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The endless suburban sprawl you complain about is caused in part by your opposition to higher density housing in central neighborhoods. Where else do you expect

The endless suburban sprawl you complain about is caused in part by your opposition to higher density housing in central neighborhoods. Where else do you expect people to go?

peterbonney 10y ago
Seriously. Why is housing in Tokyo consistently affordable? Because the zoning rules allow high-density housing to grow with housing demand. Somehow in America we have convinced ourselves that if we stop high-density development in the cities that absolutely need it, we can make up for it by legislating prices lower. The solution to unaffordable housing certainly begins with building a lot more housing.
- ghaff 10y ago
  It also doesn't hurt that the Tokyo population has been growing rather slowly--about 0.5% per year.
  - peterbonney 10y ago
    Yes, but it is also one of the largest, densest cities in the world, a place it arrived to by growing quickly and expanding its housing stock to match its growth.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      And Tokyo also has a great urban transit system etc. On the other hand, a lot of the population growth occurred between 1945 and 1965. [1] So it was starting from an historically low population and housing stock point for obvious reasons and had something of a clean slate. [1] http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/ABOUT/HISTORY/history03.htm http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/ABOUT/HISTORY/history03.ht...
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- cauterized 10y ago
  I don't see a lot of people suggesting we can legislate our way out of housing prices without building more housing stock. What I do see is a lot of what amounts to saying that "those people" should just go somewhere else. As long as that somewhere else isn't one where I have to notice their homelessness. But yes. We have to build upwards. In cities where building vertically benefits the well-off (as in NY), and where it's profitable to do so, it happens. But note that it only generates high-end and expensive housing stock (excluding rules that require including "affordable" housing, which based on the examples I've seen seems to mean "affordable to a family making $120k/yr instead of the $500k you need to afford the market rate units in this development".) Will adding more housing stock at the top decrease prices at the bottom via market effects? Yes and no. If the availability does trickle down, it takes a very long time. Here in downtown Brooklyn there's a temporary glut of high-end housing added in the last 5 years. But compared to the number of people added to what was already a tight rental (and sales) market in the city 10-15 years ago, the number of units added is laughable. We're talking almost a million more people living in the city but something like 20-30,000 units (enough to house 50-100k people) having been added. So what happens? This oversupply will likely last about 5 years. The only real effect will be 1-2 year 10-15% concessions on rent in the new rental buildings until they can fill them up. People looking for high-end rentals will be able to take 24 hours instead of 3 minutes to commit to a specific apartment after viewing it, and might be able to get it if they wait an hour or two to apply instead of contacting the management company within 5 minutes of the listing going live. In a couple years, the high end rental market will go back to its normal cut-throat self. Maybe the gentrification of Crown Heights will be delayed by a couple years, but I doubt it. This trickle of new housing at $2500-4000 per person per month isn't nearly enough to keep up with the constantly expanding demand for units under $1200 per person per month. The for-sale units in the crazy high-end buildings will sit vacant until enough new Chinese billionaires are minted who want to park their money outside the country, and then they'll continue to sit vacant indefinitely anyway because they're investments rather than homes. The ones in only normally high end buildings will also sit vacant for a year or so and then generate a tiny bit less profit than the developers were hoping for. But sales don't really factor into the affordable housing market here anyway. If you're having trouble affording rent, buying is unimaginable.
  - 10y ago
- cstejerean 10y ago
  The problem is that adding high density housing to an area not built for it has a chicken and egg problem. When you add a massive high rise a lot of people move in. They all need to commute somewhere. Except now the streets can't accommodate the car traffic and the public transit system is also inadequate. And it will take a decade to catch up. So in the meantime everyone around the new high rise gets to suffer for the next 10 years, and it's understandable why they aren't particularly excited about it. On the other hand you can't build up the infrastructure first because you don't have any money to do so pre-emptively.
  - panglott 10y ago
    They're not talking about a massive high-rise in this article. They're talking about a four-story apartment building that has 10% more units than a conventional studio apartment building, and is on high-frequency transit lines with good bicycle access.
  - Asooka 10y ago
    No area has historically been built for high density housing. You build the housing and that creates new problems that you then solve, which in turn cause more problems to solve, etc. etc. in a process usually known as "life". The important thing is to serve the zeitgeist of today, rather than the perfectly spherical zeitgeist in vacuum of imaginary tomorrow.

