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Increase supply (e.g., build more housing) or reduce demand (e.g., find a way to make it less important for people who want to work together to live nearby). Th

by evanpw 11y ago

Increase supply (e.g., build more housing) or reduce demand (e.g., find a way to make it less important for people who want to work together to live nearby). Those are really the only two choices.

tibbon 11y ago
In Camberville, we're increasing supply... of luxury condos. So far, I haven't seen it make a dent in the market. Fort Point in Boston went from having almost no housing to hundreds of new units... yet I called one of the buildings and found their 1BRs to be $3,200/month. The public transit infrastructure, and road infrastructure, in Boston and SF is insufficient to make living further away ok for most people. But again, that basically just creates neighborhoods of software/biotech people and nothing else, which feels terrible.
- rhino369 11y ago
  Even luxury places increase supply in general. People flock to the newest most luxurious places. So when a new one opens up, it decreases demand elsewhere. It might also push the rent up in your neighorhood/suburb, but across the metro area as a whole, adding luxury housing lowers prices.
Tiktaalik 11y ago
The one other thing is to dramatically improve public transportation connections so that areas of the region that are currently not convenient for many people to live in become viable neighbourhoods.
- tibbon 11y ago
  In the Boston area, building a few miles of subway is a 30+ year project (see: Green Line Extension) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Line_Extension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Line_Extension
  - timdierks 11y ago
    In NYC, it takes 87 years and $4.5 billion to build 1.5 miles of transit: the 2nd Ave subway was originally approved in 1929 and the first phase won't open until 2016 at the earliest.
shimon 11y ago
Transit improvement is catastrophically stalled. Improved rapid transit options could plausibly expand the area where Boston-area workers can live and have a reasonable commute by 100 to 300%. But these require approval from (especially in MA) dozens of towns. Plus we can barely keep the subways operational.

by evanpw 11y ago

Increase supply (e.g., build more housing) or reduce demand (e.g., find a way to make it less important for people who want to work together to live nearby). Those are really the only two choices.

tibbon 11y ago

In Camberville, we're increasing supply... of luxury condos. So far, I haven't seen it make a dent in the market. Fort Point in Boston went from having almost no housing to hundreds of new units... yet I called one of the buildings and found their 1BRs to be $3,200/month. The public transit infrastructure, and road infrastructure, in Boston and SF is insufficient to make living further away ok for most people. But again, that basically just creates neighborhoods of software/biotech people and nothing else, which feels terrible.

rhino369 11y ago
Even luxury places increase supply in general. People flock to the newest most luxurious places. So when a new one opens up, it decreases demand elsewhere. It might also push the rent up in your neighorhood/suburb, but across the metro area as a whole, adding luxury housing lowers prices.

Tiktaalik 11y ago

The one other thing is to dramatically improve public transportation connections so that areas of the region that are currently not convenient for many people to live in become viable neighbourhoods.

tibbon 11y ago
In the Boston area, building a few miles of subway is a 30+ year project (see: Green Line Extension) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Line_Extension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Line_Extension
- timdierks 11y ago
  In NYC, it takes 87 years and $4.5 billion to build 1.5 miles of transit: the 2nd Ave subway was originally approved in 1929 and the first phase won't open until 2016 at the earliest.

shimon 11y ago

Transit improvement is catastrophically stalled. Improved rapid transit options could plausibly expand the area where Boston-area workers can live and have a reasonable commute by 100 to 300%. But these require approval from (especially in MA) dozens of towns. Plus we can barely keep the subways operational.