5 ms·

"Seattle's 83 sq miles of land, at the midrise levels of central Paris, would accommodate 4.6M people, 25% more than the entire 8000 sq mile metro region curren

"Seattle's 83 sq miles of land, at the midrise levels of central Paris, would accommodate 4.6M people, 25% more than the entire 8000 sq mile metro region currently houses." Exactly, which is why there is zero mystery here. This is an entirely artificial, legal challenge. We already know what happens if we let cities develop organically, because we've already built places like Brooklyn and Queens.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
> because we've already built places like Brooklyn and Queens. But then with NYC densities would NYC prices follow? Put it this way, do we have examples where higher densities didn't lead to unexpected higher prices due to critical population mass being achieved?
- majormajor 9y ago
  I'd ask that in its reverse formulation too: if density is the answer, why is affordability in the US roughly inversely proportional to density? Induced demand, or something with a similar effect, seems to apply to housing at least as much as it does to traffic. And before we dismiss it entirely as "coasts are more desirable than landlocked middle America," let's take a look at both various coastal cities of varying density in California[0] and various less-desirable (Houston is technically coastal, I suppose, but not in the "good weather" or "pleasant" way) Texas[1]. San Diego is cheaper than SF or LA, but also much less dense. Fort Worth is cheaper than Dallas, but also much less dense, and pretty much right next door in the middle of a bunch of flat land. Maybe we should start knocking down a bunch of non-affordable housing, run off the people with enough money to move away, and watch that affordability go up? ;) [0 ] https://www.apartmentlist.com/rentonomics/california-rent-report-rentonomics/ https://www.apartmentlist.com/rentonomics/california-rent-re... [1] https://www.apartmentlist.com/rentonomics/california-rent-report-rentonomics/ https://www.apartmentlist.com/rentonomics/california-rent-re...
  - closeparen 9y ago
    You could reach for mysterious counterintuitive induced-demand effects in the housing market. Or you could observe that creating six-figure jobs, recruiting people from around the world, and paying them relocation expenses to come to your city, absolutely does "induce" demand for housing beyond any shadow of doubt 100% of the time. If Bay Area governments were as NIMBY about desks as they were about beds, we might not be in this mess. Now that we've built the desks, we need the beds to go with them. (Or burn down the desks? The sheer comedic value of a government on an explicit job-destroying program might be worth it).
  - austenallred 9y ago
    > if density is the answer, why is affordability in the US roughly inversely proportional to density? Because affordability is inversely proportional to demand, and higher-demand areas tend to have more dense housing.
    - majormajor 9y ago
      Right. And more dense areas draw more business which draws more people which draws more business and also increases price more and more... so density isn't a cure by itself, it's part of the cycle that causes the problem we're trying to fix. The same way "add another lane to the highway" doesn't fix traffic.
      - nerfhammer 9y ago
        Dense cities are the one weird trick to human civilization itself. China has seen unbelievably explosive growth in its cities and has also seen 1 billion people lifted out of poverty during exactly the same time period. Coincidence? People flock to cities because they can get paid five times more than they could back in their home village – they're not cavorting, scheming millionaires. Trying to strangle your cities because cities are bad is the dumbest thing you could do in terms of economic growth other than than trying to strangle trade on the theory that those scheming foreigners are going to take all of our money away. I'm sure downtown Shenzen is more expensive today than it was when it was a small fishing village. Would the world be a better place if it had been kept as a small fishing village?
- saosebastiao 9y ago
  You can have affordable density (Tokyo, Chicago), unaffordable density (Hong Kong, New York), and you can also have affordable sprawl (Houston, Indianapolis), and unaffordable sprawl (Anywhere in coastal california). Because density and affordability aren't really related. The only thing that really affects affordability are supply and demand. As a proof of this, feel free to peruse the Journal of Housing Economics for empirical housing price models. Almost none of them show density as a significant factor, and almost all of them demonstrate the dominance of one single metric: the vacancy rate. Literally, the vacancy rate is the only thing that matters. And density is only related in the sense that it is one of the possible ways to increase the vacancy rate.
  - majormajor 9y ago
    Isn't the vacancy rate simply a (literal) combination of supply and demand? So it being the only factor that matters in pricing seems like a truism, but obviously a lot of factors go into both supply and demand.