The endless suburban sprawl you complain about is caused in part by your opposition to higher density housing in central neighborhoods. Where else do you expect people to go?

peterbonney 10y ago

Seriously. Why is housing in Tokyo consistently affordable? Because the zoning rules allow high-density housing to grow with housing demand. Somehow in America we have convinced ourselves that if we stop high-density development in the cities that absolutely need it, we can make up for it by legislating prices lower. The solution to unaffordable housing certainly begins with building a lot more housing.

ghaff 10y ago
It also doesn't hurt that the Tokyo population has been growing rather slowly--about 0.5% per year.
- peterbonney 10y ago
  Yes, but it is also one of the largest, densest cities in the world, a place it arrived to by growing quickly and expanding its housing stock to match its growth.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    And Tokyo also has a great urban transit system etc. On the other hand, a lot of the population growth occurred between 1945 and 1965. [1] So it was starting from an historically low population and housing stock point for obvious reasons and had something of a clean slate. [1] http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/ABOUT/HISTORY/history03.htm http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/ABOUT/HISTORY/history03.ht...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
cauterized 10y ago
I don't see a lot of people suggesting we can legislate our way out of housing prices without building more housing stock. What I do see is a lot of what amounts to saying that "those people" should just go somewhere else. As long as that somewhere else isn't one where I have to notice their homelessness. But yes. We have to build upwards. In cities where building vertically benefits the well-off (as in NY), and where it's profitable to do so, it happens. But note that it only generates high-end and expensive housing stock (excluding rules that require including "affordable" housing, which based on the examples I've seen seems to mean "affordable to a family making $120k/yr instead of the $500k you need to afford the market rate units in this development".) Will adding more housing stock at the top decrease prices at the bottom via market effects? Yes and no. If the availability does trickle down, it takes a very long time. Here in downtown Brooklyn there's a temporary glut of high-end housing added in the last 5 years. But compared to the number of people added to what was already a tight rental (and sales) market in the city 10-15 years ago, the number of units added is laughable. We're talking almost a million more people living in the city but something like 20-30,000 units (enough to house 50-100k people) having been added. So what happens? This oversupply will likely last about 5 years. The only real effect will be 1-2 year 10-15% concessions on rent in the new rental buildings until they can fill them up. People looking for high-end rentals will be able to take 24 hours instead of 3 minutes to commit to a specific apartment after viewing it, and might be able to get it if they wait an hour or two to apply instead of contacting the management company within 5 minutes of the listing going live. In a couple years, the high end rental market will go back to its normal cut-throat self. Maybe the gentrification of Crown Heights will be delayed by a couple years, but I doubt it. This trickle of new housing at $2500-4000 per person per month isn't nearly enough to keep up with the constantly expanding demand for units under $1200 per person per month. The for-sale units in the crazy high-end buildings will sit vacant until enough new Chinese billionaires are minted who want to park their money outside the country, and then they'll continue to sit vacant indefinitely anyway because they're investments rather than homes. The ones in only normally high end buildings will also sit vacant for a year or so and then generate a tiny bit less profit than the developers were hoping for. But sales don't really factor into the affordable housing market here anyway. If you're having trouble affording rent, buying is unimaginable.
- 10y ago
cstejerean 10y ago
The problem is that adding high density housing to an area not built for it has a chicken and egg problem. When you add a massive high rise a lot of people move in. They all need to commute somewhere. Except now the streets can't accommodate the car traffic and the public transit system is also inadequate. And it will take a decade to catch up. So in the meantime everyone around the new high rise gets to suffer for the next 10 years, and it's understandable why they aren't particularly excited about it. On the other hand you can't build up the infrastructure first because you don't have any money to do so pre-emptively.
- panglott 10y ago
  They're not talking about a massive high-rise in this article. They're talking about a four-story apartment building that has 10% more units than a conventional studio apartment building, and is on high-frequency transit lines with good bicycle access.
- Asooka 10y ago
  No area has historically been built for high density housing. You build the housing and that creates new problems that you then solve, which in turn cause more problems to solve, etc. etc. in a process usually known as "life". The important thing is to serve the zeitgeist of today, rather than the perfectly spherical zeitgeist in vacuum of imaginary tomorrow.