B080ACS048113 (28
| minutes one way). And the folks in Dallas live in huge
| houses compared to those in Paris.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| I would rather sit in a train for 69 minutes than sit in
| a car for 45 minutes. In a car if my attention slips for
| a second I can kill myself and others. In a train if I
| fall asleep I may have to take another train.
| lotsoweiners wrote:
| Cool! You do you. I'd personally rather spend an hour in
| the car comfortably vs 20 minutes on public
| transportation where I've got a stranger sitting next to
| me, no privacy, and potentially no seat during rush hour
| commute times.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| 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.
| dingnuts wrote:
| > 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
| stouset wrote:
| You seem to be under the significantly confused
| impression that working to density cities and improve
| transit options is somehow an attempt to pry your car and
| single-family home from your cold, dead fingers.
|
| It isn't.
|
| It's about changing incentive structures over the long-
| term, so more people choose options which have a better
| set of societal externalities.
| bluGill wrote:
| Metro systems even in the best examples don't give easy
| anywhere to anywhere access. There are places you cannot
| access because there is no direct route and unlike a car
| there are no 'shortcuts' around going where the train
| goes.
| drekk wrote:
| So you walk the last mile? Not accessible to everyone.
| Neither is accelerating a two ton slab of metal to move
| one person around from exactly point A to exactly point B
| (and now you need parking at both points, which adds to
| the sprawl issue)
| cameldrv wrote:
| Metros are pretty slow. 20mph/30kph is about par, less if
| the stops are spaced closely, more if they're further
| apart. If you factor in time to walk to and from the
| metro, and time waiting for your train, you can almost
| always beat them with a bike. Here's a chart of a few
| systems [1]. Where the larger European cities do better
| is the density -- what you mostly care about in a city is
| how many people you can reach in a reasonable amount of
| time, say 30-60 minutes. In the Bay Area, I can, with my
| car, reach about 3 million people in 60 minutes, about
| the same as I could using transit in Berlin, which has an
| excellent metro system, and Berlin doesn't have to deal
| with the geographic barriers that the Bay Area does.
|
| I think that shared ride self driving cars have a lot of
| potential in both types of cities. They give you a lot of
| what's good about private cars (door to door, good
| average speed, comfort, some privacy), and a lot of
| what's good about metros (higher density on the road than
| private cars due to sharing and less need for parking)
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/113n0ee/ave
| rage_sp...
| CivBase wrote:
| > Americans often think the shitty experience they have
| in their country applies universally.
|
| Whether this is true or not, what matters to me - a
| person living in the US - is that public transit in the
| US is a relatively poor experience compared with driving.
| Until that changes, I will keep driving and I will resist
| efforts that would force me to use public transit. I
| don't care if it's better elsewhere because I don't live
| there nor do I want to move there.
|
| I _want_ our public transit to be good, but that simply
| isn 't the case right now. Walkable cities with quality
| public transit and good community infrastructure sound
| great, but until they are a reality here I will have no
| interest in living in a dense urban location.
| mortify wrote:
| I used to live in a major city in the US. My commute by
| public transit was 45 minutes and I lived close to a
| major hub. I now live outside of that city. I can drive
| into that same job in 60 minutes. Public transit from
| here is over 2 hours.
|
| Outside of Boston and NYC (well, maybe not NYC right
| now), I hear of no one happy with public transit in the
| US. We need to stop pretending that if we just move into
| cities, the problems will address themselves. Make public
| transit attractive and more people will want to live
| there.
| nico_h wrote:
| Uninhabited land is empty of people for a reason: - it's
| protected - it's undesirable (too hot/
| dry/wet/far/steep/close to a pollution source) - it's
| agricultural land
|
| If it's not any of these it's owned and thus controlled by
| someone.
| pojzon wrote:
| Its owned and controlled by ppl who have millions of
| square meters for themselves.
|
| ^this is the real issue.
|
| But we dont want to tackle the real issue of few ppl
| wanting to own the whole world :)
|
| If we cut out that cancer ppl everyone on Earth could
| have a lot better living standards than we do now.
|
| Yes the issue are ultra rich and yes they will propaganda
| everything to hide it keep it safe.
| falserum wrote:
| Some of those reason might be change by government
| policy.
