22 ms·

In a housing shortage, you don't have to build a nice building to make money. If people are stretching to find a place in a neighborhood they want, you can't ch

by natrius 10y ago

In a housing shortage, you don't have to build a nice building to make money. If people are stretching to find a place in a neighborhood they want, you can't charge higher rent for a nicer building. Our priority in boomtowns has been to use our government to create exclusive neighborhoods for the wealthy. People feign surprise when more and more people get excluded from our cities while they fight for laws that exclude people from every single neighborhood. If we care about ending the disgusting practice of government-imposed income segregation, we must make our neighborhoods inclusive, especially near jobs, parks, and transit. In inclusive neighborhoods, we don't exclude people by declaring the neighborhood full by law. You can always add more homes to include more people. Cities full of inclusive neighborhoods will be affordable to all, especially if we use our tax dollars to subsidize homes for those whose needs the market might not meet. Our current practice is to decorate exclusive neighborhoods with subsidized homes and pretend we care about inclusion. It's a lie. Providing homes for everyone in our cities near the things they care about is possible. Building homes that people can afford to make look nice is possible. We've chosen to enforce exclusivity instead. It is unjust.

int_19h 10y ago
>> You can always add more homes to include more people. Can you, though? Any given neighborhood has limited space to build things. At some point, you have to start building high-rises all over to pack more people in. This also has a limit, so beyond that you'd have to start building over parks etc. Of course, without government-imposed zoning laws, you will also have residential units competing with commercial and industrial ones, too... Oh, and who will take care of the extra infrastructure that is required for more people? So it would seem to me that this approach would result in extremely densely packed neighborhoods with poor infrastructure, and undesirable placement of (cheap) residential units next to, say, an industrial park. It would also be pretty effective at inducing more rich flight from urban areas into the suburbs, which is likely to hurt the cities even more (by reducing their tax base). I don't think this is all that simple.
- OrwellianChild 10y ago
  Cities like Seattle are under-built to the point that the vast majority of the land is still single-family zoned, meaning you can only build one home on a plot that may be 2500 sq ft or more. 65% of Seattle's land is still Single-Family. [0] This map will showcase the problem. [1] There is much to be done to make cities like Seattle more livable and affordable before we come anywhere near the density cap you refer to. [0] http://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2015/7/16/white-single-family-neighborhoods-diversity-in-urban-villages http://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2015/7/16/white-single-fa... [1] http://res.cloudinary.com/sagacity/image/upload/v1437089045/race_change_mapping_zna5lh.pdf http://res.cloudinary.com/sagacity/image/upload/v1437089045/...
- natrius 10y ago
  > Any given neighborhood has limited space to build things. That's fine. A neighborhood full of high rises that no one wants to pay to knock down to build taller is naturally full. The government hasn't declared it to be full the way we do today. > Of course, without government-imposed zoning laws, you will also have residential units competing with commercial and industrial ones, too... Zoning isn't terrible. Density restrictions are terrible. They are explicit exclusion. They are the direct cause of our increasing economic segregation. > Oh, and who will take care of the extra infrastructure that is required for more people? Urban infrastructure is cheaper than suburban infrastructure. We're spending more money on infrastructure today than we would if we stopped excluding people. > It would also be pretty effective at inducing more rich flight from urban areas into the suburbs This just isn't true. Tons of wealthy people want to live in dense urban neighborhoods. That's why they're so expensive. What we should change is allowing people with different amounts of wealth to live in the same neighborhood. Density restrictions make mixed-income neighborhoods illegal: only the highest bidders get scarce homes, so families are forcibly sorted by income into separate neighborhoods. If rich people truly don't want to live in mixed-income neighborhoods, they are the ones who should leave. We shouldn't force others out for their benefit. We used to do that. Now we're doing it to even more families. We aren't repeating the mistakes of our forefathers, we're outdoing them.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
mountaineer22 10y ago
I keep seeing arguments like this that fail to take account the impact upon infrastructure. There is a finite amount of water, and only so many places to bury trash and process human waste. Allowing more buildings imposes additional strains on the city and its taxpayers.
- robrenaud 10y ago
  The denser the city, the more efficient living in it is. To the degree that resources are limited, more people should live in cities. Infrastructure can be expanded and improved. Seattle is nowhere near the density of Manhattan, which is comfortable enough to contain many very rich people who could choose to live elsewhere.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  New buildings and new people pay taxes. Infrastructure can be expanded using tax money.
- natrius 10y ago
  These laws weren't created because urban infrastructure is hard. Urban infrastructure is easier than suburban infrastructure. These laws were created to exclude people back when excluding people was fashionable. There is no excuse to keep doing this.

