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Fantastic idea. Now you just have to convince the existing landed gentry--most of whom have the bulk of their personal wealth wrapped up in their primary resid

Fantastic idea. Now you just have to convince the existing landed gentry--most of whom have the bulk of their personal wealth wrapped up in their primary residences--that building more won't actually cause their house to devalue to less than the cost of a Happy Meal. Or that building anything more dense than a single, regular-style house every 5,000sqft doesn't result in a Blade Runner dystopian future. At least in Seattle, this has been a tough slog.

teacup50 11y ago
Building more doesn't devalue their land. It actually increases the value simply due to the fact that there's more revenue to be made on the same amount of land. It also doesn't solve the housing crunch, because there's no meeting the demand. It doesn't matter how dense you go; even Manhattan isn't dense enough. There are two things this does accomplish, though: - It exacerbates the wealth divide, as it increases the market entrance costs and moves ownership into the hands of fewer and fewer "landed gentry" who, invariably, build rental units. - It destroys quality of life for existing residents, as it foists all the scaling issues of upzoned density (traffic, crime, costs, required size of bureaucracy) right onto them.
cylinder 11y ago
Only an idiot thinks this. Imagine rezoning a single family home lot to permit a 15 floor tower to go on it. How can any functional human think that would result in a lower land value?
- maxsilver 11y ago
  Because people don't think rationally about hosing. Everyone says "the solution to expensive housing is to build more housing. Supply vs demand". That's not accurate, it never has been. But if you believe that (as most people do), then you must also believe that building a 15 floor tower will lower land value (since it is "more supply" so demand and prices must drop because of it). Belief in one, implies the other. -- In truth, a 15 floor tower would raise land value, for itself and properties around it. But that also means that "simply building more housing" won't actually make housing affordable. Because the new 15 floor tower and the single family home next door will both be worth more afterwards, making both less affordable. Repeat that process a thousand times, and you have the US housing market. Lots of beautiful places getting built (and they should get built, because we need that new housing). But almost no one can afford to live in any of the new housing, and old housing never really gets cheaper, so "affordable housing" is this huge issue, despite new construction happening in every city nationwide.

teacup50 11y ago

Building more doesn't devalue their land. It actually increases the value simply due to the fact that there's more revenue to be made on the same amount of land. It also doesn't solve the housing crunch, because there's no meeting the demand. It doesn't matter how dense you go; even Manhattan isn't dense enough. There are two things this does accomplish, though: - It exacerbates the wealth divide, as it increases the market entrance costs and moves ownership into the hands of fewer and fewer "landed gentry" who, invariably, build rental units. - It destroys quality of life for existing residents, as it foists all the scaling issues of upzoned density (traffic, crime, costs, required size of bureaucracy) right onto them.

cylinder 11y ago

Only an idiot thinks this. Imagine rezoning a single family home lot to permit a 15 floor tower to go on it. How can any functional human think that would result in a lower land value?

maxsilver 11y ago
Because people don't think rationally about hosing. Everyone says "the solution to expensive housing is to build more housing. Supply vs demand". That's not accurate, it never has been. But if you believe that (as most people do), then you must also believe that building a 15 floor tower will lower land value (since it is "more supply" so demand and prices must drop because of it). Belief in one, implies the other. -- In truth, a 15 floor tower would raise land value, for itself and properties around it. But that also means that "simply building more housing" won't actually make housing affordable. Because the new 15 floor tower and the single family home next door will both be worth more afterwards, making both less affordable. Repeat that process a thousand times, and you have the US housing market. Lots of beautiful places getting built (and they should get built, because we need that new housing). But almost no one can afford to live in any of the new housing, and old housing never really gets cheaper, so "affordable housing" is this huge issue, despite new construction happening in every city nationwide.