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| > Uninhabited land is empty of people for a reason: -
| it's protected
|
| Almost the entirety of coastal California (and Oregon and
| WA as well.) It's insane. It's the best climate on the
| planet and the most protected from climate change.
| scoofy wrote:
| >You can easily get housing affordability crises even
| without single family homes, as is plainly evident right
| now in non-North-American cities.
|
| Yes, you can get an affordability crisis anywhere you make
| it illegal to build housing. Nobody is arguing that. The
| point is that you _also_ get an affordability crisis simply
| by pushing the transportation infrastructure to the point
| of failure, and then reject density.
|
| >Is "make today's cities larger and denser forever" really
| the solution? 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?
|
| This is literally what's happening in every tech satellite
| city, the point is that many-if-not-most of our urban
| centers are already at their transportation capacities,
| simply because that is the suburban development model: it's
| extremely cheap until suddenly it's no longer functional.
| The suburban model has no equilibrium, it's a cascade, once
| the planned automobile infrastructure reaches capacity, you
| cannot increase it at a rate that is sustainable. Thus,
| once that capacity is gone, suddenly the real estate in the
| core becomes extremely valuable -> which incentivizes
| density -> which further strains peak infrastructure ->
| which increases the value of core real estate -> which
| further incentivizes density -> etc. -> etc. -> etc.
|
| We can't wish this away, beyond wishing other people just
| didn't exist. It's like wishing that _other people_ would
| take the bus, but not wanting to take it yourself. Nobody
| in the bay area wants to move to affordable Red Bluff, CA,
| without a reason, much less the CEO of a major corporation
| moving their entire company there out of the kindness of
| his heart we he or she already has a house and friends in
| Atherton.
| NewJazz wrote:
| _You end up sitting in traffic for an hour instead of
| standing on a bus or train for an hour for your commute_
|
| Why are you acting like driving a vehicle and being a
| passenger in a vehicle are the same experience? One is
| clearly more demanding and inhibiting than the other.
|
| On a train you can work, read, listen to a podcast,
| sometimes eat... Lots of things you can't do while in a
| car. Unless your job is driving. Which, if you commute for
| work, it kinda is.
| rayiner wrote:
| You can do those things if you get a seat, which you
| generally cannot during commuting hours in any city where
| public transit is good enough to be popular.
|
| I commuted for awhile between Baltimore and DC on Amtrak
| and apart from being hellaciously unreliable it was great
| for working. But my commute from the upper west side to
| east midtown when I lived in NYC was completely different
| --being crammed into the 1/2/3 and then fighting through
| the masses to take the S across town.
| NewJazz wrote:
| You can listen to music or a podcast while standing.
|
| I just plugged in upper west side and midtown Manhattan
| into google maps... It said 18 minutes via transit. Maybe
| your commute had more complications, last mile and so on.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| You can listen to music or a podcast while driving. You
| can even hear it over the din of your car engine, which
| is much less loud than being shoved into a box with a
| hundred other people.
| lotsoweiners wrote:
| > On a train you can work, read, listen to a podcast,
| sometimes eat
|
| I do all of those things in my car while driving too.
| Maybe not read but I've listened to audiobooks. I also
| sit in Teams meetings, read and respond to emails and IMs
| on my phone as well when I'm at a stop light. Maybe some
| people can't do these things while driving but plenty of
| us do.
| oblio wrote:
| And you're a hazard to everyone around you doing most of
| the things.
|
| But it's fine, the poors (pedestrians, cyclists) deserve
| to die, anyway.
| scoofy wrote:
| Lol... yea, let's not discuss the 100 deaths a day are
| caused by automobile collisions. It's not going to help
| your argument.
| matsemann wrote:
| > _Maybe some people can't do these things while driving
| but plenty of us do._
|
| It's not that those people are unable. It's that they're
| not idiots that risks other's lives.
|
| You write as if you believe you're a better driver than
| most, but that's wrong. People doing the things you
| mention are bad and dangerous drivers.
| II2II wrote:
| > Is "make today's cities larger and denser forever" really
| the solution? 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?
|
| We should be aiming for some degree of density. I would
| hazard a guess that size is largely dependent upon what a
| person wants out of life.
|
| Infrastructure is very expensive to build and maintain, and
| everyone demands it in multiple forms (roads, water,
| sewage, and power at a minimum). Containing the costs by
| reducing either extent or capacity would allow us to
| allocate those resources to other things, things that could
| improve the collective quality of life.
|
| As for decentralization, it depends upon how it is done.
| I've lived in or visited towns with a few thousand people.
| Nearly everything one needed was within walking distance,
| though people often left town for things they wanted. I've
| also lived in similarly sized urban communities where
| virtually nothing one needed was within a reasonable
| walking distance. Suburban communities often take the
| latter to the extreme. What was the difference? Everything
| in the small town was centralized, yet businesses and
| services in those urban communities were effectively
| decentralized.
|
| Let's say you build a bunch of small towns to decentralize
| the population and get away from feeding money back into
| the hands of those who own and control cities. You now have
| another major consideration: are people going to live most
| of their daily lives in those towns, or are they going to
| live in one town and work in another? A big part of the
| reason why people spend so much of their life commuting,
| whether it is by car or train, is because opportunities
| (may it be home ownership or careers) don't necessarily
| fall in the same place.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| All I can say is thanks, but yes, every thread of this
| variety gets a bit tiresome hearing the same things over
| and over that tend to be some variation of "my peeve local
| issue with the US is the reason the US experiences a
| problem experienced by hundreds of other countries with
| wildly different policies."