    - saosebastiao 9y ago
      Yes, that’s exactly the point. Only supply and demand matters, density is no more relevant than any of the other factors that influence supply or influence demand. And within the abstract algebraic model of supply and demand, and density only being something that increases demand, increasing density never increases prices. That doesn’t mean that dense areas can’t be expensive; that much is obvious. It merely means that there are other reasons related to supply and demand that made them expensive.
      - majormajor 9y ago
        Why are you so certain that none of those component factors could relate to each other in more interesting ways? Why say "it's just supply and demand" when it would be more interesting to look at what drives supply and what drives demand? Jobs create demand. Jobs bring skilled workers. The presence of skilled workers itself attracts more employers. Maybe the employers move in faster than upzoning happens. Maybe it happens slower. Whether or not this increases or decreases price is just a question of the coefficients on the various inputs. I'd still propose that the missing piece is geographic - cities that can absorb this by growing outward in a decentralized way will stay cheaper than ones that can't, where things get nasty. But, to move the discussion along, let's just call it demand outrunning growth in supply, dropping the precise role of density (or replacing density in my original post with "geographic constraints which necessitate increased density" or something). Either way the result is the same thing. Do we have ideas that we could try to get turned into policy for stopping this sort of thing from happening? It's a really common pattern, not just in SF but everywhere that's ever seen someone complain about gentrification, so it would be a useful thing to have a politically feasible solution for. EDIT: it's getting late out here, so I'll add one last bit then probably retire for now. I personally am not a fan of remote work, or cross-timezone collaboration. But I think the people pushing it need to win out in the long run. When it comes to massive density increases, or de-densifying the country by spreading work back out thanks to technology allowing better and better telepresence, I think the latter is far healthier in the end. It de-SPOF-ifies industries, which is good when considering natural disasters, potential climate impacts, or war/terrorism. It levels out costs - you now have the whole country (world?) to choose from - while also massively increasing your hiring pool. It evens out opportunity - you don't have to be able to afford to take a gamble on moving across the country to chase your dream job. It saves a shit-ton when it comes to energy used for commuting. And if you ask me if a less dense, remote-friendly world is more likely than getting people to reverse course on a hundred-year-old car-powered trend towards suburbanization, I'd wager yes. Especially because the arguments for the latter are pretty unconvincing so far for people who don't want to live somewhere massively denser and who are able to afford their current living situation.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

> because we've already built places like Brooklyn and Queens. But then with NYC densities would NYC prices follow? Put it this way, do we have examples where higher densities didn't lead to unexpected higher prices due to critical population mass being achieved?

majormajor 9y ago
I'd ask that in its reverse formulation too: if density is the answer, why is affordability in the US roughly inversely proportional to density? Induced demand, or something with a similar effect, seems to apply to housing at least as much as it does to traffic. And before we dismiss it entirely as "coasts are more desirable than landlocked middle America," let's take a look at both various coastal cities of varying density in California[0] and various less-desirable (Houston is technically coastal, I suppose, but not in the "good weather" or "pleasant" way) Texas[1]. San Diego is cheaper than SF or LA, but also much less dense. Fort Worth is cheaper than Dallas, but also much less dense, and pretty much right next door in the middle of a bunch of flat land. Maybe we should start knocking down a bunch of non-affordable housing, run off the people with enough money to move away, and watch that affordability go up? ;) [0 ] https://www.apartmentlist.com/rentonomics/california-rent-report-rentonomics/ https://www.apartmentlist.com/rentonomics/california-rent-re... [1] https://www.apartmentlist.com/rentonomics/california-rent-report-rentonomics/ https://www.apartmentlist.com/rentonomics/california-rent-re...
- closeparen 9y ago
  You could reach for mysterious counterintuitive induced-demand effects in the housing market. Or you could observe that creating six-figure jobs, recruiting people from around the world, and paying them relocation expenses to come to your city, absolutely does "induce" demand for housing beyond any shadow of doubt 100% of the time. If Bay Area governments were as NIMBY about desks as they were about beds, we might not be in this mess. Now that we've built the desks, we need the beds to go with them. (Or burn down the desks? The sheer comedic value of a government on an explicit job-destroying program might be worth it).
