7 ms·

How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

116 points by Cadsby 10y ago

michaelbuddy 10y ago
Does anyone really think that once they own property in a certain area that they are gonna believe in the 'anything goes' mentality? 'Growth' is subjective. "Hey look at all the great businesses in my neighborhood bringing in taxes! I mean sure they are all pot pharmacies and bars that my kid gets to pass on his way to elementary school but you know GROWTH!"
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- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  I think the issue is, everyone believes they should be able to become a stakeholder in a resource that is, by definition, naturally constrained. Only so many people get a say in a geographic area, and the stark reality is that once you reach a certain critical mass, you're incentivized to protect your quality of life over allowing for more people to join you. Strangely, its thought of as acceptable for tech workers (with their new found purchasing power due to disparate wages compared to traditional workers) to displace long-time residents of a community, but those same tech workers are aghast when communities would prefer they not come. “We don’t need one more job in Boulder,” Mr. Pomerance said. “We don’t need to grow anymore. Go somewhere else where they need you.” Indeed. It seems I'm a bit late to coin the term "tech privilege".
  - fenomas 10y ago
    Interesting point, but surely the bar for where "critical mass" occurs depends entirely on social factors. That is, the neighborhood where I live (outside Tokyo) can absorb a lot more stakeholders than neighborhoods in Boulder, just because people are accustomed to different lifestyles (more apartments, fewer lawns, etc).
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      Agree.
  - morgante 10y ago
    What's strange about this at all? The pro-growth mentality is consistent: anyone can come, if they can afford it. The anti-growth mentality is incoherent: it was fine for me to move here 20 years ago, but how dare tech workers try to do the same thing!
    - TulliusCicero 10y ago
      Exactly. "The change that accommodated me was fine. The change that accommodates you is bad!"
    - duncan_bayne 10y ago
      Bryson made the same point about anti-immigration forces in the USA (and the same applies elsewhere, like Australia where I live). "Immigration was just fine for my grandparents, but now it's about time it stopped."
      - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
        > "Immigration was just fine for my grandparents, but now it's about time it stopped." That's a mischaracterization though. The fundamental equation for immigration is to make sure the immigrants don't bring down the average. When your grandparents came here the average was lower than it is now. Which is why it's a lot easier to get a green card if you have a masters in engineering than if you're a farm hand. It fundamentally has to be that way if you want to have any sort of a social safety net, otherwise the majority of world population would take citizenship and become eligible for social assistance.
        duncan_bayne 10y ago
        > It fundamentally has to be that way if you want to have any sort of a social safety net, otherwise the majority of world population would take citizenship and become eligible for social assistance. I agree entirely, which is why the (if there is a 'the') Libertarian position on the matter is a combination of open immigration and private charity instead of socialism. http://pc.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/immigration-is-fundamental-human-right.html http://pc.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/immigration-is-fundamental...
  - TulliusCicero 10y ago
    > Strangely, its thought of as acceptable for tech workers (with their new found purchasing power due to disparate wages compared to traditional workers) to displace long-time residents of a community, but those same tech workers are aghast when communities would prefer they not come. If you limit building, that effect just gets worse, though. The rich are always going to be able to outbid the poor/working-class, and if you limit the supply of housing, competition for that housing intensifies. A study from the California Legislative Analyst's Office found exactly this (more development = less displacement): http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3345 http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3345 > In this follow up to California’s High Housing Costs, we offer additional evidence that facilitating more private housing development in the state’s coastal urban communities would help make housing more affordable for low–income Californians. Existing affordable housing programs assist only a small proportion of low–income Californians. Most low–income Californians receive little or no assistance. Expanding affordable housing programs to help these households likely would be extremely challenging and prohibitively expensive. It may be best to focus these programs on Californians with more specialized housing needs—such as homeless individuals and families or persons with significant physical and mental health challenges. > Encouraging additional private housing construction can help the many low–income Californians who do not receive assistance. Considerable evidence suggests that construction of market–rate housing reduces housing costs for low–income households and, consequently, helps to mitigate displacement in many cases.
OedipusRex 10y ago
It's not so much that urban development kills "character", it's that current urban development methods are ugly. They have no class to them. The "not in my backyard" argument will always be brought about by people who's previously beautiful surroundings are replaced by brick rectangles with evenly spaced windows. The trick is to make urban areas attractive but not gentrified.
- firasd 10y ago