|
| Not to say, in a vacuum, multi-family housing won't provide
| more housing units per unit of land area than single-
| family. Clearly, it will. But unless you build every city
| from scratch to house 20 million people, whether you
| started with single-family or multi-family, the most
| desirable cities will end up in a future state whereby more
| people want to live there than housing exists for, and even
| if regulations and zoning allow you to build higher and
| denser than is currently done, to do it _where people want
| to live_ , you'll have to tear down existing buildings,
| including existing housing, and many of the owners and
| occupants of that housing won't want that. You'll also need
| to run more utility lines, build new pipes, run them under
| existing roads, which means shutting down those roads, and
| even if they're perfect utopian European roads that have
| zero cars on them and only have pedestrians and bicycles,
| the user of those roads are still going to get annoyed and
| inconvenienced, and it's going to cost more to do this than
| building new housing where nobody currently lives, pretty
| much no matter what.
| nradov wrote:
| Strong Towns is not a reliable or neutral source. They aren't
| necessarily _wrong_ , but they do cherry pick data to suit
| the urbanist narrative that they're trying to promote. It can
| be a useful source for understanding the issue but don't take
| anything you read there at face value.
| scoofy wrote:
| What on earth do you mean "neutral" as if there are two
| sides to caring about long term infrastructure
| sustainability. If by "cherry-pick" you mean, explain a
| falsifiable hypothesis and then point to example of the
| hypothesis playing out exactly as predicted (Detroit,
| Jackson, etc.).
|
| If you really think their hypothesis is totally wrong,
| we're currently living in a real time experiment of the
| thesis in the Phoenix metro area. Due to water concerns,
| the suburban development model is no longer feasible. It's
| unlikely that Phoenix will suddenly become density mecca
| (as it's not feasible with automobile transportation), so
| we should expect to see a massive hole in the metro cities'
| budgets sooner rather than later. If Phoenix turns out to
| be fine a in 15 years, I'll happily concede the point and
| will have learned a lot.
| nradov wrote:
| That is exactly the cherry picking that I mean. You can
| point out a few examples that appear to fit the Strong
| Towns hypothesis (although causality isn't clear) but
| there are many other suburban cities which are quietly
| doing fine and have sustainable budgets.
|
| The Detroit metro area would be a mess even if it had
| higher density housing and better public transit. The
| problems there are more due to federal trade policies,
| toxic labor relations, and failed progressive social
| policies. It isn't valid evidence to either support or
| refute the Strong Towns hypothesis: too many confounding
| variables.
| scoofy wrote:
| Their thesis is clear and falsifiable, it's just that the
| timelines are very large. If you are going to criticize
| the thesis, it would make sense to address the actual
| arguments of ongoing cost-per-resident of various pieces
| of infrastructure, rather than just calling the
| organization 'biased'.
| philwelch wrote:
| That's not the reason we have a housing crisis. If you look
| at cities like Houston, where housing is relatively
| affordable, the vast majority of people still have single
| family homes. The reason we have a housing crisis is because
| regulations make it too hard to build housing.
| foxyv wrote:
| Despite their reputation for car centric design in the
| suburbs, Houston is actually building a LOT of multi-family
| dwellings. This is helping with affordability.
|
| https://catalyst.independent.org/2019/12/18/how-houston-
| is-b...
|
| I'm also really happy with how they have handled their
| homeless.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/headway/houston-
| homeless-...
| scoofy wrote:
| I grew up in Texas, people are have been building in
| literal floodplains because there is no more room to build.
|
| https://abc13.com/floodplain-housing-building-houston-
| flood/...
|
| Houston is just second-to-last in line in Texas to face the
| affordability crisis (followed by San Antonio) because they
| have the highest capacity automobile infrastructure, but
| it's already regularly ranked with the worst traffic in the
| United States.
|
| While I agree that Houston does a lot of things right,
| especially just literally allowing density, I do not think
| they would survive an influx of folks while maintaining
| affordability any better than Austin has.
| philwelch wrote:
| Austin is still doing a hell of a lot better than the
| West Coast is!
| scoofy wrote:
| Right... agreed, but what? Are you not following the
| argument? Austin is on the exact same trajectory as the
| West Coast. It's just about 10-15 years behind.
| philwelch wrote:
| No, it isn't, because Austin allows building to keep up
| with demand. The policy failures of West Coast states
| aren't a law of nature; they're policy failures.
| scoofy wrote:
| >No, it isn't, because Austin allows building to keep up
| with demand. The policy failures of West Coast states
| aren't a law of nature; they're policy failures.