- austenallred 9y ago
  > if density is the answer, why is affordability in the US roughly inversely proportional to density? Because affordability is inversely proportional to demand, and higher-demand areas tend to have more dense housing.
  - majormajor 9y ago
    Right. And more dense areas draw more business which draws more people which draws more business and also increases price more and more... so density isn't a cure by itself, it's part of the cycle that causes the problem we're trying to fix. The same way "add another lane to the highway" doesn't fix traffic.
    - nerfhammer 9y ago
      Dense cities are the one weird trick to human civilization itself. China has seen unbelievably explosive growth in its cities and has also seen 1 billion people lifted out of poverty during exactly the same time period. Coincidence? People flock to cities because they can get paid five times more than they could back in their home village – they're not cavorting, scheming millionaires. Trying to strangle your cities because cities are bad is the dumbest thing you could do in terms of economic growth other than than trying to strangle trade on the theory that those scheming foreigners are going to take all of our money away. I'm sure downtown Shenzen is more expensive today than it was when it was a small fishing village. Would the world be a better place if it had been kept as a small fishing village?
saosebastiao 9y ago
You can have affordable density (Tokyo, Chicago), unaffordable density (Hong Kong, New York), and you can also have affordable sprawl (Houston, Indianapolis), and unaffordable sprawl (Anywhere in coastal california). Because density and affordability aren't really related. The only thing that really affects affordability are supply and demand. As a proof of this, feel free to peruse the Journal of Housing Economics for empirical housing price models. Almost none of them show density as a significant factor, and almost all of them demonstrate the dominance of one single metric: the vacancy rate. Literally, the vacancy rate is the only thing that matters. And density is only related in the sense that it is one of the possible ways to increase the vacancy rate.
- majormajor 9y ago
  Isn't the vacancy rate simply a (literal) combination of supply and demand? So it being the only factor that matters in pricing seems like a truism, but obviously a lot of factors go into both supply and demand.
  - saosebastiao 9y ago
    Yes, that’s exactly the point. Only supply and demand matters, density is no more relevant than any of the other factors that influence supply or influence demand. And within the abstract algebraic model of supply and demand, and density only being something that increases demand, increasing density never increases prices. That doesn’t mean that dense areas can’t be expensive; that much is obvious. It merely means that there are other reasons related to supply and demand that made them expensive.
    - majormajor 9y ago
      Why are you so certain that none of those component factors could relate to each other in more interesting ways? Why say "it's just supply and demand" when it would be more interesting to look at what drives supply and what drives demand? Jobs create demand. Jobs bring skilled workers. The presence of skilled workers itself attracts more employers. Maybe the employers move in faster than upzoning happens. Maybe it happens slower. Whether or not this increases or decreases price is just a question of the coefficients on the various inputs. I'd still propose that the missing piece is geographic - cities that can absorb this by growing outward in a decentralized way will stay cheaper than ones that can't, where things get nasty. But, to move the discussion along, let's just call it demand outrunning growth in supply, dropping the precise role of density (or replacing density in my original post with "geographic constraints which necessitate increased density" or something). Either way the result is the same thing. Do we have ideas that we could try to get turned into policy for stopping this sort of thing from happening? It's a really common pattern, not just in SF but everywhere that's ever seen someone complain about gentrification, so it would be a useful thing to have a politically feasible solution for. EDIT: it's getting late out here, so I'll add one last bit then probably retire for now. I personally am not a fan of remote work, or cross-timezone collaboration. But I think the people pushing it need to win out in the long run. When it comes to massive density increases, or de-densifying the country by spreading work back out thanks to technology allowing better and better telepresence, I think the latter is far healthier in the end. It de-SPOF-ifies industries, which is good when considering natural disasters, potential climate impacts, or war/terrorism. It levels out costs - you now have the whole country (world?) to choose from - while also massively increasing your hiring pool. It evens out opportunity - you don't have to be able to afford to take a gamble on moving across the country to chase your dream job. It saves a shit-ton when it comes to energy used for commuting. And if you ask me if a less dense, remote-friendly world is more likely than getting people to reverse course on a hundred-year-old car-powered trend towards suburbanization, I'd wager yes. Especially because the arguments for the latter are pretty unconvincing so far for people who don't want to live somewhere massively denser and who are able to afford their current living situation.