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The problem is that cities have become so opposed to allowing construction of middle class rental units that it takes the concerted effort of a multi-billion do
by wmil 10y ago
The problem is that cities have become so opposed to allowing construction of middle class rental units that it takes the concerted effort of a multi-billion dollar corporation to build any.
- matwood 10y agoIt's also not always quite that simple. My city is trying to pass a moratorium on residential building permits because the infrastructure is simply not built out enough to handle all the people moving to town. Yeah, yeah, public transportation, etc... but all of that takes time and money to build. The 2 lane road leading to my house is already overloaded and a builder is wanting to build another 2000 houses at the end of the road. Instead of waiting and relying on the state to improve the road, maybe we should do a better job at shifting the infrastructure costs to the builder when they put up a new apartment building or neighborhood.
- Kalium 10y agoYou know how in software quick and ugly hacks have this nasty tendency to stick around long past their sell-by date and hurt everything around them? A quick and ugly policy hack like a housing moriturium is the same way.
- matwood 10y agoIt's not a hack. If you want to use a software analogy it is akin to stop adding features until we get the current system cleaned up. That is often the right thing to do in software. The hack is not a moratorium, the hack is to keep adding houses until infrastructure finally fails and the system falls over. Brilliant plan.
- Kalium 10y agoOK. It's a feature moritorium. It's an administrative choice that is very easy to prolong. Because it solves the immediate problem, it's also a choice that's very easy to keep making to avoid the significant cost of addressing the underlying problems. This is the sort of administrative choice that led to the Bay's housing crises.