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High housing prices are a massive tax on both middle class and investment. It all flows to landlords and lenders. Cut housing prices by 1/2 - 2/3 and the middle

High housing prices are a massive tax on both middle class and investment. It all flows to landlords and lenders. Cut housing prices by 1/2 - 2/3 and the middle class has money for other things. We need an Elon Musk for housing.

cozzyd 8y ago
Hate to break it to you, but none of the products Elon Musk is peddling are meant for the middle class.
- abhinavkulkarni 8y ago
  Well, Tesla is transitioning from luxury cars to the mainstream ones. Secondly, how about reducing our reliance of fossil fuels and instead using electricity for driving the cars (I know, I know, electricity comes largely from fossil fuels, but net, it is beneficial to use it for driving cars than gas)? That's not going to benefit the common public?
  - Semirhage 8y ago
    When? Right now their “mainstream” $35k car is actually $55k+, with a backlog.
    - frockington 8y ago
      And the tax credit is going to go away soon so add a couple thousand to that number.
- rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
  Starlink?
dionidium 8y ago
The problems facing housing are regulatory in nature. We don't need a savior from the investor class. We just need to make it legal to build more housing. There is nothing confusing about it. There's no difficult problem that needs outside-the-box solutions. It's currently illegal to build as much housing as we need. Make it not illegal.
- JTbane 8y ago
  The problem is that owners of property want their holdings to increase in value, so they will always torpedo any laws that would make it easier to build affordable housing.
- kindatrue 8y ago
  Voters (who generally skew towards homeowners) unsurprisingly hate more housing. It's like half the tweets on https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv Also, in California, building more housing is a net negative for city finances due to Prop 13 (1978) passed by citizens.
  - bradlys 8y ago
    Wow - it was so obvious even then that it was a disaster. https://twitter.com/hanlonbt/status/1010931561879953408 https://twitter.com/hanlonbt/status/1010931561879953408 Got that from reading nextdoorsv. (Enlightening account...)
- carapace 8y ago
  In the San Francisco Bay Area you could remove all legal and social barriers to development and the best you could do would be running-to-stay-in-the-same-place. "Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments" https://experimental-geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employment-construction-and-cost-of-san.html https://experimental-geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employme... > Building enough housing to roll back prices to the "good old days" is probably not realistic, because the necessary construction rates were never achieved even when planning and zoning were considerably less restrictive than they are now. Building enough to compensate for the growing economy is a somewhat more realistic goal and would keep things from getting worse. - - - - - I'm a Bucky Fuller fanboy. One of his ideas was factory-built helicopter-delivered homes that installed on a single mast (low site prep costs) and had all plumbing, electrical, kitchen, etc. pre-installed. You could roll out a neighborhood in less time than it takes to build one regular house. He was stymied by resistance from the construction industry, they didn't want to see their jobs vanish in a puff of automated efficiency. At one point they were going to require all the innards of these "Dymaxion Houses" to be installed on-site just to make work for the crews. Our problem isn't that we need a technological savior, we already had one! Our problem is that we won't apply what we already have to efficiently solve our problems. Did you know that early light-bulbs didn't burn out? There's a bulb in Livermore that has been lit for one hundred and seventeen years.[1] Modern light bulb break because they are built to. This kind of b.s. is all around us. We're living well below our possibilities as a species. [1] http://centennialbulb.org/ http://centennialbulb.org/
dangjc 8y ago
I'm in the bay area, and the main thing that is expensive is housing. Groceries are cheap. Eating and drinking out are the same as other cities. To help the middle class, remove restrictive zoning policies. It's a uniquely American problem because these policies were the product of racism. Requiring single family homes kept out poorer, usually black, renters.
- frockington 8y ago
  How is it a product of racism? I always assumed it was due to the city's constituents wanting to protect their real estate invesments
  - cozzyd 8y ago
    Lot sizes in suburbs were (are?) intentionally large to keep out "those" people from purchasing property, further reducing supply.
    - frockington 8y ago
      How is not wanting poor people and criminals in your neighborhood racist? It seems like a normal desire to me
      - apazzolini 8y ago
        You should listen to this podcast: https://overcast.fm/+F_9GH_Hp0 https://overcast.fm/+F_9GH_Hp0
  - ProfessorLayton 8y ago
    It is very much a product of racism. Check out the book “The Color of Law” that covers this issue extensively, and even beginning with the Bay Area. Anecdotally, when my parents bought their house in the east bay, it came with old (now invalid) covenants that literally said no black people could live there unless they were servants. The house was built in the 40s!
  - 8y ago
firstplacelast 8y ago
NIMBYism has adversely affected more Americans than Russia. So I think it's fair to say that NIMBYs are more Anti-American than Russia. Time for NIMBY concentration camps??

