6 ms·

Who owns our cities and why this urban takeover should concern us

46 points by scribu 11y ago

Animats 11y ago
Imagine a city in which five or six companies own most of the real estate. That already happened to banking.
- will_pseudonym 11y ago
  And the food, telecommunications, and energy industries, off the top of my head.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- douche 11y ago
  In my experience, it is not particularly rare for 2-3 property management companies to represent a controlling percentage of the rental properties in a small city.
  - sevensor 11y ago
    This is the case where I live. When I asked the guy who runs one of the two food carts in town about why he didn't take his business inside, he told me that rent would eat him alive. All of the downtown commercial real estate is owned by three companies, and they adjust their rents upwards in lockstep.
- kartan 11y ago
  It is not just cities. Inequality growth means that a few people/companies accumulates a biggest share of all assets. Once you get so much money getting the rest of assets is usually just a matter of time. "Monopoly" game was created to illustrate this point.
strictnein 11y ago
That article needed a little bit more massaging by the editors. Lots of sentences like this: > " In the post-2008 period, much buying of buildings is to destroy them and replace them with far taller, far more corporate and luxurious types of buildings – basically, luxury offices and luxury apartments" > "All of this cannot happen in a business park, regardless of its density – they are privately controlled spaces where low-wage workers can work, but not “make”. " I mean, am I the only one reading this thing and shaking my head after each paragraph wondering what it was that I read, exactly?
- DanielBMarkham 11y ago
  You are not alone. I bailed out after only a few graphs. I parsed "...Cities are the spaces where those without power get to make a history and a culture, thereby making their powerlessness complex..." a few times, then moved on, thinking it would clear up later. It did not. I wasn't sure I agreed with the author or not. I wasn't sure whether "complex" was being used as an adjective or a noun. After a bit more of that nonsense, I decided it wasn't worth figuring out. This is really simple. Write for your grandma. It's great that you've absorbed some rather complex ideas in your travels, and we'd love to hear about them. But if you can't write for your grandma, you shouldn't be writing for a large audience. I'll go even further and say that even if you're writing for an audience who is up to speed on whatever it is you like going on about, you should still back-track on some of the more nuanced topics and explain it like I'm 5. Many times a group of professionals will all think they have the same understanding of a subject -- until they actually start expounding on it.
  - Pyxl101 11y ago
    That sentence almost sounds like a garden path sentence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence
- padobson 11y ago
  Completely agree. I don't usually edit things I read, but this paragraph... I want to examine the details of this large corporate investment surge, and why it matters. Cities are the spaces where those without power get to make a history and a culture, thereby making their powerlessness complex. If the current large-scale buying continues, we will lose this type of making that has given our cities their cosmopolitanism. ...loses absolutely nothing if you lop off the entire first sentence. Whoever was editing this fell asleep at the switch.
jamespitts 11y ago
This article illustrates a key problem with our city infrastructure. The more I think about it, the more I believe that the first few floors of buildings should be "public infrastructure". Much in the way that farmer's markets, sidewalks, and small streets are governed, building bases could be controlled by local institutions. In this approach, new construction would build a standard base structure of several levels. This base would have an open layout and the owners would only control enough space necessary to provide access to parking and the upper levels. The building base would then assume the same ecological role as a set of small, traditional buildings having store fronts. If this were to come into effect, community institutions could then govern how the base of a building structurally and aesthetically interfaces with the public. I don't think a central city government should take on this role though. Legally, the governing institution might simply lease the space out to management companies over very long terms, periodically upgrading or changing the allocation of commercial and public space as the needs emerge. Or we could just continue to leave it up to faraway owners and builders to comply with code during construction and improvements. But it is actually quite obtuse to let law govern issues of human use in shorter time frames. Needs arise faster than concrete sets. For example, in the current setup, what if a need arises that requires major reconstruction? An example: reducing crime by adding smaller shops with later hours to a building front that is not used at all after "work hours". That change would require prodding the owner to modify the base of their building, and that could take a very long time. Meanwhile, the community suffers economic damage (and the building owner may not care because they make their money off of tenants high up in the building). Imagine how hard it would be to add pedestrian and bike infrastructure if every block of street were owned by a different corporation? Another benefit to a community-run building base is that locals can be empowered to define the street level, mitigating the ill social and economic effects (perceived or actual) of larger-scale building development. If the neighborhood folks see that there will be several levels of familiar, local shops and community space, and these amenities have traditional architecture, they might not so strongly oppose that the upper levels are dense and modern.
- tjbiddle 11y ago
  When visiting Singapore I noticed something similar in a lot of areas (No where near all - but noticeable) where a lot of residential buildings would have the first floor as shops, markets, etc. It made it very community centric which was neat.
profeta 11y ago
if you are a bank 1. refinance risk houses more than once 2. sell that for profit 3. send dividends to head quarters overseas 4. crash national branches, foreclose homes 5. get money from govt to fix things 6. buy those homes
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- arca_vorago 11y ago
  7. Pretend to fix the issue, but instead get k-street to bribe the politicians. 8. Repeat
bufordsharkley 11y ago
This article is pretty opaquely written, but if the overall idea of the average person being disenfranchised from ownership of his/her community is troubling, I recommend reading up on Georgism. We've had a number of discussions on HN about it recently.[0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10442929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10442929
- collyw 11y ago
  Probably a lot of that has to do with declining rates of home ownership. I am 40 and very few people own an appartment where I live. My parents owned a house by their late 20's.
padobson 11y ago
Corporate ownership may have it's downside, but in my hometown[1], at least we got a Whole Foods in the bargain. [1]http://wiki.southpark.cc.com/wiki/Historic_Shi_Tpa_Town http://wiki.southpark.cc.com/wiki/Historic_Shi_Tpa_Town
checker 11y ago
There's a DC startup called Fundrise that has an innovative way of tackling the problem. Basically, the people in the community have a stake in the real estate that is built, so Fundrise creates an investment opportunity for the people in the community to participate in the local commercial real estate market. This allows the average person to participate rather than larger corporations or people with plenty of cash on hand. I don't know if this model can scale up to a New York high rise, but they are currently working with quite a few properties in the Northeast.
rdlecler1 11y ago
This trend seems to be a symptom of growing income inequality that concentrates capital in a few of our most culturally rich cities.

