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What are peoples longterm views on the viability of just expanding housing? The view currently seems to be that prices are so high, so if we enable x more housi

What are peoples longterm views on the viability of just expanding housing? The view currently seems to be that prices are so high, so if we enable x more housing units to be built, prices could come down. This might be true, but in the longrun housing prices are high because it's a desirable area to live in and they'll inextricably skyrocket back on up as those x become entrenched and now a new 2x want in. Take Hong Kong as the extreme example of this issue. It's currently the 4th most densely populated area in the world with 7.4 million people spread around 427 square miles. But that density didn't solve anything as its economic desirability remains high and it is also one of the most expensive areas in the world. The same was true of Tokyo decades ago when Japan was the effective technological leader of the world - the main reason housing is somewhat affordable there now is because they've gone through decades of recession and decline. Anyhow, I'm not sure if I'm missing something here because I think this issue is fairly self evident, but seems rarely discussed.

Decade 8y ago
Expanding housing causing expanding demand is not rarely discussed. It is implicit to a lot of NIMBYism here. The issue is to be always responsive to needs. Every place that has become unaffordable, started as a place that was affordable but then stopped building. Hong Kong is the 4th most densely populated area? Then it has room to grow. Hong Kong used to build lots of public housing for the growing population, but I heard that they stopped. Tokyo is an interesting example. Despite the recession, it is growing, not shrinking. It’s expensive, but a detached single-family home in Tokyo is cheaper than an apartment in San Francisco. I hear that average apartment size, indicating how much space people can afford, is actually going up. We think it’s because zoning law is national in Japan, and also it legalizes mixed-use walkable neighborhoods, compared to the HOA-level car-is-supreme laws in the United States. http://urbankchoze.blogspot.ca/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.ca/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html If the idea is that you have to plan to be ahead of demand, then the history of California is that the plan is too timid and unenforceable. https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/of-california-cities-failed-to-meet-state-housing-goals-and/article_a609ae5e-09d7-11e8-a94e-3b67baeaae8b.html https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/of-california-citi...
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  I'm not so sure there. There seems to be an almost certainly causal relationship between the cost of living in an area and the economic potential in that area. When people come to an area because there is potential to make lots of money, the cost of living is going to inevitably skyrocket. This is absolutely the Bay Area in a nutshell. Recession is not about population growth, but economic growth. The reason Japan became a [relatively] affordable place to live is because its economy has been doing very poorly for decades now. To take things to an extreme, Cairo is growing incredibly rapidly and has a huge density yet the cost of living is negligible, and that's because the economic potential there is quite awful. By contrast Hong Kong is still booming and so costs will continue to increase. When economies do well you get economic migrants, in the sense that people move to a place because it's economically desirable. And this is the bay area in a nutshell. Let's imagine in some crazy world that the Bay Area makes it possible to regularly find housing for let's say $1500/month. $1500 month with the regular availability of 6 figure salaries for development means you're going to get pretty much every developer in tech looking for a job moving there either until the price of housing starts becoming unaffordable, or the city is no longer economically desirable.

Decade 8y ago

Expanding housing causing expanding demand is not rarely discussed. It is implicit to a lot of NIMBYism here. The issue is to be always responsive to needs. Every place that has become unaffordable, started as a place that was affordable but then stopped building. Hong Kong is the 4th most densely populated area? Then it has room to grow. Hong Kong used to build lots of public housing for the growing population, but I heard that they stopped. Tokyo is an interesting example. Despite the recession, it is growing, not shrinking. It’s expensive, but a detached single-family home in Tokyo is cheaper than an apartment in San Francisco. I hear that average apartment size, indicating how much space people can afford, is actually going up. We think it’s because zoning law is national in Japan, and also it legalizes mixed-use walkable neighborhoods, compared to the HOA-level car-is-supreme laws in the United States. http://urbankchoze.blogspot.ca/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.ca/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html If the idea is that you have to plan to be ahead of demand, then the history of California is that the plan is too timid and unenforceable. https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/of-california-cities-failed-to-meet-state-housing-goals-and/article_a609ae5e-09d7-11e8-a94e-3b67baeaae8b.html https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/of-california-citi...

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I'm not so sure there. There seems to be an almost certainly causal relationship between the cost of living in an area and the economic potential in that area. When people come to an area because there is potential to make lots of money, the cost of living is going to inevitably skyrocket. This is absolutely the Bay Area in a nutshell. Recession is not about population growth, but economic growth. The reason Japan became a [relatively] affordable place to live is because its economy has been doing very poorly for decades now. To take things to an extreme, Cairo is growing incredibly rapidly and has a huge density yet the cost of living is negligible, and that's because the economic potential there is quite awful. By contrast Hong Kong is still booming and so costs will continue to increase. When economies do well you get economic migrants, in the sense that people move to a place because it's economically desirable. And this is the bay area in a nutshell. Let's imagine in some crazy world that the Bay Area makes it possible to regularly find housing for let's say $1500/month. $1500 month with the regular availability of 6 figure salaries for development means you're going to get pretty much every developer in tech looking for a job moving there either until the price of housing starts becoming unaffordable, or the city is no longer economically desirable.