5 ms·

Yes, let's look at NYC and Tokyo: despite all that density, the problem of housing availability remains. If I recall correctly, only 9% of police officers that

Yes, let's look at NYC and Tokyo: despite all that density, the problem of housing availability remains. If I recall correctly, only 9% of police officers that work in Manhattan live in Manhattan -- and Manhattan boasts an average density of 70k people per square mile.

simoncion 11y ago
Notice how the thrust of your comment "Even dense construction doesn't fix the demand problem" is at odds with the claim in pbreit's comment: > Plus, in your fantasyland, demand would plummet. Who would want to live there? I assumed that pbriet was making a claim that went something like "Cities that are packed with skyscrapers are barren hellscapes that noone wishes to live in.". To address that claim, I provided my subjective opinion of a section of San Francisco that is packed with skyscrapers, and reported what appears to be the community reaction to a new high-density high-rise apartment building in SoMA.
- teacup50 11y ago
  It's not in conflict; the "fantasyland" of 10M new apartments would house the entire existing population of all boroughs of NYC, and almost that of Tokyo. Meanwhile, those cities have high density (but nothing as ridiculous as +10M apartment archeologies) and haven't solved the problem.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    If the stats in WildUtah's comment are to be believed -and his anecdotes mesh with my understanding of how zoning works in JP-, then Tokyo has pretty well solved the "response to housing demand" issue. Housing prices in cities are going to be more expensive than housing prices in the countryside. They shouldn't be so expensive that they exclude families and middle-to-lower-income households.
    - teacup50 11y ago
      "The trend has already hit Sydney, Vancouver and the U.S. Now it’s happening in Japan: busloads of real estate buyers from China coming in, buying up homes and pushing prices higher." "Partly as a result of nascent Chinese buying, Tokyo apartment prices have reached the highest levels since the early 1990s, up 11 percent over two years, according to the Real Estate Economic Institute Co." "It’s not as tolerable to Japanese. Prices in Tokyo have become “seriously unaffordable,” the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey shows." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-02/salarymen-sidelined-as-chinese-descend-on-japan-property-market http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-02/salarymen-...
CydeWeys 11y ago
And yet NYC and Tokyo are housing way, way more people than San Francisco, so they're actually a lot more successful at being a city in comparison. All of that density has lots of advantages -- and I say that as a Manhattan resident who rarely goes anywhere outside of Citibike range. I certainly wouldn't trade my current situation for the comparative sparseness of San Francisco at the same price. New York City also does still have lots of opportunities to build upwards, many of which are being taken. A huge amount of housing inventory is coming online each year. The city is accommodating large influxes of new people. It could be doing even better with less restrictive air rights, but things could always be improved. San Francisco isn't doing as well by comparison. And keep in mind, it's not like there's an infinite number of people living on the planet. Nor does building denser cities cause more people to be born that otherwise would (if anything, it's less). Housing demand thus isn't infinite, and it doesn't logically follow that addressing housing demand by building lots more housing is a self-perpetuating problem.
WildUtah 11y ago
"let's look at NYC and Tokyo: despite all that density, the problem of housing availability remains." NYC has a housing availability problem. It's the same one as San Francisco: new denser construction is near impossible to get a permit for. If NYC permitted lots more housing to be built, the cost of housing would become affordable. Tokyo does not have a housing availability problem. The vast majority of families in Tokyo live in single family homes they own close to parks and rail transit. The ratio of housing cost to family income in Tokyo is more like affordable Dallas or Atlanta than nightmarishly expensive NYC or SF. How did Tokyo do it? It permitted lots and lots of by-right building on small lots, issued permits automatically for new homes, didn't require any parking at all for every unit, platted out narrow streets, and built lots of rail transit at reasonable prices. There are few skyscrapers -- Tokyo's density is 150 (people/hectare), only double SF's average density and similar to North Beach, Pacific Heights, or Russian Hill. It's too late for SF to build narrow streets, but permitting multi-story rowhouse construction throughout the city could easily add a few hundred thousand units and substantially reduce housing prices. A full solution will require other Bay Area cities to also permit reasonable density construction.
- teacup50 11y ago
  No, Tokyo had a weak economy. Thanks in large part to non-local demand, however, that affordability is disappearing -- just like everywhere else: "Japan’s sluggish economy caused price gains in Tokyo to trail those in other urban centers like New York, London and Hong Kong since the 2008 global credit crisis." "Homes are unlikely to become more affordable, with the yen’s 41 percent decline over two-and-a-half years and investment yields higher than in some major cities abroad propelling foreigners to buy. While Japan remains small by total transaction value compared with the U.S., Canada and Australia, it’s now “comparable” to those markets in terms of the number of clients seeking deals, said Gui of SouFun realty." "It’s not as tolerable to Japanese. Prices in Tokyo have become “seriously unaffordable,” the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey shows." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-02/salarymen-sidelined-as-chinese-descend-on-japan-property-market http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-02/salarymen-...
bradleyjg 11y ago
There's no particularly good reason for police officers to live in Manhattan. Since we have good public transportation you can live in any of the boros and work in Manhattan (not to mention LI, Westchester, Hoboken, Jersey City, etc.) Since the Bay Area has both crappy public transportation and not enough density it is doubly screwed. But incumbent homeowner NIMBYites and rent are happy, so great I guess?
- simoncion 11y ago
  > But incumbent homeowner NIMBYites and rent are happy... If you meant to say "renters are happy", no, many of us are not. Those of us who were "lucky" enough to score a rent-controlled apartment around the 2008->2010 time frame are now trapped in those apartments; unable to move despite often worsening and/or malicious corporate landlords because of the substantial increase in rent hike that we would have to endure to find a new place. If you meant to say something else, please disregard my previous 'graph. :) Edit: Oh hey! Hallo again! I guess you've already heard all I have to say on the topic already. :) For others: Don't forget that the city's colossal failure to build negatively impacts both those who wish to move into the city and those who wish to move within it.
  - bradleyjg 11y ago
    I think 'and rent' was a leftover fragment from an earlier version of the sentence. Unfortunately can't edit it now. The part about crappy public transportation is a reflection of our earlier conversation.