  Good insight. I suspect that some American hesitation about "density" and "apartment buildings" is based on specific history from the 20th century and 'white flight' era. Do people from other countries really fear and disdain apartment buildings the same way? I don't... Related, interesting quote from someone talking to Jane Jacobs: http://www.citylab.com/design/2016/05/happy-100th-birthday-jane-jacobs/481035/ http://www.citylab.com/design/2016/05/happy-100th-birthday-j... New, high-rise public housing surrounded by pretty but functionless lawns had erased the formerly dense mix of retail, institutional and residential uses. She learned about what was lost from settlement house workers and tenants. As one resident told her: “Nobody cared what we wanted when they built this place. They threw our houses down and pushed us here and pushed our friends somewhere else. We don’t have a place around here to get a cup of coffee or a newspaper even... But the big men come and look at that grass and say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful! Now the poor have everything.’”
  - jwdunne 10y ago
    In Salford, we had a regeneration project that replaced all the rundown terraced housing, from Salford's industrial era, with high rises. Due to the collapse of industry round here, deprivation and crime shot through the roof (to the point Latvia recommended its citizens not visit this city in particular). The high rises have become synonymous with that crime and deprivation. No one wants them at their back yard because of who typically lives in them, not because of the aesthetics. In fact, they have recently had a makeover and now look great. Unfortunately, the same people still live there.
    - conjectures 10y ago
MichaelBurge 10y ago
They should just repeal zoning laws entirely. Maybe make an exception for polluting heavy industry, or for people using government money or government-backed loans. It should probably even be a constitutional amendment. People who want quiet suburbs can pool together a corporation to own a planned community. That limits the scope of their NIMBYism to just their community, and as shareholders they could vote on whether to get paid for selling their land to Walmart or Google or the people wanting to set up high-density apartment complexes. Plus they have an even stronger voice in their immediate community, so they can do things like build walls to keep the homeless out. I think getting bought out as a shareholder would warm them to the idea; if Walmart buys the land next door you just want to complain, but if you're getting some of the money you might be in favor. The government should only have the power to prescribe structural integrity rules, fire safety codes, building codes for number of exits, etc.
- OedipusRex 10y ago
  I have the feeling if this happens land will be bought up by corporations, not the other way around.
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- paulddraper 10y ago
  Are you advocating something on the scale of a home owners' association, a suburb, or a large city? Any way, I fail to see how it would be materially different. A group of people, who collectively own the land make rules (laws) about how it can be used by other member of the group.
  - MichaelBurge 10y ago
    I think people would have trouble setting up anything larger than a suburb. It's different because currently even the likes of Google can't just buy your house and replace it with a self-driving car garage. In this hypothetical world, all they would need to do is convince one of N different communities to sell or lease them the land.
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sandworm101 10y ago
I don't think liberal zoning is the problem. I've seen my city go through massive changes in the last 30 years, top of the list being a radical increase, a liberalization, of zoning. They are allowing more and bigger developments. Multi-story and multi-unit developments are everywhere, but that isn't making housing any more affordable. A piece of land with a liberal zoning is worth more. It is a target for redevelopment in order to max out the zoning. The net result in my local is the steady replacement of anything old (ie 10+ years) by newer ridiculously large replacements. Apartments and other attached units are now so expensive, and prices rising so steadily, that the logical thing to do is let them sit empty. The pittance one might claw back in rent pales in comparison to rising prices, and who needs pesky tenants anyway. So... liberal zoning --> rising land values/prices --> redevelopment is better than renting --> fewer rental units = higher rent. It's true up and down the west coast. Now if a government told owners that no, they are not going to rip down that apartment block to replace it with luxury living, all-one-level, condos (ie for old/rich retirees) then perhaps prices might stabilize, sending more units into the rental market and so also stabilizing rents.
- TulliusCicero 10y ago
  > Multi-story and multi-unit developments are everywhere, but that isn't making housing any more affordable. More development doesn't make housing more affordable. It makes it less unaffordable compared to the alternative of restricting supply. For how that turns out, just take a look at SF. Like, desirable cities are always going to be expensive, but you can choose between whether they're moderately expensive vs insanely expensive. > So... liberal zoning --> rising land values/prices --> redevelopment is better than renting --> fewer rental units = higher rent. It's true up and down the west coast. ??? The west coast, by and large, does not have liberal zoning. This is particularly true in coastal California, which has the worst affordability problems. One of the issues is that cities tend to only have small pockets of liberal zoning in downtown cores, so we get all our density from large towers that are inherently very expensive to build. If we got more middling density in existing SFH areas, it'd be much easier to get cheaper housing: http://missingmiddlehousing.com/ http://missingmiddlehousing.com/
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p4wnc6 10y ago
