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I wish urbanists / "urban planners" would learn that same lesson too. They seem to think gentrification / "YIMBYism" is "good" because it "invests in" or "clea

I wish urbanists / "urban planners" would learn that same lesson too. They seem to think gentrification / "YIMBYism" is "good" because it "invests in" or "cleans up" the neighborhood, not realizing that all the poorer people they "cleaned up" don't disappear -- they too end up living in some further out area, with all the same problems that causes. Edit: This isn't an anti-construction argument. This is a pro-appropriate-construction argument. Not just any new building works towards a solution. Not just any units actually help the supply side of this problem.

closeparen 9y ago
Where do you think existing residents go when migrants take over the existing housing stock? Like many in this debate, you seem to think that preventing housing construction prevents population change. But it only preserves the size of the population, not the composition There is more than enough demand already to unseat every long-time renter by outbidding them at lease renewal time, and this is happening. No developer intervention required.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Like many in this debate, you seem to think that preventing housing construction prevents population change. But it only preserves the size of the population, not the composition It doesn't preserve size, either. Existing units can be occupied more densely, units not intended (or legally permitted) for residential use can be occupied, and population can grow that isn't housed.
- maxsilver 9y ago
  > Like many in this debate, you seem to think that preventing housing construction prevents population change. Not at all. That's a claim you've invented entirely on your own, not something I said. -- My claim is that YIMBYism is often an attempt to replicate the housing problems seen in places like Berkley, not an attempt to fix them. YIMBYism is often an attempt to inflate property just like NIMBYism is. If 1,000 people are slowly dying of thirst in the desert, and PepsiCo offers to build a Pepsi distribution plant in your desert, some people will say "no" and some will say "yes", and neither will be addressing the water shortage problem because Pepsi isn't water. That's essentially how housing works today. No one builds housing for residents, which is the problem. If you oppose the construction of buildings that are not housing for residents (like say, luxury condos), you get slandered with a "NIMBY" label, despite being pro-housing, because the construction makes the existing problem worse (the act of constructing that luxury condo will inflate all nearby property values too, displacing more people than the new building itself will hold)
  - ScottBurson 9y ago
    I think you've got cause and effect wrong. What mostly inflates property values is the simple fact that lots of people want to live in an area. Or put it this way: the reason people want to live in the Bay Area is not because of the amazing luxury condos. Sure, it's possible to build too many luxury condos and depress prices in that market segment, while not building enough of something else, but we certainly don't have that problem now.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Residents don't need new housing. They are, by definition, already housed. They need a way to stay housed as nonresidents move in. If you can choose a swanky new building in Berkeley, then you don't need to commandeer housing that someone is already living in.
TulliusCicero 9y ago
Displacement is definitely an issue, but it doesn't go away if you stop development. SF has been notoriously anti-development for some time, and that didn't stop the poor and working class from getting displaced (except for those with rent control or subsidized housing, of course). The real progressive solution here would be to use taxation for the government to build its own more affordable housing, housing that is mixed-income, mixed-use, etc. But, that can easily happen in parallel with private development.
- jnordwick 9y ago
  Aka The Projects.
  - TulliusCicero 9y ago
    Yes and no. "The projects" were government housing, but they were not mixed-income or mixed-use, overall they were just kind of bungled. Often they were far away from any kind of city amenities like decent transit or parks or shopping. Other countries like Singapore and Austria manage to have government-built/run housing that works fine. I don't think there's anything fundamentally stopping the US from doing it competently, the high-level design was just really bad before. You don't want to concentrate only very low income people (aka the people with the most social problems and the least social/political capital) in big towers in the middle of nowhere, that's a recipe for disaster.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      In what way is this proposal better or more progressive than direct cash transfers to acquire the same market housing that everyone else does? If there are problems with cash transfer programs --- for instance, that only certain homes end up eligible due to paperwork requirements, or under-market payments --- it seems much easier to fix those than to turn the government itself into a landlord for millions of people. Tenant/landlord relations are themselves a kind of marketplace, and central planning handles those poorly.
      - 9y ago
mikepavone 9y ago
Limiting the supply of urban housing makes the displacement problem worse, not better. As long as the demand for housing far outstrips the supply, only the affluent will be able to afford to live in desirable places like Berkeley. We need more market rate and below market rate housing. While below market rate housing has the greatest impact, both help reduce displacement [1]. Realistically though, there's no way Berkeley can produce enough BMR to fix this problem with existing funding sources. According to the 2015 Nexus study, a household of 3 making 100% of AMI (area median income) can't afford market rate rents and the situation is far worse for families looking to buy a modest house or condo. Local YIMBY groups like East Bay Forward, YIMBY Action and SF BARF support the construction of both market rate and below market rate. They have on occasion opposed increases in the BMR requirements for new housing, but that was out of concern that the new requirements were so high that substantially less housing would be built and the absolute number of BMR numbers would in fact be lower. While not conclusive, some early indications suggest this concern was warranted [2]. [1] http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3345 http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3345 [2] https://medium.com/@LocalPolitics/the-25-inclusionary-rate-is-killing-affordable-housing-db143c4abd31 https://medium.com/@LocalPolitics/the-25-inclusionary-rate-i...

