6 ms·

Mixed-use developments may actually reduce housing affordability

16 points by fern12 9y ago

fern12 9y ago
Link to paper: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2017.1406315 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2017.14...
byoung2 9y ago
The fantasy is that low income people without cars will be attracted to mixed use developments where all their needs are in one place. But middle and upper income people want that too, and that drives prices up. We own a condo in the Philippines with retail downstairs and a mall next door and prices have tripled in the 6 years since we bought. In traffic congested Manila mixed use is not just a luxury, it's a necessity.
- joe_the_user 9y ago
  It's a myth that some particular kind of development will increase affordability. It's plainly obvious that an increase in the supply of available housing increases affordability of housing and a decrease similarly decreases it. And similarly with demand. Not everything has it's price determined by the blunt cudgel of supply and demand but things that are needed to live clearly do.
  - akvadrako 9y ago
    That's not obvious. NYC has a lot more available housing than somewhere upstate and is a lot less affordable. More housing means more people, but prices might even go up.
    - rdiddly 9y ago
      More supply might lower prices, or it might lead to "induced demand" that eventually makes prices creep back up... Maybe even higher than before. So you're both right. The deciding factor which way it's gonna go is basically "location, location, location."
      - YokoZar 9y ago
        And where is that hypothetical "induced demand" coming from? Some other city that now has more affordable housing due to the people leaving town. Either way, when you legalize housing and build more houses, you end up with more houses. That makes getting a house easier, for someone, somewhere.
        akvadrako 9y ago
        Assuming human population is static, you are absolutely right.
        sevensor 9y ago
        > Some other city that now has more affordable housing due to the people leaving town. Indeed. Contrast New York City and Buffalo.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      >a lot more available housing The amount of liquidity has little to do with the overall supply-demand balance. There is plenty of AMZN stock available for purchase; doesn't make it cheap.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Isn't mixed use the norm for Asia? Even (or especially) the poor will live near shops where they can buy things.
- jrochkind1 9y ago
  Making a neighborhood nicer decreases affordability. Making a neighborhood crappier increases affordability. That's capitalism.
  - dwaltrip 9y ago
    It's called basic supply and demand.
    - jrochkind1 9y ago
      I refuse to think the only way that humans can live successfully is with large portions of the population living in crappy neighborhoods because they don't have enough money to do otherwise, or that this even counts as "successfully".
      - closeparen 9y ago
        The only way to increase the aggregate experienced neighborhood quality is to make more good neighborhoods, probably where crappy ones currently stand. Many find this unpalatable, as it extends access from the upper middle class and then down instead of from the homeless and then up. Favored alternatives (rent control, affordability requirements) don’t meaningfully increase access at all, but merely redistribute it from highest bidders to lottery/waiting list winners.
      - dwaltrip 9y ago
        I totally agree with you! But solutions don't come easily if the cause isn't understood.
pessimizer 9y ago
Isn't this exactly what you would expect from something pleasant and rare? If you just want to make an area more affordable, you should make it less pleasant. The answer is to do this more, until it's not special, and during the process subsidize. In fact, if mixed-use areas are inherently more livable, build more public housing projects around a mixed-use format. > The study of Toronto neighbourhoods found that the increased cost, which was further heightened by the retraction of government support for affordable housing in mixed-use areas[...]
- aaronchall 9y ago
  This makes sense to me. The luxury apartments of yesterday became the affordable apartments of today. If we want more affordable living spaces, we need to build build build.
  - wmf 9y ago
    The luxury apartments of yesterday became the affordable apartments of today. Most affordable housing activists either don't understand or outright disbelieve that such filtering is possible. They're also somewhat impatient, so they want to see brand new yet affordable housing get built. Unfortunately, because urban housing was uncool for decades virtually all urban housing tends to be either very old and run-down, recently remodeled and expensive, or recently built and expensive. There are no decent-yet-affordable 20-30 year old downtown apartments/condos.
    - jrochkind1 9y ago
      I guess you could call people living in unsafe substandard housing, paying upwards of 60% of their income on rent, and homeless... "impatient" for this to change. If only they knew it was good for _society_ to be more "patient" about their substandard housing.
      - closeparen 9y ago
        Increasing funds for public housing might accelerate a solution. Stonewalling market-rate development doesn’t make anyone better off (except existing owners). Since we find affordable housing through (effective) taxes on market rate construction, blocking it yields lower total affordable housing production.
sologoub 9y ago
> "Making mixed-use neighbourhoods was done with the best of intentions for our health, happiness and the environment, but as communities become more attractive places to live, demand to live there increases costs," said Markus Moos, a professor at Waterloo's School of Planning. "Walking to a nearby fancy coffee shop is nice, but the premium people pay for that luxury means the barista can't afford to live near their job. Feels like clickbait and a statement of the obvious - of course well thought out and walkable developments will attract a premium when compared to less walkable and useful developments. If we want people to not be priced out, we need to build enough to meet the demand and redevelop existing stock to match the current trends. And you know what, we’ll still be rebuilding neighborhoods to match the then current trends 100 years from now. That’s the entire point - if the city doesn’t adapt to what people need/want overtime, areas that reflect those preferences will become unaffordable, whereas areas that do not reflect those preferences will decrease in value.
- DataWorker 9y ago
  Or everything will increase in value because of less supply than demand.