I feel that in many of these discussions, it's beneficial to see NIMBYism as a response to an incomplete insurance market, as described in [0]. This is not to say it is a complete or normative defense of NIMBYism, but rather that a lot of knee-jerk SJW sort of reaction is missing the point and failing to address, or even really attempt to understand, where NIMBYs are coming from. Part of me wonders if this could be solved by tech, particularly insurance products that offer homeowners protection against the variety of ways that seemingly-great expansion projects can go wrong. I'd enjoy working on that sort of problem, except that so much of the current interest in this entire topic is political, and politicians have some incentive to maintain zoning-like systems because it offers them (the politicians) great opportunities for rent seeking, by being the gatekeepers of an approval process that should instead be more straightforward and just hedged by homeowners in the form of custom insurance products. [0] "Why are there NIMBYs?" William Fischel, < https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/00-04.PDF https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/00-04.PDF >
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  The problem is, it isn't an insurable problem if housing prices decrease when the new construction goes right. You would just put the insurance company on the opposing side of the development instead of the homeowners. The source of the problem is that people started buying homes as investments, overpaying for them because there was insufficient supply, and now that they've got a mortgage and they don't want to end up underwater, so they have to make sure everybody else overpays too. Probably the solution is inflation. Build more housing and at the same time print more money. Then real housing prices go down while nominal housing prices stay the same, so your house doesn't "lose value" compared to your mortgage but housing still becomes more affordable for new buyers. This would also help by devaluing everyone's student loans and other debt. Call it the banks' punishment for 2008.
  - benlangmuir 10y ago
    Why do you think nominal housing prices will not increase with the new money? I can understand why housing prices would be sticky when going down, but I've never heard that they are sticky when going up.
mc32 10y ago
These things are not so simple. Even in that places where they build baby, build! There is inequality. Brazil, China, etc. Brazil is diverse, China is pretty homogenous, both have large inequalities. It's not a one dimensional problem.
- dietrichepp 10y ago
  That's a rather poor mischaracterization of the argument. Of course it's not a one dimensional problem, everyone knows that equality is a complicated problem.
HillaryBriss 10y ago
> The lost opportunities for development may theoretically reduce the output of the United States economy by as much as $1.5 trillion a year We should also do away with National Parks and Forests, which are nothing more than zoning laws at the Federal level. For that matter, state and local parks get in the way too. How much lost economic output are restrictions on real estate development in Golden Gate Park costing the city of San Francisco? How many more people could be housed there if the city simply got out of the way and let the developers build twenty or thirty thousand new units in there? Why does Federal law even allow a local community like San Francisco so much control over its land?
- stale2002 10y ago
  You are thinking about things in exactly the wrong way. For every 1 story increase in building height in a San Francisco apartment complex, there is 10 less houses that have to be build in Suburbia. 10 parcels of land that can now be converted to national parks, and public spaces. People need a place to live whether you like it or not. We can either make room for them in the cities, by increasing density and building height limits, or we can stand by and watch as urban sprawl continues to destroy our environment.
  - ams6110 10y ago
    Assuming that suburban houses and apartments in urban multistory complexes are fungible (which they are not).
    - stale2002 10y ago
      Oh they certainly aren't fungible! In fact, urban apartment complexes in dense cities are much much MORE valuable and desirable than suburban homes. There are 10s of millions of people who would rather live in a desirable place like downtown NYC than the place they are currently living in, if it was as affordable as suburban homes. The facts that back this up, are housing prices. Housing prices in cities are 4x higher than they are in the countryside, which, due to the laws of supply and demand, means that lots of people prefer city living to suburban living.
Dowwie 10y ago
In a realistic scenario, de-regulated zoning around San Francisco would benefit developers and lenders while worsening the financial burden of the middle class. If zoning were de-regulated around San Francisco, I doubt that many of you would pay much less than what you'd pay now for housing, assuming you're not making less than the AMI. San Francisco had an Area Median Income in 2014 of $83,222. Those who make below this qualify for affordable housing. If you want to imagine what kind of housing policy the bay area would implement, look to what the DelBlasio administration is doing [1]. In 2015, the AMI for a family of four in New York City was $86,300. According to the DelBlasio administration's plan, "there will be affordable housing available for each level of income from “Extremely Low Income” to “Middle Income.” The middle group, “Low Income” will benefit the most, receiving nearly 60 percent of the 200,000 projected units. Each of the other levels of income will receive eight to 12 percent of the units." So, given that you wouldn't qualify for affordable housing, you'll end up buying new property at market-driven prices. If developers were to flood the market with thousands of additional units, how would that affect prices? If you were a developer, wouldn't you try to maximize profit for your investors? With that given, developers would collude. They'd roll out new, optimally priced units over time. They'll make excuses to policymakers as to why projects are delayed. Today, the middle class can't even get a chance to buy something that it can't afford. With de-regulated housing, the former constraint is lifted and new homeowners will be heavily debt-burdened with super-jumbo non-conforming mortgages. However, you'll have somewhere to live. [1] http://www.amny.com/real-estate/affordable-housing-in-new-york-city-mayor-bill-de-blasio-s-plan-explained-1.11761817 http://www.amny.com/real-estate/affordable-housing-in-new-yo...