|
| The policy of building _out_ is a law of nature, simply
| because it is impractical and unaffordable to upgrade the
| transportation infrastructure. The only real development
| you 're getting in Austin is vertical construction
| downtown (which is net good for affordability), and then
| you're filling in the remaining wilderness east of Austin
| (Manor, Webberville, and the area out to Bastrop).
|
| That's the last remaining unconsumed land that is viable
| for commuting, as the highways are already overcapacity
| out to Leander, Georgetown, Buda, and nearly Dripping
| Springs along the Mopac and 35 corridors.
|
| If Austin starts building multi-family homes in existing
| SFH neighborhoods, then more power to them.
| Zach_the_Lizard wrote:
| Considering that Houston is significantly bigger than
| Austin--metro area of 6.6 million vs 2.2 million--one
| could argue it _is_ handling a significant influx of
| people better than Austin.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| While suburbs certainly are financial sinkholes, there are
| other factors. Housing in cities like NYC is expensive in
| part because there is a housing crisis in NYC, because
| nothing is being built. And what is being built is
| preposterously expensive and beyond the teach of a typical
| New York family (not to mention cramped; you can barely fit a
| queen-sized bed into many of these bedrooms). Another issue
| is that developers have been snatching up real estate to
| cater to single yuppies who will accept living in a rathole-
| sized bedroom. An average bedroom is split in half to
| accommodate twice the occupants so that rent can be raised.
| This can make real estate hostile to anyone but such renters.
| And never mind pied-a-terre apartments, a controversial
| practice for which we can come up with pros and cons.
| scoofy wrote:
| I'm not arguing that blocking housing doesn't also cause a
| housing crisis. I'm just saying, given the choice of living
| in Manhattan in a single family home, or a six-floor
| walkup, I'm taking the single family home. And if everyone
| in Manhattan made the same choice, Manhattan would be
| ridiculously more expensive. The best parallel is probably
| Beverly Hills, but for the entire island.
| tomcar288 wrote:
| we had no problem building houses for people in the 50s and
| 60s. Why all the sudden we can't do it in the last 20 years?
| There's plenty of land out there. Even in the CA, the most
| densley populated state, there are more acres in CA than
| people and yet somehow there's a huge land shortage and
| ridiculous amounts of regulation. Even 100 miles away from
| the city, you'll see houses squeezed together like some kind
| of concentration camp, with open land in every direction and
| a 5 lane highway to service the equally insane commuting
| distances created by these land use policies: talk about
| terrible for the environment.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| I'm struggling to imagine how less densely packed housing
| could be better for the environment
| tomcar288 wrote:
| the key is to balance the number of jobs in an area with
| the amount of housing and to have mixed use land policy
| so housing and commercial and industrial can be much
| closer.
| scoofy wrote:
| >we had no problem building houses for people in the 50s
| and 60s. Why all the sudden we can't do it in the last 20
| years?
|
| Yea, it's actually pretty easy. Just get in a time machine
| and go back to 1956 when the Federal Highway Act made all
| that development possible, and just tell them to build
| sixteen-lane highways through every major city instead of
| two-lane highways. Explain that in 70 years, those highways
| will be operating overcapacity, so that a commute in and
| out of the city will not be able to operate at optimal
| speed of a vehicle, so that traveling 30 miles will not
| take 30 minutes, rather it will often take 60 minutes or
| longer, thus making central real estate more valuable.
| Which, in turn, creates a feedback loop that makes the
| viable transportation range of the urban center smaller and
| smaller. And, thus, makes the real estate in that smaller
| area more and more valuable. However, if you can get those
| highways doubled or tripled in size it should stop that
| feedback loop for now.
|
| Once you convince them to do that, feel free to come back
| to 2024, and all our development concerns will go away for
| another 70 years, at which point, someone will have to get
| in the time machine to make it 38 lane highways.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal-
| Aid_Highway_Act_of_195...
| oblio wrote:
| My God! This is the most American comment, sorry.
|
| Those poor souls living in cities. I read somewhere that
| Austin (or another place in Texas), despite being the
| dominant settlement in its metro area, had much lower
| representation than the rich and less populated suburbs.
| scoofy wrote:
| I grew up in Austin, so I'm intimately familiar with it.
| I don't really understand your comment, but I'm happy to
| talk about Austin if you have any questions.
| oblio wrote:
| I forget if it's Austin or Houston or whichever it was.
| But the metro representative body, handling the local
| budget, was basically like this:
|
| Main city in the metro area, let's say 2 million people:
| 2 representatives.
|
| Every other settlement in the metro area, let's say 3
| million people: 20 representatives.
|
| Guess why they kept building highways which cut through
| city neighborhoods?
|
| Edit: found it:
|
| https://www.fairforhouston.com/
|
| Gerrymandering, starting to be undone 60+ decades later.