cozzyd 8y ago

Hate to break it to you, but none of the products Elon Musk is peddling are meant for the middle class.

abhinavkulkarni 8y ago
Well, Tesla is transitioning from luxury cars to the mainstream ones. Secondly, how about reducing our reliance of fossil fuels and instead using electricity for driving the cars (I know, I know, electricity comes largely from fossil fuels, but net, it is beneficial to use it for driving cars than gas)? That's not going to benefit the common public?
- Semirhage 8y ago
  When? Right now their “mainstream” $35k car is actually $55k+, with a backlog.
  - frockington 8y ago
    And the tax credit is going to go away soon so add a couple thousand to that number.
rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
Starlink?

dionidium 8y ago

The problems facing housing are regulatory in nature. We don't need a savior from the investor class. We just need to make it legal to build more housing. There is nothing confusing about it. There's no difficult problem that needs outside-the-box solutions. It's currently illegal to build as much housing as we need. Make it not illegal.

JTbane 8y ago
The problem is that owners of property want their holdings to increase in value, so they will always torpedo any laws that would make it easier to build affordable housing.
kindatrue 8y ago
Voters (who generally skew towards homeowners) unsurprisingly hate more housing. It's like half the tweets on https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv Also, in California, building more housing is a net negative for city finances due to Prop 13 (1978) passed by citizens.
- bradlys 8y ago
  Wow - it was so obvious even then that it was a disaster. https://twitter.com/hanlonbt/status/1010931561879953408 https://twitter.com/hanlonbt/status/1010931561879953408 Got that from reading nextdoorsv. (Enlightening account...)
carapace 8y ago
In the San Francisco Bay Area you could remove all legal and social barriers to development and the best you could do would be running-to-stay-in-the-same-place. "Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments" https://experimental-geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employment-construction-and-cost-of-san.html https://experimental-geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employme... > Building enough housing to roll back prices to the "good old days" is probably not realistic, because the necessary construction rates were never achieved even when planning and zoning were considerably less restrictive than they are now. Building enough to compensate for the growing economy is a somewhat more realistic goal and would keep things from getting worse. - - - - - I'm a Bucky Fuller fanboy. One of his ideas was factory-built helicopter-delivered homes that installed on a single mast (low site prep costs) and had all plumbing, electrical, kitchen, etc. pre-installed. You could roll out a neighborhood in less time than it takes to build one regular house. He was stymied by resistance from the construction industry, they didn't want to see their jobs vanish in a puff of automated efficiency. At one point they were going to require all the innards of these "Dymaxion Houses" to be installed on-site just to make work for the crews. Our problem isn't that we need a technological savior, we already had one! Our problem is that we won't apply what we already have to efficiently solve our problems. Did you know that early light-bulbs didn't burn out? There's a bulb in Livermore that has been lit for one hundred and seventeen years.[1] Modern light bulb break because they are built to. This kind of b.s. is all around us. We're living well below our possibilities as a species. [1] http://centennialbulb.org/ http://centennialbulb.org/

dangjc 8y ago

I'm in the bay area, and the main thing that is expensive is housing. Groceries are cheap. Eating and drinking out are the same as other cities. To help the middle class, remove restrictive zoning policies. It's a uniquely American problem because these policies were the product of racism. Requiring single family homes kept out poorer, usually black, renters.

frockington 8y ago
How is it a product of racism? I always assumed it was due to the city's constituents wanting to protect their real estate invesments
- cozzyd 8y ago
  Lot sizes in suburbs were (are?) intentionally large to keep out "those" people from purchasing property, further reducing supply.
  - frockington 8y ago
    How is not wanting poor people and criminals in your neighborhood racist? It seems like a normal desire to me
    - apazzolini 8y ago
      You should listen to this podcast: https://overcast.fm/+F_9GH_Hp0 https://overcast.fm/+F_9GH_Hp0
- ProfessorLayton 8y ago
  It is very much a product of racism. Check out the book “The Color of Law” that covers this issue extensively, and even beginning with the Bay Area. Anecdotally, when my parents bought their house in the east bay, it came with old (now invalid) covenants that literally said no black people could live there unless they were servants. The house was built in the 40s!
- 8y ago

firstplacelast 8y ago

NIMBYism has adversely affected more Americans than Russia. So I think it's fair to say that NIMBYs are more Anti-American than Russia. Time for NIMBY concentration camps??