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Yes, and if Toyota were only allowed to build 1000 cars a year, you can be damn sure they'd only build Lexuses. But since 1) they're allowed to build as many ca
by dionidium 9y ago
Yes, and if Toyota were only allowed to build 1000 cars a year, you can be damn sure they'd only build Lexuses. But since 1) they're allowed to build as many cars as the market will buy; and 2) because they want to sell a car to every single person they can; and because 3) not everybody can afford a Lexus, then; 4) they end up making a lot of Camrys and Corollas, too.
Now imagine they were currently constrained to just those 1000 cars and lobbying to build more. The car NIMBYs would be saying, "But look! They only build Lexuses! They'll just build more Lexuses!"
But we know that's not what actually happens. And it won't be true with homes either.
- himlion 9y agoBut realistically they won't be able to build an unlimited amount of houses. So in your example let's say they're suddenly allowed to build 10000 cars, an order of magnitude increase. I think those 10.000 will still be just Lexuses. I agree with the sentiment that luxury apartments is a start/ better than nothing, but I think the benefits for the lower end of the housing is overstated.
- dionidium 9y ago"But realistically they won't be able to build an unlimited amount of houses" Unlimited is quite the stretch goal, but, frankly, why not? We've done it before. San Francisco doesn't need to be Midtown Manhattan to drastically increase its population. It just needs to look like most of Queens (or Brooklyn, which would be even better). We've built Queens before. We've built Brooklyn before. It's not impossible, assuming you don't make it illegal.
- jstanley 9y agoIf all they're building is Lexuses, the problem isn't that they're allowed to build too many cars and therefore you shouldn't let them build more. The problem is that they're not allowed to build enough cars.