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  > If you were a developer, wouldn't you try to maximize profit for your investors? Selling 1000 units at $2000 is more profitable than selling 500 units at $2500. Moreover, collusion is a) illegal, allowing us to smite them with the Hammer of Antitrust Enforcement, and b) assumes there are few enough developers that they can actually do that without anybody defecting, which seems unlikely. > In a realistic scenario, de-regulated zoning around San Francisco would benefit developers and lenders while worsening the financial burden of the middle class. Your proposed alternative to increasing supply once to reduce prices is to keep supply constrained and subsidize rents forever. There is no way out of the fact that increasing the housing supply is the only real solution, and that requires zoning regulations to be relaxed so that it can actually be increased. If you then have other problems with increasing the housing supply, you fix them, because one way or another there needs to be a lot more housing.
tim333 10y ago
There must be massive opportunities to manage these things in a smarter way as illustrated by the $1.5 trillion a year mentioned in the article. For example in SF they could build aesthetically appealing tall buildings with much of the profits going to the government rather than private developers and use some of that to build better accom for the homeless who clutter the streets. Everyone wins pretty much - you could give a bit of compensation to people next to the new buildings who might be a bit inconvenienced. Maybe someone could do a startup to sort this stuff. I've been thinking about it but not cracked it.
1024core 10y ago
The only viable solution, keeping both sides happy, is to have a kickass public transportation system. I live in SF. Some of the working class people I meet live as far away as Richmond, Vallejo and Gilroy. They spend hours commuting back and forth; but they have no choice. It kills the 'quality of life', but what can one do? If, for example, it was possible to get from Richmond to SF in 15 minutes at any time of day or night, it would make a world of difference. The pressure to live in SF would be eased, knowing that any time you wanted to enjoy the city life, it was a quick 15 minute ride away. Communities hate more development, because people don't want to disturb their little paradise, which they worked so hard to create. And these days, it is much easier for people to move; heck, many people live nomadic lives, spending months here, and months there. Something else to think about: an influx of residents has second-order effects: more schools, more police, more fire, etc. etc. Who'll pay for that? The taxes will flow over decades, but these things need to be built right away!
- natrius 10y ago
  Shipping people in from economically segregated exurbs is not a solution to a segregation problem. We could just repeal the laws that are hurting families with less wealth. The controversy on this issue should be a huge red flag: we've allowed the power of our governments to be wielded on behalf of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, and our political culture finds that acceptable. Fix the culture. Repeal the segregation laws.
  - 1024core 10y ago
    > Shipping people in from economically segregated exurbs is not a solution to a segregation problem. That is not the idea. The idea is to let people live where they want to live, without the weight of the commute hanging over them. And even if someone chooses to live far away, they should still be able to maintain a decent quality of life. There is no denying that dwellings closer to the city centers are in higher demand, and hence cost more. I posit that it is primarily due to a mediocre transportation system. If the Bay Area had a world-class high-speed system, the demand would be reduced, lowering the prices and benefiting everyone.
davidf18 10y ago
I live in Manhattan with its very high housing costs. As Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser, Economics Nobelist Paul Krugmann, Financial Times columnist and an economist Tim Harford have been saying, the issues are politically induced housing scarcity through the use of zoning density restrictions and also overuse of historic landmark status. The use of politics to create artificial scarcity to create market inefficiencies is called "rent-seeking" in Microeconomics. Another example was the NYC limit of 13,000 Taxi medallions which lead to a market value for medallions of $1.2 million. Then Uber/Lyft came along to disrupt the market and provide more transportation in NYC and the value of the medallions dropped to less than $700 K. I believe that Congress is looking into the zoning form of "rent-seeking" with the understanding that zoning is not necessarily local but might be federal to override this inherent unfairness where older people housing expensive and scare for younger people. For more info: Edward Glaeser: Build Big Bill (Mayor of NYC) http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1.1913739 http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1.... Tim Harford: The Undercover Economist. https://www.amazon.com/Undercover-Economist-Revised-Updated-Exposing/dp/0199926514 https://www.amazon.com/Undercover-Economist-Revised-Updated-... Creating these politically induced market inefficiencies are what create an inherent transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthy and from the young to the old and of course is a major contributor to financial inequality.
wdr1 10y ago
This article has gotten a fair bit of attention here in Santa Monica. We have the highest rents in LA, possibly one of the strongest anti-development communities, and aggressive rent control. This fall there will be an initiative on the ballot called "L.U.V.E." which will require any development over two stories to get voter approval. It's actually split the anti-development activists apart, as some of them think it goes too far. It's a beautiful city, but part of me feels like it's a ticking time bomb due to lack of education in society. Much like there was broad rejection of vaccinations here, there's rejection of the concept of supply & demand (some calling it a "Republican conspiracy.")

