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While I think I'm somewhat in agreement with this, this post seems to be making some claims without backing them up at all: > To Forrester, low-income housing

While I think I'm somewhat in agreement with this, this post seems to be making some claims without backing them up at all: > To Forrester, low-income housing was an especially egregious example of a “counterproductive” urban program. According to the model, these programs increased the local tax burden, attracted underemployed people into the city, and occupied land which might otherwise have been put to more economically healthy uses. Housing programs aimed at improving the condition of the underemployed, Forrester warned, “increased unemployment and reduced upward economic mobility” and would condemn the underemployed to lifelong poverty. Where's the data to suggest this is false? In fact it seems to me like something that may hold true in data, even if deeper causes are at fault. > but we have decades of real-world evidence that demonstrates the disastrous costs of the “counterintuitive” anti-welfare agenda ... with no evidence provided? Overall they actually seem like pretty reasonable theories at face value and calling them crap without evidence doesn't seem like a good solution if there's a problem with them.

ruytlm 8y ago
Shouldn't the burden of proof should be on Forrester's model to prove that it is true? As I understand it, this article is implying that Forrester's model incorporated those as base truths, without particularly rigourous evidence to support them - hence the comment about his lack of social science credentials. (Whether Forrester actually had evidence to support his model I do not know, as I have not dug deeper.)
- supermw 8y ago
  Demanding proof before continuing a discussion is a way to avoid discussions, not elevate people's understanding of a topic. Many people here do not have the same knowledge of the topic and may simply agree with the first theory that makes logical sense to them if no other data is presented. Being that this is an internet forum, where people come to discuss things, there is no harm in preemptively presenting evidence to show why Forrester is wrong. There is nothing at stake here. If he is wrong, it should be fairly trivial to find evidence showing why. I personally await this evidence because I find Forrester's model to be sound.
  - Emma_Goldman 8y ago
    'If he is wrong, it should be fairly trivial to find evidence showing why. I personally await this evidence because I find Forrester's model to be sound.' Why on earth would that be trivial? The social sciences have existed for a hundred years, yet there are few - if any - non-trivial law-like generalisations about the social world.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- shittyadmin 8y ago
  It's a bit like saying that math is wrong though - logically speaking, low-income housing has costs associated with it in more ways than one, not just housing but for law enforcement, education, etc, all of which will clearly have demand go up and income won't go up as much as if someone who had more money were to live in that city instead. Depressing, perhaps, but factual. If that basic piece of math is wrong, it needs to be proven - how do low income households contribute more than their fair share of city revenue for example? Does homelessness cause law enforcement issues to increase to a greater amount than low-income housing? Do low-income households produce more future earners that add up better for the city? We need some data here to show that the basic economics of this don't actually add up if that's the claim being made, because from a basic economics perspective the argument logically and mathematically follows.
  - myrion 8y ago
    That's not at all obvious. I think first you'd have to prove that all those extra costs "logically follow"...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - akiselev 8y ago
    That entire argument is dependent on the assumption that low income housing attracts people instead of responding to the needs of the local community. Logically, areas that require low income housing are very likely to have a relatively high cost of living to begin with and economic mobility has not changed enough in the last few decades to account for the increase in the homeless population in concentrated metropolitan areas. Despite the great recession, homelessness rates have fallen by almost 20% since 2000 but anyone who has lived in LA, SF, NYC, Portland, or Seattle can tell you that on the ground, bare facts dont tell the whole story. No doubt locating the actual sweet spot is impossibly complicated and it depends on the region but naive logic will not solve this problem, only experience and data will.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
- m_mueller 8y ago
  Well, he built a model that behaves this way. Whether that model is correct or not is another question, but the author should at least give insight as to what exactly in that model doesn't hold. The negative impact of social housing is an outcome of that model, as far as I understand. Note: I'm pro social housing as I have anecdotal evidence for how well it works, however that's in a completely different system than the US, where urban planning puts high importance on mixing up low-, medium- and even high income areas to create opportunities for social mobility.
- Lazare 8y ago
  > Shouldn't the burden of proof should be on Forrester's model to prove that it is true? That's not really how models work. A model is a prediction about how the world works; you can't prove them true. Even if my model of wheat harvests or global warming or city growth, or stock mark volatility works for the past 10 years in backtests, and worked this year, it doesn't mean it'll work next year. It's like machine learning; you can't prove it's going to give you the right answers going forward; all you can do is see if it gave you the right answers so far, and hope for the best.
Kalium 8y ago
What I think you're pointing to is the rhetorical patterns employed by someone who believes they are preaching to the choir. There's no need to explain or justify why something is wrong. It just plainly is and your assertion will be taken on faith because it is aligned with what your audience already believes. The final paragraph spells out, I think, what the subheading hinted at with "dangerously influential". This is ultimately a political polemic.