closeparen 9y ago

Where do you think existing residents go when migrants take over the existing housing stock? Like many in this debate, you seem to think that preventing housing construction prevents population change. But it only preserves the size of the population, not the composition There is more than enough demand already to unseat every long-time renter by outbidding them at lease renewal time, and this is happening. No developer intervention required.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Like many in this debate, you seem to think that preventing housing construction prevents population change. But it only preserves the size of the population, not the composition It doesn't preserve size, either. Existing units can be occupied more densely, units not intended (or legally permitted) for residential use can be occupied, and population can grow that isn't housed.
maxsilver 9y ago
> Like many in this debate, you seem to think that preventing housing construction prevents population change. Not at all. That's a claim you've invented entirely on your own, not something I said. -- My claim is that YIMBYism is often an attempt to replicate the housing problems seen in places like Berkley, not an attempt to fix them. YIMBYism is often an attempt to inflate property just like NIMBYism is. If 1,000 people are slowly dying of thirst in the desert, and PepsiCo offers to build a Pepsi distribution plant in your desert, some people will say "no" and some will say "yes", and neither will be addressing the water shortage problem because Pepsi isn't water. That's essentially how housing works today. No one builds housing for residents, which is the problem. If you oppose the construction of buildings that are not housing for residents (like say, luxury condos), you get slandered with a "NIMBY" label, despite being pro-housing, because the construction makes the existing problem worse (the act of constructing that luxury condo will inflate all nearby property values too, displacing more people than the new building itself will hold)
- ScottBurson 9y ago
  I think you've got cause and effect wrong. What mostly inflates property values is the simple fact that lots of people want to live in an area. Or put it this way: the reason people want to live in the Bay Area is not because of the amazing luxury condos. Sure, it's possible to build too many luxury condos and depress prices in that market segment, while not building enough of something else, but we certainly don't have that problem now.
- closeparen 9y ago
  Residents don't need new housing. They are, by definition, already housed. They need a way to stay housed as nonresidents move in. If you can choose a swanky new building in Berkeley, then you don't need to commandeer housing that someone is already living in.

TulliusCicero 9y ago

Displacement is definitely an issue, but it doesn't go away if you stop development. SF has been notoriously anti-development for some time, and that didn't stop the poor and working class from getting displaced (except for those with rent control or subsidized housing, of course). The real progressive solution here would be to use taxation for the government to build its own more affordable housing, housing that is mixed-income, mixed-use, etc. But, that can easily happen in parallel with private development.

jnordwick 9y ago
Aka The Projects.
- TulliusCicero 9y ago
  Yes and no. "The projects" were government housing, but they were not mixed-income or mixed-use, overall they were just kind of bungled. Often they were far away from any kind of city amenities like decent transit or parks or shopping. Other countries like Singapore and Austria manage to have government-built/run housing that works fine. I don't think there's anything fundamentally stopping the US from doing it competently, the high-level design was just really bad before. You don't want to concentrate only very low income people (aka the people with the most social problems and the least social/political capital) in big towers in the middle of nowhere, that's a recipe for disaster.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    In what way is this proposal better or more progressive than direct cash transfers to acquire the same market housing that everyone else does? If there are problems with cash transfer programs --- for instance, that only certain homes end up eligible due to paperwork requirements, or under-market payments --- it seems much easier to fix those than to turn the government itself into a landlord for millions of people. Tenant/landlord relations are themselves a kind of marketplace, and central planning handles those poorly.
    - 9y ago

mikepavone 9y ago

Limiting the supply of urban housing makes the displacement problem worse, not better. As long as the demand for housing far outstrips the supply, only the affluent will be able to afford to live in desirable places like Berkeley. We need more market rate and below market rate housing. While below market rate housing has the greatest impact, both help reduce displacement [1]. Realistically though, there's no way Berkeley can produce enough BMR to fix this problem with existing funding sources. According to the 2015 Nexus study, a household of 3 making 100% of AMI (area median income) can't afford market rate rents and the situation is far worse for families looking to buy a modest house or condo. Local YIMBY groups like East Bay Forward, YIMBY Action and SF BARF support the construction of both market rate and below market rate. They have on occasion opposed increases in the BMR requirements for new housing, but that was out of concern that the new requirements were so high that substantially less housing would be built and the absolute number of BMR numbers would in fact be lower. While not conclusive, some early indications suggest this concern was warranted [2]. [1] http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3345 http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3345 [2] https://medium.com/@LocalPolitics/the-25-inclusionary-rate-is-killing-affordable-housing-db143c4abd31 https://medium.com/@LocalPolitics/the-25-inclusionary-rate-i...