simoncion 11y ago

Notice how the thrust of your comment "Even dense construction doesn't fix the demand problem" is at odds with the claim in pbreit's comment: > Plus, in your fantasyland, demand would plummet. Who would want to live there? I assumed that pbriet was making a claim that went something like "Cities that are packed with skyscrapers are barren hellscapes that noone wishes to live in.". To address that claim, I provided my subjective opinion of a section of San Francisco that is packed with skyscrapers, and reported what appears to be the community reaction to a new high-density high-rise apartment building in SoMA.

teacup50 11y ago
It's not in conflict; the "fantasyland" of 10M new apartments would house the entire existing population of all boroughs of NYC, and almost that of Tokyo. Meanwhile, those cities have high density (but nothing as ridiculous as +10M apartment archeologies) and haven't solved the problem.
- simoncion 11y ago
  If the stats in WildUtah's comment are to be believed -and his anecdotes mesh with my understanding of how zoning works in JP-, then Tokyo has pretty well solved the "response to housing demand" issue. Housing prices in cities are going to be more expensive than housing prices in the countryside. They shouldn't be so expensive that they exclude families and middle-to-lower-income households.
  - teacup50 11y ago
    "The trend has already hit Sydney, Vancouver and the U.S. Now it’s happening in Japan: busloads of real estate buyers from China coming in, buying up homes and pushing prices higher." "Partly as a result of nascent Chinese buying, Tokyo apartment prices have reached the highest levels since the early 1990s, up 11 percent over two years, according to the Real Estate Economic Institute Co." "It’s not as tolerable to Japanese. Prices in Tokyo have become “seriously unaffordable,” the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey shows." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-02/salarymen-sidelined-as-chinese-descend-on-japan-property-market http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-02/salarymen-...

