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Question: I believe it's "well known" (I could be wrong but I've seen it enough times and I think it makes sense) that building more roads or widening existing
by defen 9y ago
Question: I believe it's "well known" (I could be wrong but I've seen it enough times and I think it makes sense) that building more roads or widening existing ones does not solve traffic problems in the long-run (because people adjust their behavior to the presence of new roads and therefore drive more).
So I guess my question is...is there any evidence that building more housing will alleviate home / rent prices? Fundamentally, the prices are high because people really want to live in these places. If you build more housing, won't that just enable more people to live there, which will re-establish a local equilibrium?
Going back to the traffic analogy - the solution isn't to build more roads; it's to add mass-transit options, increase density, reduce people's desire to drive, etc. Is there analogous stuff that can be done for housing? Maybe building more housing is a part of it, too - I'm not saying it shouldn't be done. But it does seem like there are feedback effects in play that will prevent increased supply alone from solving the problem. Manhattan has twice the population in half the area (so, about 4x as dense) but they don't exactly have affordable rent.
- resonantjacket5 9y agoUhh your analogy kinda falls apart as people dont really "use more space" as housing increases unlike where one can easily drive more. There is plenty of evidence for more housing decreasing prices. And there is actually a limit to how much people will demand to live in a place. Thats why people commute far from outside sf into it for the lower housing prices. Of course increasing public transportation would also help. Albeit sf surrounding suburbs also have rent control policies so building reallly far away just increasing traffic a lot.
- defen 9y ago> Thats why people commute far from outside sf into it for the lower housing prices. That's kind of what I'm saying, though - won't those people just move into SF when the prices drop low enough, and therefore bring the price right back up to where it was? I'm modeling this as if the supply of "people who want to move to San Francisco" is effectively infinite? Is San Francisco with 3 million people going to have higher, lower, or the same median inflation-adjusted rent compared to now?
- resonantjacket5 9y agoNo it wouldnt bring the price back to the original. Its simple supply and demand. I mean of course the price would decrease more if no one moved in. But the price would still decrease. If it didnt decrease than those people would could afford to live in sf would already be living there. Plus even if there is a hypothetical price floor (which doesnt happen) where people will move into sf, at least everyone is closer to sf so less traffic.
- CalRobert 9y agoAs I understand it, induced demand (for traffic) is thought to be the result of everyone who used to drive 15 miles to work now driving 25, so there's more net driving. For housing, you've only got one body, so I'm not sure the same situation applies. Although, it would be interesting to see if the availability of affordable housing results in more newborns. I know I felt a lot more comfortable having a kid when I moved somewhere more affordable (though I'm kind of shocked how many people think kids need a giant house - I just wanted a 2 bed apt).