7 ms·

I'm curious what all of these increase housing supply fanatics think about cities in the rust belt(Cleveland, St Louis etc) with an oversupply of housing which

by hiou 10y ago

I'm curious what all of these increase housing supply fanatics think about cities in the rust belt(Cleveland, St Louis etc) with an oversupply of housing which makes them a hotbed of crime and gang activity?

noobermin 10y ago
It might not be that housing supply causes crime and gang activity as much as oversupply correlates with poor areas. I may be wrong.
- hiou 10y ago
  Data certainly shows that oversupply of housing is almost always correlated with crime. Whether or not that is the cause is certainly up for debate but I am very curious about what the argument is that oversupply does not result in staging grounds for illegal activity. Especially based on what we have seen in the rust belt.
  - g_sch 10y ago
    The argument is very simple when you consider that the causality may run in the opposite direction. If economic opportunity in an area declines, people become poorer and/or leave. This results in a housing oversupply in addition to an increase in crime. To me, this is a far more plausible explanation than housing oversupply itself being the cause of crime.
    - dionidium 10y ago
      I don't think you're giving the parent enough credit. People didn't leave North St. Louis because of economic decline. There was never any such thing. People left North St. Louis for the suburbs on their own accord -- for lots of reasons. They wanted the new housing that the suburbs had to offer. They wanted to be further from blacks. The car made for an easier commute. This created an oversupply of housing in the region. St. Louis doesn't have too many houses because people went to other cities. It has too many houses because people abandoned the housing in the urban core and built new suburbs. That obviously did cause a loss of economic opportunity for the people left behind. But it didn't happen the other way around.
      - hx87 10y ago
        That's still an oversupply caused by a fall in demand, not a rise in supply, so it isn't correct to say, as the parent seemed to imply (in a Glenn Beck, wink wink sort of way) that too much construction in places like North St Louis caused the problem. People moving out of a jurisdiction lowers the tax base and hurts the economy; building more housing does not.
        dionidium 10y ago
        People moving out of a jurisdiction lowers the tax base and hurts the economy; building more housing does not. We're just taking turns flipping over the same coin. The people can't move unless you build new houses. Lack of demand for inner-city housing drives an oversupply of total housing units in the region.
  - willyt 10y ago
    Correlation is not causation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau...
vonmoltke 10y ago
Housing is oversupplied because those areas are experiencing negative growth due to shitty economies. I would think the shitty economies are the cause of both the housing oversupply and the crime. You sound just like the people in my neighborhood who oppose any new apartment or mixed-use construction because apartments bring transients and transients bring criminals.
- dionidium 10y ago
  Just to be clear, this isn't exactly right. Population loss in the rust belt is widely misunderstood. Most of those cities didn't lose people; they just moved them out of their urban core. St. Louis, as a region, for example, has grown slightly over the last 40 years. But a whole bunch of people have been doing a whole lot of moving around the area over that time. You don't have to lose people to get blight. You just have to build new houses and abandon the old ones.
  - TulliusCicero 10y ago
    > Most of those cities didn't lose people; they just moved them out of their urban core. St. Louis, as a region, for example, has grown slightly over the last 40 years. You seem to be confused. St. Louis is a city, and has lost people, just like major cities across the country did. This is part of what led to urban blight. It's the St. Louis metro area that has remained stable/growing.
    - dionidium 10y ago
      As a St. Louisan, I'm not impressed by descriptions of the region that emphasize myopically-drawn political borders from 1876. My point, clearly, was that St. Louis didn't lose people to other cities. It lost people to other parts of its own region. Further, I assure you that people from outside the region make no such distinction when they talk about "St. Louis."

by hiou 10y ago

noobermin 10y ago

It might not be that housing supply causes crime and gang activity as much as oversupply correlates with poor areas. I may be wrong.

hiou 10y ago
Data certainly shows that oversupply of housing is almost always correlated with crime. Whether or not that is the cause is certainly up for debate but I am very curious about what the argument is that oversupply does not result in staging grounds for illegal activity. Especially based on what we have seen in the rust belt.
- g_sch 10y ago
  The argument is very simple when you consider that the causality may run in the opposite direction. If economic opportunity in an area declines, people become poorer and/or leave. This results in a housing oversupply in addition to an increase in crime. To me, this is a far more plausible explanation than housing oversupply itself being the cause of crime.
  - dionidium 10y ago
    I don't think you're giving the parent enough credit. People didn't leave North St. Louis because of economic decline. There was never any such thing. People left North St. Louis for the suburbs on their own accord -- for lots of reasons. They wanted the new housing that the suburbs had to offer. They wanted to be further from blacks. The car made for an easier commute. This created an oversupply of housing in the region. St. Louis doesn't have too many houses because people went to other cities. It has too many houses because people abandoned the housing in the urban core and built new suburbs. That obviously did cause a loss of economic opportunity for the people left behind. But it didn't happen the other way around.
    - hx87 10y ago
      That's still an oversupply caused by a fall in demand, not a rise in supply, so it isn't correct to say, as the parent seemed to imply (in a Glenn Beck, wink wink sort of way) that too much construction in places like North St Louis caused the problem. People moving out of a jurisdiction lowers the tax base and hurts the economy; building more housing does not.
      - dionidium 10y ago
        People moving out of a jurisdiction lowers the tax base and hurts the economy; building more housing does not. We're just taking turns flipping over the same coin. The people can't move unless you build new houses. Lack of demand for inner-city housing drives an oversupply of total housing units in the region.
- willyt 10y ago
  Correlation is not causation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau...

vonmoltke 10y ago

Housing is oversupplied because those areas are experiencing negative growth due to shitty economies. I would think the shitty economies are the cause of both the housing oversupply and the crime. You sound just like the people in my neighborhood who oppose any new apartment or mixed-use construction because apartments bring transients and transients bring criminals.

dionidium 10y ago
Just to be clear, this isn't exactly right. Population loss in the rust belt is widely misunderstood. Most of those cities didn't lose people; they just moved them out of their urban core. St. Louis, as a region, for example, has grown slightly over the last 40 years. But a whole bunch of people have been doing a whole lot of moving around the area over that time. You don't have to lose people to get blight. You just have to build new houses and abandon the old ones.
- TulliusCicero 10y ago
  > Most of those cities didn't lose people; they just moved them out of their urban core. St. Louis, as a region, for example, has grown slightly over the last 40 years. You seem to be confused. St. Louis is a city, and has lost people, just like major cities across the country did. This is part of what led to urban blight. It's the St. Louis metro area that has remained stable/growing.
  - dionidium 10y ago
    As a St. Louisan, I'm not impressed by descriptions of the region that emphasize myopically-drawn political borders from 1876. My point, clearly, was that St. Louis didn't lose people to other cities. It lost people to other parts of its own region. Further, I assure you that people from outside the region make no such distinction when they talk about "St. Louis."