4 ms·

If this even worked in the short-term (and so far, no city that has tried this has been successful in making a meaningful dent in the problem), you'd just be de

If this even worked in the short-term (and so far, no city that has tried this has been successful in making a meaningful dent in the problem), you'd just be delaying the inevitable, and once that inevitable hit, the affordability problem would be even worse. You can't increase housing supply without affecting demand. You also can't increase housing supply to meet demand ... unless you actually make the area so undesirable that demand itself drops, meeting you halfway.

jessaustin 11y ago
This observation could be made about anything. If more restaurants open, more people will go out to eat. If more people go out to eat, restaurants will make more money. A vicious cycle! Soon everyone in the world will eat lunch in our city, every day! The humanity! In fact, interesting yet flawed theories of supply and demand are seldom used to justify some sort of "protect existing restaurateurs' oligopoly" law. That isn't to say that it isn't valid to limit the number or type of restaurant in any particular area for e.g. safety reasons. But that has to be process-based, not just a declaration that this neighborhood has enough. You can't argue that allowing single-family structures to be replaced by e.g. townhomes in a reasonable fashion is somehow beyond us as a society.
- teacup50 11y ago
  How does opening more restaurants: 1) Allow non-local demand? Do people fedex overnight the food? 2) Significantly increase infrastructure load? Do people live at the restaurants when they're not serving food, and thus require schools, police, parking, roads, jobs, etc? Even then, restaurants do create demand on the city, and they are managed via zoning laws. A more accurate analogy -- claiming that high density development will bring more restaurant patrons, resulting in more restaurants opening, resulting in restaurant prices dropping.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    It occurs to me that the phrase "affecting demand" is actually a bit ambiguous. In your nightmare runaway-train scenario, have rents risen or fallen?
    - teacup50 11y ago
      Anywhere this urban upzoning has been tried: in the short term, rents either rise, or stay roughly the same. In the long term: rent rises.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > If more restaurants open, more people will go out to eat. That's not a change in demand, that's a change in market clearing quantity. Conversely, increasing residential capacity increases people which increases demand for services for the people which creates jobs which creates demand for residential capacity. > If more people go out to eat, restaurants will make more money. In total, sure. Individually? No reason to expect that. > You can't argue that allowing single-family structures to be replaced by e.g. townhomes in a reasonable fashion is somehow beyond us as a society. Maybe one could could argue that (or argue that doing so "in a reasonable fashion" is self-contradictory), and maybe one couldn't. But its irrelevant, because that's not what any in this thread did argue. What has been argued is that the naïve analysis of its effects on affordability considering it only as a supply change in housing without considering the less-direct effects that has on residential demand, demand for (and price of) essential infrastructure and services which factor in to cost of living, etc., is foolishly overoptimistic.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    ...because that's not what I did argue. You are responding to a comment that didn't address your argument, because it's not actually a response to anything that you wrote.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      Yeah, I lost track of it being a response to someone making the exact same point I made in a different subthread rather than a downstream response to the post where I made that point, and have edited my post appropriately. The argument says "you can't argue" a point nobody argued for in the subthread it was responding to (or, AFAICT, anywhere else in the thread, or, for that matter, anywhere else ever.)
jcnnghm 11y ago
Washington DC saw a drop in rents with substantial new supply - http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dc_area_rents_drop_3_as_new_apartment_supply_rises/7979 http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dc_area_rents_drop_3_a....
- teacup50 11y ago
  By a whole 3%, on average, across the entire DC metro area, with questionable causation. In DC proper, rents rose.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    Nationally, rents rose 3% in 2013. 6% may not seem like much to you, but some kids got a few more Christmas presents than they would have without the increased housing.
nerfhammer 11y ago
> You can't increase housing supply without affecting demand. You also can't increase housing supply to meet demand ... unless you actually make the area so undesirable that demand itself drops, meeting you halfway. What do you call this, the Lewis Carroll school of economics?

jessaustin 11y ago

This observation could be made about anything. If more restaurants open, more people will go out to eat. If more people go out to eat, restaurants will make more money. A vicious cycle! Soon everyone in the world will eat lunch in our city, every day! The humanity! In fact, interesting yet flawed theories of supply and demand are seldom used to justify some sort of "protect existing restaurateurs' oligopoly" law. That isn't to say that it isn't valid to limit the number or type of restaurant in any particular area for e.g. safety reasons. But that has to be process-based, not just a declaration that this neighborhood has enough. You can't argue that allowing single-family structures to be replaced by e.g. townhomes in a reasonable fashion is somehow beyond us as a society.

teacup50 11y ago
How does opening more restaurants: 1) Allow non-local demand? Do people fedex overnight the food? 2) Significantly increase infrastructure load? Do people live at the restaurants when they're not serving food, and thus require schools, police, parking, roads, jobs, etc? Even then, restaurants do create demand on the city, and they are managed via zoning laws. A more accurate analogy -- claiming that high density development will bring more restaurant patrons, resulting in more restaurants opening, resulting in restaurant prices dropping.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  It occurs to me that the phrase "affecting demand" is actually a bit ambiguous. In your nightmare runaway-train scenario, have rents risen or fallen?
  - teacup50 11y ago
    Anywhere this urban upzoning has been tried: in the short term, rents either rise, or stay roughly the same. In the long term: rent rises.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> If more restaurants open, more people will go out to eat. That's not a change in demand, that's a change in market clearing quantity. Conversely, increasing residential capacity increases people which increases demand for services for the people which creates jobs which creates demand for residential capacity. > If more people go out to eat, restaurants will make more money. In total, sure. Individually? No reason to expect that. > You can't argue that allowing single-family structures to be replaced by e.g. townhomes in a reasonable fashion is somehow beyond us as a society. Maybe one could could argue that (or argue that doing so "in a reasonable fashion" is self-contradictory), and maybe one couldn't. But its irrelevant, because that's not what any in this thread did argue. What has been argued is that the naïve analysis of its effects on affordability considering it only as a supply change in housing without considering the less-direct effects that has on residential demand, demand for (and price of) essential infrastructure and services which factor in to cost of living, etc., is foolishly overoptimistic.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  ...because that's not what I did argue. You are responding to a comment that didn't address your argument, because it's not actually a response to anything that you wrote.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Yeah, I lost track of it being a response to someone making the exact same point I made in a different subthread rather than a downstream response to the post where I made that point, and have edited my post appropriately. The argument says "you can't argue" a point nobody argued for in the subthread it was responding to (or, AFAICT, anywhere else in the thread, or, for that matter, anywhere else ever.)

jcnnghm 11y ago

Washington DC saw a drop in rents with substantial new supply - http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dc_area_rents_drop_3_as_new_apartment_supply_rises/7979 http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dc_area_rents_drop_3_a....

teacup50 11y ago
By a whole 3%, on average, across the entire DC metro area, with questionable causation. In DC proper, rents rose.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  Nationally, rents rose 3% in 2013. 6% may not seem like much to you, but some kids got a few more Christmas presents than they would have without the increased housing.

nerfhammer 11y ago

> You can't increase housing supply without affecting demand. You also can't increase housing supply to meet demand ... unless you actually make the area so undesirable that demand itself drops, meeting you halfway. What do you call this, the Lewis Carroll school of economics?