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It's real simple. If density is increased, more people can be serviced with a given length of sewer and water pipes. Busses don't have to drive as far. Cars don
by woah 10y ago
It's real simple. If density is increased, more people can be serviced with a given length of sewer and water pipes. Busses don't have to drive as far. Cars don't have to drive as far. Businesses have more customers.
The high-density places in your city that are expensive are only expensive because the developer probably had to fight a multi-year battle to be allowed to build there, with millions of dollars at risk because permitting could be stopped by a cranky neighbor at any point in the process. Dealing with those kinds of legal impediments to construction, it only makes sense to build higher profit luxury housing, and since there is a lack of housing the market can bear it.
- aninhumer 10y ago>Dealing with those kinds of legal impediments to construction, it only makes sense to build higher profit luxury housing, and since there is a lack of housing the market can bear it. I think this causation is slightly backwards. The price will be high regardless because of the limited supply, so they build luxury apartments to best appeal to the people who can afford those prices.
- aorloff 10y agoOr maybe its more accurate to say, the prices will be high so the appropriate label will be "luxury." I'm seeing "luxury" 2-bedrooms going up in the Bay Area with linoleum bathroom flooring. "Luxury" is all in the eye of the beholder.
- hx87 10y agoSupply would be /less/ limited if it were less difficult to get a project approved, so you'd see more non-luxury apartments.
- scld 10y agoWhile the "length" of these services is reduced, the bandwidth is not. Waste disposal and collection, both trash and sewage, needs to be able to support the housing. So the parent comment's point is that you can't just free up the land on which the housing will be built, you need urban planning around it to account for the increased population. Unless they privatize that part of the infrastructure or shift the costs over to developers of high-rises, there will need to be active public development in areas where density is at a maximum as far as local infrastructure is concerned (even if density is being kept artificially low by NIMBYism).
- Retric 10y agoYou can always charge a fee on new construction to pay for these costs. A 30k fee sounds insane, but on a new 300k apartment that cost 100k to build it's nothing.
- hx87 10y agoUnless the property tax is a land value tax, wouldn't the additional tax revenue from higher density construction pay for that automatically?
- MarkMc 10y ago> Businesses have more customers. And customers therefore have more choice. In the suburbs a given area might support only one McDonalds, but in the city the same area can support a McDonalds and a Burger King and a KFC.
- Xcelerate 10y agoOddly enough, I've found the reverse to be true. More suburban = more fast food chains crammed in one spot. The urban areas usually have more interesting local restaurants.
- st3v3r 10y agoI don't think the point had anything to do with fast food vs local restaurants. The point was more, a suburban area might only support one or two restaurants, whereas an urban area can support a greater amount, and therefore a greater variety of restaurants.