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Rent control is a bandaid that tries to fix fundamental systemic flaws and lack of planning by society. Problems: They do mention Oregon's land use laws. I d
by mjevans 8y ago
Rent control is a bandaid that tries to fix fundamental systemic flaws and lack of planning by society.
Problems:
They do mention Oregon's land use laws. I didn't see it while skimming but (for west coast states) the land that is actually "state" instead of federal is also an issue (#1).
However the biggest issue is that the Supply vs Demand curves for housing are simply insane.
Demand is mostly dictated by jobs, and only slightly moderated by the quality of public transit and transportation infrastructure (mass transit AND freeways/parking included).
As a nation the US has been housing constrained for at least 20 years, probably longer.
Worse for a generation or two housing has been used as an investment rather than the cost center that it is; so all sorts of market incentives are massively messed up.
Finally "career" jobs, which allow someone to live in the same house for their entire adult life more or less began a long slow death in the 1980s, which is the true beginning of the destruction of communities.
Solutions to consider:
Tax, based on land use opportunity cost/value. This should have a built in history consideration that gradually introduces rising land use potential over a number of years. (E.G. sliding window over 10 or 20 years)
Tax, transparently, to fund infrastructure, and provide a place (website?) where someone can go to see what their tax dollars are actually being spent on. How they are getting value for services.
Zone and re-zone and do urban development more like Japan (#2) and Europe (? speculation) do; based on nuisance level.
Encourage, via help with red-tape, ignoring local opposition when exceeding code requirements, and co-coordinating funding and insurance bids for projects, that there is ample supply on the market to reach the desired rental price for an area. If builders don't want to service an area help local benefit corporations get started to fulfill this need.
Raise the building codes and promote buildings that are designed to last, be safe and comfortable to live in, and which encourage privacy at home while being responsible to the community around them.
Design transportation in city cores more like the Caves of Steel, and provide civic infrastructure (monitored parking garages/etc) at the edges to interface with the exterior world.
#1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LruaD7XhQ50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LruaD7XhQ50 "CGP Grey - what is (US) Federal Land"
#2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8540845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8540845 ----- http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html
Edits - I can never remember what variant of markdown this site uses... please don't convert my text to italics.
- jim-jim-jim 8y agoAnother far less wonky solution to consider: public housing.
- Kalium 8y agoThe tricks tend to be affording enough of it, building enough of it, and maintaining it. Even places with widely lauded public housing systems, like Vienna, can't reliably manage all of these. Public housing in the US has a less pleasant record, often synonymous with concentrated poverty.
- everdev 8y agoI've never met anyone in the US who has enjoyed their experience in public housing or low rent apartments.
- cookingrobot 8y agoHere are some examples from outside of the US of luxury public housing. https://jacobinmag.com/2018/11/beautiful-public-housing-red-vienna-social-housing https://jacobinmag.com/2018/11/beautiful-public-housing-red-...
- everdev 8y agoI don't think it's an engineering challenge, I think it's a cultural challenge. When traveling abroad, it's amazing how clean everything is. The amount of trash on US highways, city sidewalks, public parks, etc. is pretty noticeable when you return. I'm sure we could build beautiful housing pretty affordably, but I'm not sure we could keep it beautiful unless we treat affordable housing as an ongoing investment and not just build it and forget about it.
- Bartweiss 8y agoPublic housing is hardly a libertarian's dream, but even from a laissez-faire viewpoint this makes vastly more sense than rent control. If you want something, and the market isn't providing it, you subsidize the supply or you buy it directly. That might distort prices relative to an independent market, but if your public policy is stable they'll still reflect relative demand and supply. Subsidizing purchases or constraining prices doesn't just alter the market, it degrades the signal - and usually doesn't fulfill the goal except in the very short term.