46 points by scribu 11y ago

Animats 11y ago

Imagine a city in which five or six companies own most of the real estate. That already happened to banking.

will_pseudonym 11y ago
And the food, telecommunications, and energy industries, off the top of my head.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
douche 11y ago
In my experience, it is not particularly rare for 2-3 property management companies to represent a controlling percentage of the rental properties in a small city.
- sevensor 11y ago
  This is the case where I live. When I asked the guy who runs one of the two food carts in town about why he didn't take his business inside, he told me that rent would eat him alive. All of the downtown commercial real estate is owned by three companies, and they adjust their rents upwards in lockstep.
kartan 11y ago
It is not just cities. Inequality growth means that a few people/companies accumulates a biggest share of all assets. Once you get so much money getting the rest of assets is usually just a matter of time. "Monopoly" game was created to illustrate this point.

strictnein 11y ago

That article needed a little bit more massaging by the editors. Lots of sentences like this: > " In the post-2008 period, much buying of buildings is to destroy them and replace them with far taller, far more corporate and luxurious types of buildings – basically, luxury offices and luxury apartments" > "All of this cannot happen in a business park, regardless of its density – they are privately controlled spaces where low-wage workers can work, but not “make”. " I mean, am I the only one reading this thing and shaking my head after each paragraph wondering what it was that I read, exactly?

DanielBMarkham 11y ago
You are not alone. I bailed out after only a few graphs. I parsed "...Cities are the spaces where those without power get to make a history and a culture, thereby making their powerlessness complex..." a few times, then moved on, thinking it would clear up later. It did not. I wasn't sure I agreed with the author or not. I wasn't sure whether "complex" was being used as an adjective or a noun. After a bit more of that nonsense, I decided it wasn't worth figuring out. This is really simple. Write for your grandma. It's great that you've absorbed some rather complex ideas in your travels, and we'd love to hear about them. But if you can't write for your grandma, you shouldn't be writing for a large audience. I'll go even further and say that even if you're writing for an audience who is up to speed on whatever it is you like going on about, you should still back-track on some of the more nuanced topics and explain it like I'm 5. Many times a group of professionals will all think they have the same understanding of a subject -- until they actually start expounding on it.
- Pyxl101 11y ago
  That sentence almost sounds like a garden path sentence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence
padobson 11y ago
Completely agree. I don't usually edit things I read, but this paragraph... I want to examine the details of this large corporate investment surge, and why it matters. Cities are the spaces where those without power get to make a history and a culture, thereby making their powerlessness complex. If the current large-scale buying continues, we will lose this type of making that has given our cities their cosmopolitanism. ...loses absolutely nothing if you lop off the entire first sentence. Whoever was editing this fell asleep at the switch.

