3 ms·

After the war the government built housing projects in NYC. Would it really be that hard to do that again?

Eridrus 9y ago
I think the verdict on housing projects, in the sense of high rises dedicated to housing poor people, is a bit mixed, which is why many low income housing authorities have subsidized housing instead. If you're just talking about the government building houses and then acting as a landlord, then that may have less downsides, but still has all the issues of any government provided service not being very responsive to people's needs. Personally I like the system that Singapore has where most property is owned by the government and then leased to private entities, often for 99 years. It means that the entity capturing the value of land in the long term is the state, but still lets development get done by private entities. But in terms of what is realizable, it seems more likely that we could relax zoning than have NYC all of a sudden find the money to build lots of housing and successfully execute on that project and not make it a hideous brutalist disaster where people don't want to live in and continue to maintain that property well. Maybe you are more of an optimist about government than I am, but IME everything where the government actually has to do something, it's done poorly. Not that private development is perfect, but there at least there is some form of feedback from a well regulated market.
- namlem 9y ago
  Another possible approach is taxing the value of land, rather than the land and structure combined. This would incentivize higher density construction since land owners would want to recoup the tax bill.
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  >Personally I like the system that Singapore has where most property is owned by the government and then leased to private entities >But in terms of what is realizable, it seems more likely that we could relax zoning than have NYC all of a sudden find the money to build lots of housing and successfully execute on that project and not make it a hideous brutalist disaster where people don't want to live in and continue to maintain that property well. Maybe you are more of an optimist about government than I am, but IME everything where the government actually has to do something, it's done poorly. In Singapore most property is built by the government and it's of a high quality. It can be done well, it simply requires a political imperative. The private sector reacts to this by building higher quality housing because the government sets a floor on quality. Maybe you are more of an optimist about the private sector than I am but I've lived in shitty private apartments in Europe and decent government housing in Singapore. If the private sector doesn't have discipline imposed upon it, you get slumlords. Anyway, plenty of the government housing projects in NYC are nice.

I think the verdict on housing projects, in the sense of high rises dedicated to housing poor people, is a bit mixed, which is why many low income housing authorities have subsidized housing instead. If you're just talking about the government building houses and then acting as a landlord, then that may have less downsides, but still has all the issues of any government provided service not being very responsive to people's needs. Personally I like the system that Singapore has where most property is owned by the government and then leased to private entities, often for 99 years. It means that the entity capturing the value of land in the long term is the state, but still lets development get done by private entities. But in terms of what is realizable, it seems more likely that we could relax zoning than have NYC all of a sudden find the money to build lots of housing and successfully execute on that project and not make it a hideous brutalist disaster where people don't want to live in and continue to maintain that property well. Maybe you are more of an optimist about government than I am, but IME everything where the government actually has to do something, it's done poorly. Not that private development is perfect, but there at least there is some form of feedback from a well regulated market.

namlem 9y ago
Another possible approach is taxing the value of land, rather than the land and structure combined. This would incentivize higher density construction since land owners would want to recoup the tax bill.
crdoconnor 9y ago
>Personally I like the system that Singapore has where most property is owned by the government and then leased to private entities >But in terms of what is realizable, it seems more likely that we could relax zoning than have NYC all of a sudden find the money to build lots of housing and successfully execute on that project and not make it a hideous brutalist disaster where people don't want to live in and continue to maintain that property well. Maybe you are more of an optimist about government than I am, but IME everything where the government actually has to do something, it's done poorly. In Singapore most property is built by the government and it's of a high quality. It can be done well, it simply requires a political imperative. The private sector reacts to this by building higher quality housing because the government sets a floor on quality. Maybe you are more of an optimist about the private sector than I am but I've lived in shitty private apartments in Europe and decent government housing in Singapore. If the private sector doesn't have discipline imposed upon it, you get slumlords. Anyway, plenty of the government housing projects in NYC are nice.