116 points by Cadsby 10y ago

Does anyone really think that once they own property in a certain area that they are gonna believe in the 'anything goes' mentality? 'Growth' is subjective. "Hey look at all the great businesses in my neighborhood bringing in taxes! I mean sure they are all pot pharmacies and bars that my kid gets to pass on his way to elementary school but you know GROWTH!"

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toomuchtodo 10y ago
I think the issue is, everyone believes they should be able to become a stakeholder in a resource that is, by definition, naturally constrained. Only so many people get a say in a geographic area, and the stark reality is that once you reach a certain critical mass, you're incentivized to protect your quality of life over allowing for more people to join you. Strangely, its thought of as acceptable for tech workers (with their new found purchasing power due to disparate wages compared to traditional workers) to displace long-time residents of a community, but those same tech workers are aghast when communities would prefer they not come. “We don’t need one more job in Boulder,” Mr. Pomerance said. “We don’t need to grow anymore. Go somewhere else where they need you.” Indeed. It seems I'm a bit late to coin the term "tech privilege".
- fenomas 10y ago
  Interesting point, but surely the bar for where "critical mass" occurs depends entirely on social factors. That is, the neighborhood where I live (outside Tokyo) can absorb a lot more stakeholders than neighborhoods in Boulder, just because people are accustomed to different lifestyles (more apartments, fewer lawns, etc).
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    Agree.
- morgante 10y ago
  What's strange about this at all? The pro-growth mentality is consistent: anyone can come, if they can afford it. The anti-growth mentality is incoherent: it was fine for me to move here 20 years ago, but how dare tech workers try to do the same thing!
  - TulliusCicero 10y ago
    Exactly. "The change that accommodated me was fine. The change that accommodates you is bad!"
  - duncan_bayne 10y ago
    Bryson made the same point about anti-immigration forces in the USA (and the same applies elsewhere, like Australia where I live). "Immigration was just fine for my grandparents, but now it's about time it stopped."
    - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
      > "Immigration was just fine for my grandparents, but now it's about time it stopped." That's a mischaracterization though. The fundamental equation for immigration is to make sure the immigrants don't bring down the average. When your grandparents came here the average was lower than it is now. Which is why it's a lot easier to get a green card if you have a masters in engineering than if you're a farm hand. It fundamentally has to be that way if you want to have any sort of a social safety net, otherwise the majority of world population would take citizenship and become eligible for social assistance.
      - duncan_bayne 10y ago
        > It fundamentally has to be that way if you want to have any sort of a social safety net, otherwise the majority of world population would take citizenship and become eligible for social assistance. I agree entirely, which is why the (if there is a 'the') Libertarian position on the matter is a combination of open immigration and private charity instead of socialism. http://pc.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/immigration-is-fundamental-human-right.html http://pc.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/immigration-is-fundamental...
- TulliusCicero 10y ago
  > Strangely, its thought of as acceptable for tech workers (with their new found purchasing power due to disparate wages compared to traditional workers) to displace long-time residents of a community, but those same tech workers are aghast when communities would prefer they not come. If you limit building, that effect just gets worse, though. The rich are always going to be able to outbid the poor/working-class, and if you limit the supply of housing, competition for that housing intensifies. A study from the California Legislative Analyst's Office found exactly this (more development = less displacement): http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3345 http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3345 > In this follow up to California’s High Housing Costs, we offer additional evidence that facilitating more private housing development in the state’s coastal urban communities would help make housing more affordable for low–income Californians. Existing affordable housing programs assist only a small proportion of low–income Californians. Most low–income Californians receive little or no assistance. Expanding affordable housing programs to help these households likely would be extremely challenging and prohibitively expensive. It may be best to focus these programs on Californians with more specialized housing needs—such as homeless individuals and families or persons with significant physical and mental health challenges. > Encouraging additional private housing construction can help the many low–income Californians who do not receive assistance. Considerable evidence suggests that construction of market–rate housing reduces housing costs for low–income households and, consequently, helps to mitigate displacement in many cases.

OedipusRex 10y ago

It's not so much that urban development kills "character", it's that current urban development methods are ugly. They have no class to them. The "not in my backyard" argument will always be brought about by people who's previously beautiful surroundings are replaced by brick rectangles with evenly spaced windows. The trick is to make urban areas attractive but not gentrified.