| nradov wrote:
| Denser housing sounds good in theory; I support it myself and
| vote accordingly. The problem is that it comes with _other
| people_. The more immediate neighbors you have, the greater the
| risk that one of them will be an antisocial asshole who makes
| life hell for everyone else. 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. And the police/code
| enforcement/apartment manager usually won't do anything to fix
| the problem. It only takes one bad neighbor experience to send
| a family fleeing to a single-family house in the exurbs
| regardless of costs or environmental impacts. So far I haven't
| seen the YIMBYs propose serious solutions to the antisocial
| behavior problem, or even acknowledge that it's an obstacle to
| their goals.
| foxyv wrote:
| American apartments are horrible. However, that isn't a
| problem with dense housing itself so much as how our cities
| are built.
| nradov wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| Outside of literal college dorms, where can you find apartments
| without kitchens?
| RandallBrown wrote:
| Look up Micro studio apartments. They often are just small
| private rooms with a shared kitchen.
|
| These seem to be somewhat popular in Seattle.
| https://www.apodment.com
| foxyv wrote:
| 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...
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| The housing crisis remains about human greed. That's all it is.
| foxyv wrote:
| Don't forget pig headed stupidity!
| dnissley wrote:
| It's actually not. I'm as yimby as they get but you need to
| understand that the value of people's property has almost
| nothing to do with nimbyism. They want things to stay the
| same, they want their "neighborhood character". Listen to
| them when they say this, it's not a sleight of hand. If more
| dense housing was built in their area the value of their
| house would go up even further than without it, but the point
| is they don't want to live near more people!
| pojzon wrote:
| There is no crisis. Its all artifical to keep ppl poor.
|
| Infrastructure is centralized, if it was more spread out
| everyone could afford a nice house with own big garden and
| vegetables field.
|
| Stop making it sound like its the ppl issue they want to live
| near nature and have own land.
|
| Too high density of ppl per square meter has huge disadventages
| in well being of those ppl and their overall health.
|
| There is so much unused land in the world - trying to say we
| dont have it is silly.
|
| Our leaders just FORCE us to flock to cities cpz its cheaper on
| infrastructure.
| currydove wrote:
| I don't even know where to begin here. Of course we have the
| land to spread people out, but it's insanely expensive on
| everyone (especially those who are spread out) over time to
| sustain it. [1]
|
| If you don't have time to read - here's a video I could
| quickly find about the same topic from the same source -
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tI3kkk2JdoI
|
| You have a lot of straw man arguments that but the one that
| I'll focus on the most is "Our leaders just FORCE us to flock
| to cities cpz it's cheaper on infrastructure" - prove it.
|
| 1. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-
| growt...
| pojzon wrote:
| > prove it
|
| Infrastructure work is supervised and licensed by the
| goverment. You cant start building a city in the middle of
| nowhere even if its your own land. You have to follow
| standards and regulations enforced on you.
|
| Last time I checked it looks similar in every 1st world
| country. Ppl are slowly losing means of production and
| being moved to subscription plan to even live.
|
| "You wont own anything and be happy"
| foxyv wrote:
| Anyone who has lived in a rural area that hasn't been
| subsidized can tell you why spreading out kinda sucks. The
| power company charges you $100k to run a line to your house.
| The phone company charges you $20k to run a copper line to
| give you 100kb DSL. Water has to be pumped from a well which
| costs $30-50k to drill.
|
| We don't really need to cram people in elbow to elbow like
| New York City though. We just need walkable downtowns where
| you can pop on down the street from your apartments to the
| market to get ingredients for dinner. Even just building our
| houses closer together and putting in dedicated pedestrian
| paths is enough honestly.
| pojzon wrote:
| All you listed is exactly what I said "lack of
| infrastructure"... thank you for confirming my point.
| tschellenbach wrote:
| The crisis is not related to the cost of building housing. It's
| due to regulatory hurdles preventing houses from being built.
| foxyv wrote:
| Also, the absurd level of car ownership is dragging us down a
| lot. The fact that old people who should absolutely not be
| driving HAVE to drive is absurd. If we could make it so only
| 50% of people NEED a car it would be a huge step in the right
| direction. Right now there are 0.9 cars per person in the
| United States. Those cars take up tons of valuable space and
| resources.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > We are building massive 3-4k sq. ft. homes for families of
| four [...] Everyone has their own bar, restaurant, theatre, and
| community center. [...] the required square footage per person
| drops by huge amounts when people can walk to nearby community
| centers, restaurants, kitchens, theaters, and bars.
|
| Most families don't live in 3-4k sq homes. The average newly
| built house _today_ is a little over 2k sqft, and most houses
| are not newly built. Unless you are seriously stretching their
| definitions, most do not have their own "bar", "restaurant",
| "theater", and "community center".