by natrius 10y ago

int_19h 10y ago

>> You can always add more homes to include more people. Can you, though? Any given neighborhood has limited space to build things. At some point, you have to start building high-rises all over to pack more people in. This also has a limit, so beyond that you'd have to start building over parks etc. Of course, without government-imposed zoning laws, you will also have residential units competing with commercial and industrial ones, too... Oh, and who will take care of the extra infrastructure that is required for more people? So it would seem to me that this approach would result in extremely densely packed neighborhoods with poor infrastructure, and undesirable placement of (cheap) residential units next to, say, an industrial park. It would also be pretty effective at inducing more rich flight from urban areas into the suburbs, which is likely to hurt the cities even more (by reducing their tax base). I don't think this is all that simple.

OrwellianChild 10y ago
Cities like Seattle are under-built to the point that the vast majority of the land is still single-family zoned, meaning you can only build one home on a plot that may be 2500 sq ft or more. 65% of Seattle's land is still Single-Family. [0] This map will showcase the problem. [1] There is much to be done to make cities like Seattle more livable and affordable before we come anywhere near the density cap you refer to. [0] http://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2015/7/16/white-single-family-neighborhoods-diversity-in-urban-villages http://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2015/7/16/white-single-fa... [1] http://res.cloudinary.com/sagacity/image/upload/v1437089045/race_change_mapping_zna5lh.pdf http://res.cloudinary.com/sagacity/image/upload/v1437089045/...
natrius 10y ago
> Any given neighborhood has limited space to build things. That's fine. A neighborhood full of high rises that no one wants to pay to knock down to build taller is naturally full. The government hasn't declared it to be full the way we do today. > Of course, without government-imposed zoning laws, you will also have residential units competing with commercial and industrial ones, too... Zoning isn't terrible. Density restrictions are terrible. They are explicit exclusion. They are the direct cause of our increasing economic segregation. > Oh, and who will take care of the extra infrastructure that is required for more people? Urban infrastructure is cheaper than suburban infrastructure. We're spending more money on infrastructure today than we would if we stopped excluding people. > It would also be pretty effective at inducing more rich flight from urban areas into the suburbs This just isn't true. Tons of wealthy people want to live in dense urban neighborhoods. That's why they're so expensive. What we should change is allowing people with different amounts of wealth to live in the same neighborhood. Density restrictions make mixed-income neighborhoods illegal: only the highest bidders get scarce homes, so families are forcibly sorted by income into separate neighborhoods. If rich people truly don't want to live in mixed-income neighborhoods, they are the ones who should leave. We shouldn't force others out for their benefit. We used to do that. Now we're doing it to even more families. We aren't repeating the mistakes of our forefathers, we're outdoing them.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

mountaineer22 10y ago

I keep seeing arguments like this that fail to take account the impact upon infrastructure. There is a finite amount of water, and only so many places to bury trash and process human waste. Allowing more buildings imposes additional strains on the city and its taxpayers.

robrenaud 10y ago
The denser the city, the more efficient living in it is. To the degree that resources are limited, more people should live in cities. Infrastructure can be expanded and improved. Seattle is nowhere near the density of Manhattan, which is comfortable enough to contain many very rich people who could choose to live elsewhere.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
New buildings and new people pay taxes. Infrastructure can be expanded using tax money.
natrius 10y ago
These laws weren't created because urban infrastructure is hard. Urban infrastructure is easier than suburban infrastructure. These laws were created to exclude people back when excluding people was fashionable. There is no excuse to keep doing this.