firasd 10y ago
Good insight. I suspect that some American hesitation about "density" and "apartment buildings" is based on specific history from the 20th century and 'white flight' era. Do people from other countries really fear and disdain apartment buildings the same way? I don't... Related, interesting quote from someone talking to Jane Jacobs: http://www.citylab.com/design/2016/05/happy-100th-birthday-jane-jacobs/481035/ http://www.citylab.com/design/2016/05/happy-100th-birthday-j... New, high-rise public housing surrounded by pretty but functionless lawns had erased the formerly dense mix of retail, institutional and residential uses. She learned about what was lost from settlement house workers and tenants. As one resident told her: “Nobody cared what we wanted when they built this place. They threw our houses down and pushed us here and pushed our friends somewhere else. We don’t have a place around here to get a cup of coffee or a newspaper even... But the big men come and look at that grass and say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful! Now the poor have everything.’”
- jwdunne 10y ago
  In Salford, we had a regeneration project that replaced all the rundown terraced housing, from Salford's industrial era, with high rises. Due to the collapse of industry round here, deprivation and crime shot through the roof (to the point Latvia recommended its citizens not visit this city in particular). The high rises have become synonymous with that crime and deprivation. No one wants them at their back yard because of who typically lives in them, not because of the aesthetics. In fact, they have recently had a makeover and now look great. Unfortunately, the same people still live there.
  - conjectures 10y ago

MichaelBurge 10y ago

They should just repeal zoning laws entirely. Maybe make an exception for polluting heavy industry, or for people using government money or government-backed loans. It should probably even be a constitutional amendment. People who want quiet suburbs can pool together a corporation to own a planned community. That limits the scope of their NIMBYism to just their community, and as shareholders they could vote on whether to get paid for selling their land to Walmart or Google or the people wanting to set up high-density apartment complexes. Plus they have an even stronger voice in their immediate community, so they can do things like build walls to keep the homeless out. I think getting bought out as a shareholder would warm them to the idea; if Walmart buys the land next door you just want to complain, but if you're getting some of the money you might be in favor. The government should only have the power to prescribe structural integrity rules, fire safety codes, building codes for number of exits, etc.

OedipusRex 10y ago
I have the feeling if this happens land will be bought up by corporations, not the other way around.
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paulddraper 10y ago
Are you advocating something on the scale of a home owners' association, a suburb, or a large city? Any way, I fail to see how it would be materially different. A group of people, who collectively own the land make rules (laws) about how it can be used by other member of the group.
- MichaelBurge 10y ago
  I think people would have trouble setting up anything larger than a suburb. It's different because currently even the likes of Google can't just buy your house and replace it with a self-driving car garage. In this hypothetical world, all they would need to do is convince one of N different communities to sell or lease them the land.

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sandworm101 10y ago

I don't think liberal zoning is the problem. I've seen my city go through massive changes in the last 30 years, top of the list being a radical increase, a liberalization, of zoning. They are allowing more and bigger developments. Multi-story and multi-unit developments are everywhere, but that isn't making housing any more affordable. A piece of land with a liberal zoning is worth more. It is a target for redevelopment in order to max out the zoning. The net result in my local is the steady replacement of anything old (ie 10+ years) by newer ridiculously large replacements. Apartments and other attached units are now so expensive, and prices rising so steadily, that the logical thing to do is let them sit empty. The pittance one might claw back in rent pales in comparison to rising prices, and who needs pesky tenants anyway. So... liberal zoning --> rising land values/prices --> redevelopment is better than renting --> fewer rental units = higher rent. It's true up and down the west coast. Now if a government told owners that no, they are not going to rip down that apartment block to replace it with luxury living, all-one-level, condos (ie for old/rich retirees) then perhaps prices might stabilize, sending more units into the rental market and so also stabilizing rents.

TulliusCicero 10y ago
> Multi-story and multi-unit developments are everywhere, but that isn't making housing any more affordable. More development doesn't make housing more affordable. It makes it less unaffordable compared to the alternative of restricting supply. For how that turns out, just take a look at SF. Like, desirable cities are always going to be expensive, but you can choose between whether they're moderately expensive vs insanely expensive. > So... liberal zoning --> rising land values/prices --> redevelopment is better than renting --> fewer rental units = higher rent. It's true up and down the west coast. ??? The west coast, by and large, does not have liberal zoning. This is particularly true in coastal California, which has the worst affordability problems. One of the issues is that cities tend to only have small pockets of liberal zoning in downtown cores, so we get all our density from large towers that are inherently very expensive to build. If we got more middling density in existing SFH areas, it'd be much easier to get cheaper housing: http://missingmiddlehousing.com/ http://missingmiddlehousing.com/
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p4wnc6 10y ago

I feel that in many of these discussions, it's beneficial to see NIMBYism as a response to an incomplete insurance market, as described in [0]. This is not to say it is a complete or normative defense of NIMBYism, but rather that a lot of knee-jerk SJW sort of reaction is missing the point and failing to address, or even really attempt to understand, where NIMBYs are coming from. Part of me wonders if this could be solved by tech, particularly insurance products that offer homeowners protection against the variety of ways that seemingly-great expansion projects can go wrong. I'd enjoy working on that sort of problem, except that so much of the current interest in this entire topic is political, and politicians have some incentive to maintain zoning-like systems because it offers them (the politicians) great opportunities for rent seeking, by being the gatekeepers of an approval process that should instead be more straightforward and just hedged by homeowners in the form of custom insurance products. [0] "Why are there NIMBYs?" William Fischel, < https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/00-04.PDF https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/00-04.PDF >