|
| A house or apartment should follow a kind of "fractal" pattern
| that mirrors private and public spaces that encircle it or that
| it contains. A town should have a town center. This is _the_
| public square. For towns large enough, you 'll have
| neighborhoods with squares or parks that are the public meeting
| place for the neighborhood, but more "private" in relation to
| the town. Each neighborhood is divided into housing units. An
| apartment building should have a public space for the apartment
| buildings, like a courtyard, that is proper to the building,
| but private in relation to the neighborhood. Within each
| apartment building, there should be a living room + dining area
| that function as the public space of the apartment, but which
| is private in relation to the apartment building (the same
| principle holds if we replace "apartment building + apartment
| unit" with "individual house"). The ultimate private space is
| the bedroom.
|
| Of course, this is idealized, but this is a principle we see in
| traditional architecture and one that makes sense and respects
| human nature and supports human flourishing instead of trying
| to impose some weird, inhuman, Procrustean invention on people
| to check off some boxes. The things you mention, like bars,
| restaurants, theaters, and community centers, would appear
| chiefly in town and neighborhood centers. But they don't
| replace the living room, the kitchen, and the dining room.
|
| EDIT: Ah, and I would define "neighborhood" in terms of
| walkability. I should be able to get to the town square by
| walking in a reasonable about of time.
| huytersd wrote:
| No one wants to live in a condo. Shitty coops where your
| neighbors are a wall away, no land/backyard, no hobbies, no
| place for your kids to run around etc. No ones cares about a
| community center/shitty shared space. If you're outside a
| medium sized city in the US, you're less than 10 mins from
| restaurants and bars from your multiple acre sized property.
| foxyv wrote:
| A LOT of people want to live in such places. However, most of
| the problems you mention are a result of car dependency and
| not dense housing itself. Kids have nowhere to play because
| cars make it unsafe for them to roam. You have no hobbies
| because you have no places to go to do them. You have no
| backyard because the roads prevent you from going to the
| park.
|
| Instead we have to build our houses into huge compounds to do
| things that we would normally do at community centers, pubs
| and other public buildings.
| huytersd wrote:
| Shared spaces and parks are not a replacement for your own
| land. I've done that while I lived in Manhattan and never
| enjoyed it.
| foxyv wrote:
| That's great! But we need places for people to live too.
| Not everyone wants to own acreage. Some people just want
| a place to lay their head that's close to where they work
| and a nice school for their kids. It also doesn't have to
| be Manhattan density either. It can even just be as
| simple as building houses closer together and allowing
| for corner markets in residential areas.
| 0xB31B1B wrote:
| Those amenities are rarely used in North America. The problem
| is zoning, fire, and building codes make it impractical to
| build a bunch of 2.2k square foot units instead of the current
| mix of 500, 700 and 900 square foot units. Double stairway
| requirements are a big onerous regulation, especially when we
| already mandate sprinklers. What we need for families are more
| developments like the interwar upper west side in NYC, 4
| bedrooms, natural light, bigger than 1.5k square feet, single
| stairway.
| foxyv wrote:
| Double stairways and building code requirements don't seem
| terribly onerous to me. However, the parking minimums and
| traffic flow requirements do. In Dallas, each 500 square feet
| of a unit is required to have a parking space... A parking
| space takes up 300 square feet on average. This means your
| apartments are at LEAST 3/5 parking.
|
| This means you get complexes like this one where it's more
| parking lot than housing and that land is VERY expensive.
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bridgeport+Apartments/@32..
| ..
| bluGill wrote:
| The double stair means there is no practical way to make a
| four bedroom. try doing a layout and you discover you have
| a lot of space that isn't useful. (bedrooms require a
| window)
| ilamont wrote:
| I am building a house in a rural area, where land is cheap.
| Building is not.
|
| Timber is certainly expensive, but you know what else costs a
| lot? All the other stuff, much of it subject to state building
| codes that get more restrictive every year.
|
| Asbestos survey, assessment, abatement: $10k
|
| Asbestos air monitoring: $1k
|
| Tipping fees: 20k
|
| Spray foam insulation: $27k
|
| Foundation $50k
|
| Solar: 40k (not including rebates/incentives)
|
| Requirements for outlets. Requirements for windows. Setbacks from
| a utility pole on our property, 50 yards/meters from the nearest
| road. We have to deal with that mess and pay extra to site the
| foundation, not National Grid!
|
| Even if we were getting a manufactured home (built to looser FEMA
| standards) we would still have to deal with some of these costs,
| such as asbestos, tipping fees and foundation. And the cheapest
| double wide is $300k.
| jghn wrote:
| > Tipping fees
|
| What is a tipping fee
| kevingadd wrote:
| Waste disposal. Construction and remodeling both produce huge
| amounts of waste and it needs to be disposed of in specific
| ways.
