4 ms·

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 buil

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.
    - gech 9y ago
      Control speculators and foreign ill-gotten money from new development and you've got a deal.
  - jacobolus 9y ago
    It’s “impatient” to respond to a structural problem decades in the making and now reaching crisis by rejecting all attempts to make structural changes that might chip away at the problem in the upcoming years, and instead demand a limited fix that doesn’t treat any of the underlying causes and indeed exacerbates the crisis for the vast majority of people in the unfortunate situation while making one little corner unsustainably better for a small handful of people effectively chosen at random.
- solatic 9y ago
  It's possible, but it depends on the city. Yesterday's luxury apartments become today's affordable apartments if yesterday's luxury apartment tenants move into today's new luxury apartments, leaving their old luxury apartments vacant with upper-class buyers to replace them. But in some cities, like New York and San Francisco, many of the new luxury apartments are being bought up by foreign investors who keep the apartment empty, or being bought up by rich outsiders who are moving into the city for the first time. So the increase in housing supply at the upper end of the market is only inducing additional demand and keeping prices high, instead of working against existing demand and either lowering prices or improving value (i.e. sticky prices which stay high, but buyers can now get a nicer apartment for the same cost). Such "filtering" is definitely possible, but you'd have to find out a way to restrict immigration and market speculation to make it a reality.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    >So the increase in housing supply at the upper end of the market is only inducing additional demand People move to New York and San Francisco because they get jobs there, not because apartments are built.
mc32 9y ago
Anecdotally the Geneva Towers[1] which have since been razed, began as luxury apartments for doctors and lawyers and eventually its life took it through being section 8 housing. They were torn down due to aging infrastructure. [1]https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Geneva-Towers-To-Tumble-Troubled-S-F-public-3276396.php https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Geneva-Towers-To-Tumble-...

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.
  - gech 9y ago
    Control speculators and foreign ill-gotten money from new development and you've got a deal.
- jacobolus 9y ago
  It’s “impatient” to respond to a structural problem decades in the making and now reaching crisis by rejecting all attempts to make structural changes that might chip away at the problem in the upcoming years, and instead demand a limited fix that doesn’t treat any of the underlying causes and indeed exacerbates the crisis for the vast majority of people in the unfortunate situation while making one little corner unsustainably better for a small handful of people effectively chosen at random.
solatic 9y ago
It's possible, but it depends on the city. Yesterday's luxury apartments become today's affordable apartments if yesterday's luxury apartment tenants move into today's new luxury apartments, leaving their old luxury apartments vacant with upper-class buyers to replace them. But in some cities, like New York and San Francisco, many of the new luxury apartments are being bought up by foreign investors who keep the apartment empty, or being bought up by rich outsiders who are moving into the city for the first time. So the increase in housing supply at the upper end of the market is only inducing additional demand and keeping prices high, instead of working against existing demand and either lowering prices or improving value (i.e. sticky prices which stay high, but buyers can now get a nicer apartment for the same cost). Such "filtering" is definitely possible, but you'd have to find out a way to restrict immigration and market speculation to make it a reality.
- closeparen 9y ago
  >So the increase in housing supply at the upper end of the market is only inducing additional demand People move to New York and San Francisco because they get jobs there, not because apartments are built.

mc32 9y ago

Anecdotally the Geneva Towers[1] which have since been razed, began as luxury apartments for doctors and lawyers and eventually its life took it through being section 8 housing. They were torn down due to aging infrastructure. [1]https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Geneva-Towers-To-Tumble-Troubled-S-F-public-3276396.php https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Geneva-Towers-To-Tumble-...