16 points by fern12 9y ago

Link to paper: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2017.1406315 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2017.14...

byoung2 9y ago

The fantasy is that low income people without cars will be attracted to mixed use developments where all their needs are in one place. But middle and upper income people want that too, and that drives prices up. We own a condo in the Philippines with retail downstairs and a mall next door and prices have tripled in the 6 years since we bought. In traffic congested Manila mixed use is not just a luxury, it's a necessity.

joe_the_user 9y ago
It's a myth that some particular kind of development will increase affordability. It's plainly obvious that an increase in the supply of available housing increases affordability of housing and a decrease similarly decreases it. And similarly with demand. Not everything has it's price determined by the blunt cudgel of supply and demand but things that are needed to live clearly do.
- akvadrako 9y ago
  That's not obvious. NYC has a lot more available housing than somewhere upstate and is a lot less affordable. More housing means more people, but prices might even go up.
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    More supply might lower prices, or it might lead to "induced demand" that eventually makes prices creep back up... Maybe even higher than before. So you're both right. The deciding factor which way it's gonna go is basically "location, location, location."
    - YokoZar 9y ago
      And where is that hypothetical "induced demand" coming from? Some other city that now has more affordable housing due to the people leaving town. Either way, when you legalize housing and build more houses, you end up with more houses. That makes getting a house easier, for someone, somewhere.
      - akvadrako 9y ago
        Assuming human population is static, you are absolutely right.
      - sevensor 9y ago
        > Some other city that now has more affordable housing due to the people leaving town. Indeed. Contrast New York City and Buffalo.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    >a lot more available housing The amount of liquidity has little to do with the overall supply-demand balance. There is plenty of AMZN stock available for purchase; doesn't make it cheap.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Isn't mixed use the norm for Asia? Even (or especially) the poor will live near shops where they can buy things.
jrochkind1 9y ago
Making a neighborhood nicer decreases affordability. Making a neighborhood crappier increases affordability. That's capitalism.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  It's called basic supply and demand.
  - jrochkind1 9y ago
    I refuse to think the only way that humans can live successfully is with large portions of the population living in crappy neighborhoods because they don't have enough money to do otherwise, or that this even counts as "successfully".
    - closeparen 9y ago
      The only way to increase the aggregate experienced neighborhood quality is to make more good neighborhoods, probably where crappy ones currently stand. Many find this unpalatable, as it extends access from the upper middle class and then down instead of from the homeless and then up. Favored alternatives (rent control, affordability requirements) don’t meaningfully increase access at all, but merely redistribute it from highest bidders to lottery/waiting list winners.
    - dwaltrip 9y ago
      I totally agree with you! But solutions don't come easily if the cause isn't understood.

pessimizer 9y ago

Isn't this exactly what you would expect from something pleasant and rare? If you just want to make an area more affordable, you should make it less pleasant. The answer is to do this more, until it's not special, and during the process subsidize. In fact, if mixed-use areas are inherently more livable, build more public housing projects around a mixed-use format. > The study of Toronto neighbourhoods found that the increased cost, which was further heightened by the retraction of government support for affordable housing in mixed-use areas[...]

aaronchall 9y ago
This makes sense to me. The luxury apartments of yesterday became the affordable apartments of today. If we want more affordable living spaces, we need to build build build.
- wmf 9y ago
  The luxury apartments of yesterday became the affordable apartments of today. Most affordable housing activists either don't understand or outright disbelieve that such filtering is possible. They're also somewhat impatient, so they want to see brand new yet affordable housing get built. Unfortunately, because urban housing was uncool for decades virtually all urban housing tends to be either very old and run-down, recently remodeled and expensive, or recently built and expensive. There are no decent-yet-affordable 20-30 year old downtown apartments/condos.
  - jrochkind1 9y ago
    I guess you could call people living in unsafe substandard housing, paying upwards of 60% of their income on rent, and homeless... "impatient" for this to change. If only they knew it was good for _society_ to be more "patient" about their substandard housing.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      Increasing funds for public housing might accelerate a solution. Stonewalling market-rate development doesn’t make anyone better off (except existing owners). Since we find affordable housing through (effective) taxes on market rate construction, blocking it yields lower total affordable housing production.

sologoub 9y ago

> "Making mixed-use neighbourhoods was done with the best of intentions for our health, happiness and the environment, but as communities become more attractive places to live, demand to live there increases costs," said Markus Moos, a professor at Waterloo's School of Planning. "Walking to a nearby fancy coffee shop is nice, but the premium people pay for that luxury means the barista can't afford to live near their job. Feels like clickbait and a statement of the obvious - of course well thought out and walkable developments will attract a premium when compared to less walkable and useful developments. If we want people to not be priced out, we need to build enough to meet the demand and redevelop existing stock to match the current trends. And you know what, we’ll still be rebuilding neighborhoods to match the then current trends 100 years from now. That’s the entire point - if the city doesn’t adapt to what people need/want overtime, areas that reflect those preferences will become unaffordable, whereas areas that do not reflect those preferences will decrease in value.

DataWorker 9y ago
Or everything will increase in value because of less supply than demand.