CydeWeys 11y ago

And yet NYC and Tokyo are housing way, way more people than San Francisco, so they're actually a lot more successful at being a city in comparison. All of that density has lots of advantages -- and I say that as a Manhattan resident who rarely goes anywhere outside of Citibike range. I certainly wouldn't trade my current situation for the comparative sparseness of San Francisco at the same price. New York City also does still have lots of opportunities to build upwards, many of which are being taken. A huge amount of housing inventory is coming online each year. The city is accommodating large influxes of new people. It could be doing even better with less restrictive air rights, but things could always be improved. San Francisco isn't doing as well by comparison. And keep in mind, it's not like there's an infinite number of people living on the planet. Nor does building denser cities cause more people to be born that otherwise would (if anything, it's less). Housing demand thus isn't infinite, and it doesn't logically follow that addressing housing demand by building lots more housing is a self-perpetuating problem.

WildUtah 11y ago

"let's look at NYC and Tokyo: despite all that density, the problem of housing availability remains." NYC has a housing availability problem. It's the same one as San Francisco: new denser construction is near impossible to get a permit for. If NYC permitted lots more housing to be built, the cost of housing would become affordable. Tokyo does not have a housing availability problem. The vast majority of families in Tokyo live in single family homes they own close to parks and rail transit. The ratio of housing cost to family income in Tokyo is more like affordable Dallas or Atlanta than nightmarishly expensive NYC or SF. How did Tokyo do it? It permitted lots and lots of by-right building on small lots, issued permits automatically for new homes, didn't require any parking at all for every unit, platted out narrow streets, and built lots of rail transit at reasonable prices. There are few skyscrapers -- Tokyo's density is 150 (people/hectare), only double SF's average density and similar to North Beach, Pacific Heights, or Russian Hill. It's too late for SF to build narrow streets, but permitting multi-story rowhouse construction throughout the city could easily add a few hundred thousand units and substantially reduce housing prices. A full solution will require other Bay Area cities to also permit reasonable density construction.

teacup50 11y ago
No, Tokyo had a weak economy. Thanks in large part to non-local demand, however, that affordability is disappearing -- just like everywhere else: "Japan’s sluggish economy caused price gains in Tokyo to trail those in other urban centers like New York, London and Hong Kong since the 2008 global credit crisis." "Homes are unlikely to become more affordable, with the yen’s 41 percent decline over two-and-a-half years and investment yields higher than in some major cities abroad propelling foreigners to buy. While Japan remains small by total transaction value compared with the U.S., Canada and Australia, it’s now “comparable” to those markets in terms of the number of clients seeking deals, said Gui of SouFun realty." "It’s not as tolerable to Japanese. Prices in Tokyo have become “seriously unaffordable,” the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey shows." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-02/salarymen-sidelined-as-chinese-descend-on-japan-property-market http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-02/salarymen-...

bradleyjg 11y ago

There's no particularly good reason for police officers to live in Manhattan. Since we have good public transportation you can live in any of the boros and work in Manhattan (not to mention LI, Westchester, Hoboken, Jersey City, etc.) Since the Bay Area has both crappy public transportation and not enough density it is doubly screwed. But incumbent homeowner NIMBYites and rent are happy, so great I guess?

simoncion 11y ago
> But incumbent homeowner NIMBYites and rent are happy... If you meant to say "renters are happy", no, many of us are not. Those of us who were "lucky" enough to score a rent-controlled apartment around the 2008->2010 time frame are now trapped in those apartments; unable to move despite often worsening and/or malicious corporate landlords because of the substantial increase in rent hike that we would have to endure to find a new place. If you meant to say something else, please disregard my previous 'graph. :) Edit: Oh hey! Hallo again! I guess you've already heard all I have to say on the topic already. :) For others: Don't forget that the city's colossal failure to build negatively impacts both those who wish to move into the city and those who wish to move within it.
- bradleyjg 11y ago
  I think 'and rent' was a leftover fragment from an earlier version of the sentence. Unfortunately can't edit it now. The part about crappy public transportation is a reflection of our earlier conversation.