AnthonyMouse 10y ago
The problem is, it isn't an insurable problem if housing prices decrease when the new construction goes right. You would just put the insurance company on the opposing side of the development instead of the homeowners. The source of the problem is that people started buying homes as investments, overpaying for them because there was insufficient supply, and now that they've got a mortgage and they don't want to end up underwater, so they have to make sure everybody else overpays too. Probably the solution is inflation. Build more housing and at the same time print more money. Then real housing prices go down while nominal housing prices stay the same, so your house doesn't "lose value" compared to your mortgage but housing still becomes more affordable for new buyers. This would also help by devaluing everyone's student loans and other debt. Call it the banks' punishment for 2008.
- benlangmuir 10y ago
  Why do you think nominal housing prices will not increase with the new money? I can understand why housing prices would be sticky when going down, but I've never heard that they are sticky when going up.

mc32 10y ago

These things are not so simple. Even in that places where they build baby, build! There is inequality. Brazil, China, etc. Brazil is diverse, China is pretty homogenous, both have large inequalities. It's not a one dimensional problem.

dietrichepp 10y ago
That's a rather poor mischaracterization of the argument. Of course it's not a one dimensional problem, everyone knows that equality is a complicated problem.

HillaryBriss 10y ago

> The lost opportunities for development may theoretically reduce the output of the United States economy by as much as $1.5 trillion a year We should also do away with National Parks and Forests, which are nothing more than zoning laws at the Federal level. For that matter, state and local parks get in the way too. How much lost economic output are restrictions on real estate development in Golden Gate Park costing the city of San Francisco? How many more people could be housed there if the city simply got out of the way and let the developers build twenty or thirty thousand new units in there? Why does Federal law even allow a local community like San Francisco so much control over its land?

stale2002 10y ago
You are thinking about things in exactly the wrong way. For every 1 story increase in building height in a San Francisco apartment complex, there is 10 less houses that have to be build in Suburbia. 10 parcels of land that can now be converted to national parks, and public spaces. People need a place to live whether you like it or not. We can either make room for them in the cities, by increasing density and building height limits, or we can stand by and watch as urban sprawl continues to destroy our environment.
- ams6110 10y ago
  Assuming that suburban houses and apartments in urban multistory complexes are fungible (which they are not).
  - stale2002 10y ago
    Oh they certainly aren't fungible! In fact, urban apartment complexes in dense cities are much much MORE valuable and desirable than suburban homes. There are 10s of millions of people who would rather live in a desirable place like downtown NYC than the place they are currently living in, if it was as affordable as suburban homes. The facts that back this up, are housing prices. Housing prices in cities are 4x higher than they are in the countryside, which, due to the laws of supply and demand, means that lots of people prefer city living to suburban living.

Dowwie 10y ago

In a realistic scenario, de-regulated zoning around San Francisco would benefit developers and lenders while worsening the financial burden of the middle class. If zoning were de-regulated around San Francisco, I doubt that many of you would pay much less than what you'd pay now for housing, assuming you're not making less than the AMI. San Francisco had an Area Median Income in 2014 of $83,222. Those who make below this qualify for affordable housing. If you want to imagine what kind of housing policy the bay area would implement, look to what the DelBlasio administration is doing [1]. In 2015, the AMI for a family of four in New York City was $86,300. According to the DelBlasio administration's plan, "there will be affordable housing available for each level of income from “Extremely Low Income” to “Middle Income.” The middle group, “Low Income” will benefit the most, receiving nearly 60 percent of the 200,000 projected units. Each of the other levels of income will receive eight to 12 percent of the units." So, given that you wouldn't qualify for affordable housing, you'll end up buying new property at market-driven prices. If developers were to flood the market with thousands of additional units, how would that affect prices? If you were a developer, wouldn't you try to maximize profit for your investors? With that given, developers would collude. They'd roll out new, optimally priced units over time. They'll make excuses to policymakers as to why projects are delayed. Today, the middle class can't even get a chance to buy something that it can't afford. With de-regulated housing, the former constraint is lifted and new homeowners will be heavily debt-burdened with super-jumbo non-conforming mortgages. However, you'll have somewhere to live. [1] http://www.amny.com/real-estate/affordable-housing-in-new-york-city-mayor-bill-de-blasio-s-plan-explained-1.11761817 http://www.amny.com/real-estate/affordable-housing-in-new-yo...

AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> If you were a developer, wouldn't you try to maximize profit for your investors? Selling 1000 units at $2000 is more profitable than selling 500 units at $2500. Moreover, collusion is a) illegal, allowing us to smite them with the Hammer of Antitrust Enforcement, and b) assumes there are few enough developers that they can actually do that without anybody defecting, which seems unlikely. > In a realistic scenario, de-regulated zoning around San Francisco would benefit developers and lenders while worsening the financial burden of the middle class. Your proposed alternative to increasing supply once to reduce prices is to keep supply constrained and subsidize rents forever. There is no way out of the fact that increasing the housing supply is the only real solution, and that requires zoning regulations to be relaxed so that it can actually be increased. If you then have other problems with increasing the housing supply, you fix them, because one way or another there needs to be a lot more housing.

tim333 10y ago

There must be massive opportunities to manage these things in a smarter way as illustrated by the $1.5 trillion a year mentioned in the article. For example in SF they could build aesthetically appealing tall buildings with much of the profits going to the government rather than private developers and use some of that to build better accom for the homeless who clutter the streets. Everyone wins pretty much - you could give a bit of compensation to people next to the new buildings who might be a bit inconvenienced. Maybe someone could do a startup to sort this stuff. I've been thinking about it but not cracked it.

1024core 10y ago

The only viable solution, keeping both sides happy, is to have a kickass public transportation system. I live in SF. Some of the working class people I meet live as far away as Richmond, Vallejo and Gilroy. They spend hours commuting back and forth; but they have no choice. It kills the 'quality of life', but what can one do? If, for example, it was possible to get from Richmond to SF in 15 minutes at any time of day or night, it would make a world of difference. The pressure to live in SF would be eased, knowing that any time you wanted to enjoy the city life, it was a quick 15 minute ride away. Communities hate more development, because people don't want to disturb their little paradise, which they worked so hard to create. And these days, it is much easier for people to move; heck, many people live nomadic lives, spending months here, and months there. Something else to think about: an influx of residents has second-order effects: more schools, more police, more fire, etc. etc. Who'll pay for that? The taxes will flow over decades, but these things need to be built right away!

natrius 10y ago
Shipping people in from economically segregated exurbs is not a solution to a segregation problem. We could just repeal the laws that are hurting families with less wealth. The controversy on this issue should be a huge red flag: we've allowed the power of our governments to be wielded on behalf of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, and our political culture finds that acceptable. Fix the culture. Repeal the segregation laws.
- 1024core 10y ago
  > Shipping people in from economically segregated exurbs is not a solution to a segregation problem. That is not the idea. The idea is to let people live where they want to live, without the weight of the commute hanging over them. And even if someone chooses to live far away, they should still be able to maintain a decent quality of life. There is no denying that dwellings closer to the city centers are in higher demand, and hence cost more. I posit that it is primarily due to a mediocre transportation system. If the Bay Area had a world-class high-speed system, the demand would be reduced, lowering the prices and benefiting everyone.

davidf18 10y ago

I live in Manhattan with its very high housing costs. As Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser, Economics Nobelist Paul Krugmann, Financial Times columnist and an economist Tim Harford have been saying, the issues are politically induced housing scarcity through the use of zoning density restrictions and also overuse of historic landmark status. The use of politics to create artificial scarcity to create market inefficiencies is called "rent-seeking" in Microeconomics. Another example was the NYC limit of 13,000 Taxi medallions which lead to a market value for medallions of $1.2 million. Then Uber/Lyft came along to disrupt the market and provide more transportation in NYC and the value of the medallions dropped to less than $700 K. I believe that Congress is looking into the zoning form of "rent-seeking" with the understanding that zoning is not necessarily local but might be federal to override this inherent unfairness where older people housing expensive and scare for younger people. For more info: Edward Glaeser: Build Big Bill (Mayor of NYC) http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1.1913739 http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1.... Tim Harford: The Undercover Economist. https://www.amazon.com/Undercover-Economist-Revised-Updated-Exposing/dp/0199926514 https://www.amazon.com/Undercover-Economist-Revised-Updated-... Creating these politically induced market inefficiencies are what create an inherent transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthy and from the young to the old and of course is a major contributor to financial inequality.

wdr1 10y ago

This article has gotten a fair bit of attention here in Santa Monica. We have the highest rents in LA, possibly one of the strongest anti-development communities, and aggressive rent control. This fall there will be an initiative on the ballot called "L.U.V.E." which will require any development over two stories to get voter approval. It's actually split the anti-development activists apart, as some of them think it goes too far. It's a beautiful city, but part of me feels like it's a ticking time bomb due to lack of education in society. Much like there was broad rejection of vaccinations here, there's rejection of the concept of supply & demand (some calling it a "Republican conspiracy.")