| jghn wrote:
| Huh. Have never heard that called a tipping fee. When we've
| had work done there's just a line item for
| dumpster/removal/etc
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| You need to tip the builder 20% of constructions costs in the
| US
|
| (Just kidding, it's the fee for taking the waste to the tip)
| D13Fd wrote:
| If you are building from scratch, why do you need an asbestos
| survey? What are you surveying?
|
| And does your state really require spray foam insulation and
| solar? Or does it require an R-value for insulation and spray
| foam is the easiest way to get there with your design?
| ilamont wrote:
| Demolition of existing structures from the 1920s and 1970s.
|
| R-value required. This was the easiest/least expensive
| option.
|
| Solar not required. If we didn't do it, we're paying ~$5k for
| power every year.
| D13Fd wrote:
| It makes sense that the asbestos stuff would be required
| for a building that has asbestos. Improper remediation can
| cause harms outside of your property.
|
| The R-value also makes sense IMO. "You can't build houses
| that aren't properly insulated" is probably a net good --
| although only if the insulation level makes sense for the
| region. If it's too high, I agree with you.
|
| I don't think it's fair to complain about the cost of solar
| if it's not required.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > I don't think it's fair to complain about the cost of
| solar if it's not required.
|
| I didn't read the solar comment as a complaint but rather
| an additional enumeration of costs. They _wanted_ solar
| so it 's a non-zero cost on the house. They could have
| also gone with the cheapest-to-regular slab thickness and
| saved money but didn't.
| turtlebits wrote:
| Spray foam is the most expensive way to get R-value. Unless
| you have space constraints, or existing air sealing
| concerns, you should not use spray foam.
|
| Cheapest is double stud construction + blown in.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Spray foam insulation: $27k
|
| Got to say using spray foam to insulate the wall cavities
| instead of using external insulation over the structural
| elements is about the worst idea ever.
|
| Also how much solar can you buy for $27k? Enough to supply
| 60kwh a day to run a heat pump.
| bombcar wrote:
| When land is cheap, do what the locals do - out buildings
| abound!
|
| It can be worth your while to sit down and map out house areas,
| purposes, and requirements, and change as many of them as you
| can to avoid mandatory features.
| dogman144 wrote:
| I hope large scale timber construction doesn't occur exclusively
| because of the impact on our forests.
|
| Between the pine beetles, fires, the many many stumps from the
| last round of serious logging years... our national forests and
| surrounding un-designated forests could use a break from a
| possible sharp uptick in demand.
|
| If you support ideas like this which help largely sub/urban areas
| by using out of sight out of mind rural resources, and you also
| go out to Yellowstone and the West once in a while and see/wish
| how our forests weren't in such bad shape, then consider not
| supporting this.
| ducttapecrown wrote:
| I wonder what the impact of the production of concrete and
| steel has on the environments where it takes place. I like the
| part of the article where they point out that mass timber would
| be better for carbon sequestration. I also think that buildings
| should mostly be built with a death period in mind because
| everything in this world requires maintenance and can be
| upgraded lol. So why not use a building material that literally
| grows itself? I agree with your point that destroying all the
| forests to build housing would be a bad idea, but we can and do
| sustainably log---all you have to do is plant some trees and
| wait!
| dogman144 wrote:
| Sustainable logging at its current levels makes the logged-
| out areas in the West look like it does now (stumps, new
| growth forests which aren't 1:1 replacements, etc).
|
| To get back to "how it's supposed to be" as sustainable
| logging promises, we're talking 100 yr+ timeframes to even
| make solid progress, not a full easy replacement. So, the
| environment is still degraded under that approach.
|
| I've lived rural and urban coastal, and your view highlights
| a perspective I started to notice only when I lived rural
| West, and it's frustrating:
|
| To support pro-environmental needs of the densely populated
| and often coastal urban centers, the last remaining near/wild
| environments bear the cost and get carved out under the
| banner of pragmatic sustainable use - logged out, REM mines,
| wind farms on mountains, etc.
|
| For instance, if every rural wind farm was met with a wind
| farm in SF Bay or Cape Cod or... I'd be ok with it, but the
| reality is it's not done this way, and in fact heavily
| resisted due to vacation home views and so on. Bitteroots and
| Bighorn ranges have massive REM deposits discovered. This was
| spun as a positive env news story vs a massive mining threat
| to some of the best un-impacted/well managed areas of the
| Rockies. On and on.
|
| So let's raid our mountains and last wild places to support
| environmentally unsustainable lifestyles in the dense areas,
| who get to avoid none of the tradeoffs I describe that the
| actually wild areas now face. Doesn't sit well with me.
| What's the point of environmentalism if we destroy the last
| best parts of the environment.
| shawn-butler wrote:
| There are actual mass timber projects to look at. The article
| mentions one in Milwaukee. I am familiar with the T3 project [0].