jamespitts 11y ago

This article illustrates a key problem with our city infrastructure. The more I think about it, the more I believe that the first few floors of buildings should be "public infrastructure". Much in the way that farmer's markets, sidewalks, and small streets are governed, building bases could be controlled by local institutions. In this approach, new construction would build a standard base structure of several levels. This base would have an open layout and the owners would only control enough space necessary to provide access to parking and the upper levels. The building base would then assume the same ecological role as a set of small, traditional buildings having store fronts. If this were to come into effect, community institutions could then govern how the base of a building structurally and aesthetically interfaces with the public. I don't think a central city government should take on this role though. Legally, the governing institution might simply lease the space out to management companies over very long terms, periodically upgrading or changing the allocation of commercial and public space as the needs emerge. Or we could just continue to leave it up to faraway owners and builders to comply with code during construction and improvements. But it is actually quite obtuse to let law govern issues of human use in shorter time frames. Needs arise faster than concrete sets. For example, in the current setup, what if a need arises that requires major reconstruction? An example: reducing crime by adding smaller shops with later hours to a building front that is not used at all after "work hours". That change would require prodding the owner to modify the base of their building, and that could take a very long time. Meanwhile, the community suffers economic damage (and the building owner may not care because they make their money off of tenants high up in the building). Imagine how hard it would be to add pedestrian and bike infrastructure if every block of street were owned by a different corporation? Another benefit to a community-run building base is that locals can be empowered to define the street level, mitigating the ill social and economic effects (perceived or actual) of larger-scale building development. If the neighborhood folks see that there will be several levels of familiar, local shops and community space, and these amenities have traditional architecture, they might not so strongly oppose that the upper levels are dense and modern.

tjbiddle 11y ago
When visiting Singapore I noticed something similar in a lot of areas (No where near all - but noticeable) where a lot of residential buildings would have the first floor as shops, markets, etc. It made it very community centric which was neat.

profeta 11y ago

if you are a bank 1. refinance risk houses more than once 2. sell that for profit 3. send dividends to head quarters overseas 4. crash national branches, foreclose homes 5. get money from govt to fix things 6. buy those homes

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
arca_vorago 11y ago
7. Pretend to fix the issue, but instead get k-street to bribe the politicians. 8. Repeat

bufordsharkley 11y ago

This article is pretty opaquely written, but if the overall idea of the average person being disenfranchised from ownership of his/her community is troubling, I recommend reading up on Georgism. We've had a number of discussions on HN about it recently.[0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10442929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10442929

collyw 11y ago
Probably a lot of that has to do with declining rates of home ownership. I am 40 and very few people own an appartment where I live. My parents owned a house by their late 20's.

padobson 11y ago

Corporate ownership may have it's downside, but in my hometown[1], at least we got a Whole Foods in the bargain. [1]http://wiki.southpark.cc.com/wiki/Historic_Shi_Tpa_Town http://wiki.southpark.cc.com/wiki/Historic_Shi_Tpa_Town

checker 11y ago

There's a DC startup called Fundrise that has an innovative way of tackling the problem. Basically, the people in the community have a stake in the real estate that is built, so Fundrise creates an investment opportunity for the people in the community to participate in the local commercial real estate market. This allows the average person to participate rather than larger corporations or people with plenty of cash on hand. I don't know if this model can scale up to a New York high rise, but they are currently working with quite a few properties in the Northeast.

rdlecler1 11y ago

This trend seems to be a symptom of growing income inequality that concentrates capital in a few of our most culturally rich cities.