ruytlm 8y ago

Shouldn't the burden of proof should be on Forrester's model to prove that it is true? As I understand it, this article is implying that Forrester's model incorporated those as base truths, without particularly rigourous evidence to support them - hence the comment about his lack of social science credentials. (Whether Forrester actually had evidence to support his model I do not know, as I have not dug deeper.)

supermw 8y ago
Demanding proof before continuing a discussion is a way to avoid discussions, not elevate people's understanding of a topic. Many people here do not have the same knowledge of the topic and may simply agree with the first theory that makes logical sense to them if no other data is presented. Being that this is an internet forum, where people come to discuss things, there is no harm in preemptively presenting evidence to show why Forrester is wrong. There is nothing at stake here. If he is wrong, it should be fairly trivial to find evidence showing why. I personally await this evidence because I find Forrester's model to be sound.
- Emma_Goldman 8y ago
  'If he is wrong, it should be fairly trivial to find evidence showing why. I personally await this evidence because I find Forrester's model to be sound.' Why on earth would that be trivial? The social sciences have existed for a hundred years, yet there are few - if any - non-trivial law-like generalisations about the social world.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
shittyadmin 8y ago
It's a bit like saying that math is wrong though - logically speaking, low-income housing has costs associated with it in more ways than one, not just housing but for law enforcement, education, etc, all of which will clearly have demand go up and income won't go up as much as if someone who had more money were to live in that city instead. Depressing, perhaps, but factual. If that basic piece of math is wrong, it needs to be proven - how do low income households contribute more than their fair share of city revenue for example? Does homelessness cause law enforcement issues to increase to a greater amount than low-income housing? Do low-income households produce more future earners that add up better for the city? We need some data here to show that the basic economics of this don't actually add up if that's the claim being made, because from a basic economics perspective the argument logically and mathematically follows.
- myrion 8y ago
  That's not at all obvious. I think first you'd have to prove that all those extra costs "logically follow"...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- akiselev 8y ago
  That entire argument is dependent on the assumption that low income housing attracts people instead of responding to the needs of the local community. Logically, areas that require low income housing are very likely to have a relatively high cost of living to begin with and economic mobility has not changed enough in the last few decades to account for the increase in the homeless population in concentrated metropolitan areas. Despite the great recession, homelessness rates have fallen by almost 20% since 2000 but anyone who has lived in LA, SF, NYC, Portland, or Seattle can tell you that on the ground, bare facts dont tell the whole story. No doubt locating the actual sweet spot is impossibly complicated and it depends on the region but naive logic will not solve this problem, only experience and data will.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
m_mueller 8y ago
Well, he built a model that behaves this way. Whether that model is correct or not is another question, but the author should at least give insight as to what exactly in that model doesn't hold. The negative impact of social housing is an outcome of that model, as far as I understand. Note: I'm pro social housing as I have anecdotal evidence for how well it works, however that's in a completely different system than the US, where urban planning puts high importance on mixing up low-, medium- and even high income areas to create opportunities for social mobility.
Lazare 8y ago
> Shouldn't the burden of proof should be on Forrester's model to prove that it is true? That's not really how models work. A model is a prediction about how the world works; you can't prove them true. Even if my model of wheat harvests or global warming or city growth, or stock mark volatility works for the past 10 years in backtests, and worked this year, it doesn't mean it'll work next year. It's like machine learning; you can't prove it's going to give you the right answers going forward; all you can do is see if it gave you the right answers so far, and hope for the best.

Kalium 8y ago

What I think you're pointing to is the rhetorical patterns employed by someone who believes they are preaching to the choir. There's no need to explain or justify why something is wrong. It just plainly is and your assertion will be taken on faith because it is aligned with what your audience already believes. The final paragraph spells out, I think, what the subheading hinted at with "dangerously influential". This is ultimately a political polemic.