|
| It was delivered ahead of schedule and below cost relative to a
| traditional steel/concrete plan. No huge issues of which I am
| aware in the 5 or so years since occupancy, but someone else may
| know better.
|
| [0]: https://structurecraft.com/projects/t3-minneapolis
| creer wrote:
| Much of the conversation here derails the original post: we
| desperately need less expensive construction processes (overall,
| including permitting etc). Even when the local community makes it
| not-worthwhile to build affordable housing.
| gertlex wrote:
| Not sure the article ("original post") makes that claim either.
| It just asserts that mass timber is (probably) not in fact
| cheaper, and has not been/is not going to accelerate building
| of more housing. A solution, i.e. what "we desperately need",
| is not covered in the article.
| creer wrote:
| The article points out a range of tradeoffs for mass timber
| (and I'm not arguing that mass timber should by itself solve
| the construction cost issue - it's more interesting as one more
| very different direction). More directions will be helpful for
| finding more cost effective solutions for different buildings.
|
| For one thing mass timber allows far more floors than current
| "5 over 1" construction - because of better fire behavior. In
| current cities that is certainly a useful feature. At least in
| cities that do grant construction permits...
|
| That should be helpful even in cities that grant ENOUGH
| construction permits for that to influence unit affordability.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| I bet it's less expensive in the PNW and more expensive in the
| midwest and southwest. There is a LOT of timber here and a lot of
| mills to take advantage of plantation-grown trees that don't
| exist elsewhere.
| turtlebits wrote:
| Isn't this obvious? I thought it is well known that zoning is the
| biggest problem. Add to the fact that land values in cities are
| out of control.
|
| For example, I'd like to rebuild my old house, but it doesn't
| make financial sense to build under 4000sf as I'd be losing out
| to potential value as well as matching the neighborhood. I can't
| build a duplex or detached ADU. I don't want to spend 2 million
| on giant house I can't use.
| advael wrote:
| I think this article is a great example of how technical people
| have become so intoxicated by the relatively few instances in
| which an advance in technology has genuinely solved an entrenched
| social or power problem by making a new thing possible or
| reducing costs that they basically only argue in those terms
|
| The fact is, the housing crisis is and always was a policy
| failure and a "distributional outcomes" issue, and and no amount
| of improving housing construction's speed, costs, or legality
| will fix it if we don't both change policy and reduce inequality
|
| There are tons of building that are or could be residential
| housing that are owned by massive investment firms as a
| speculative asset. The FTC's recently published brief mentioned
| that keeping units empty rather than lowering prices is common
| practice among landlords. Even among individuals, an incredible
| amount of older, wealthy people own multiple homes and view most
| of them as a source of passive income. When I talk to people in
| that category, if they are doing well, they are often thinking
| about buying more homes to generate more income directly from
| renters or as a speculative investment (IE to hold and sell
| later)
|
| As it stands, people are not homeless because there is nowhere
| they could live. Not even close. Increasing housing supply
| without making any significant dent in the financial and
| regulatory situation surrounding housing will more likely just
| put more real estate in the hands of the entrenched winners, who
| have already demonstrated the willingness and ability to hoard
| housing
| nateglims wrote:
| Vacancy rates are misleading and includes things like being
| unoccupied briefly between owners or houses that are unlivable
| in areas with no buyers. The number of homes where people want
| them is quite low, there is simply a shortage.
|
| Houses as an asset is a major contributor for sure. It's long
| been a rival to stocks or exceeded it as an investment and
| makes a powerful political base. But it also includes a lot of
| people who view their primary residence as one and aren't
| landlording other properties.
|
| It's hard to find solutions to this that are politically and
| socially viable. To create more homes requires capital and
| doing so will lower the value of existing assets. I think
| people reach for easy solutions because they don't want to face
| some deep contradictions in our way of life.
| bombcar wrote:
| And increasing housing is the surest way to "fight back"
| against these supposed "house hoarders" - because once these
| assets _stop_ performing so incredibly well, they 'll get
| dumped.
| advael wrote:
| I'll buy that, but still doubt that materials costs is
| anything close to a driving factor in shortages compared
| to, say, zoning/new construction policy
| mortify wrote:
| I hope we can be better about addressing issues like this.
| Taxing empty houses, like most negative incentives, fails to
| address the existing incentives that cause the problem in the
| first place which will lead to different market imbalances.
|
| The biggest challenge we face is that the best way to protect
| wealth is to own assets and properties are assets we can live
| in. If wealth didn't naturally sublimate this would be less of
| an issue. Likewise if it were easier to protect wealth by doing
| something productive, it would happen.
| psychlops wrote:
| What exactly is the housing shortage being discussed?
| rmbyrro wrote:
| The "Legal Mumbo Jumbo" page in one of the linked websites is
| epic! LOL
|
| [1] https://www.woodtechsystems.com/legal-mumbo-jumbo/
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