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Only if constant growth is always good. Every step of that has side effects that people may not like. Nobody talks like this about traffic. More lanes, same s

Only if constant growth is always good. Every step of that has side effects that people may not like. Nobody talks like this about traffic. More lanes, same slow traffic speed. Yep, that's newly satisfied demand. It's also widely considered undesirable and self-defeating. It's not irrational to think that slowing down or distributing the growth elsewhere - geographically - would be preferred.

rayiner 8y ago
> Nobody talks like this about traffic. More lanes, same slow traffic speed. Yep, that's newly satisfied demand. It's also widely considered undesirable and self-defeating. It’s only considered undesirable by urbanists. Building more lanes allows more people to travel without making commute times longer. That’s a win. (Here in DC, we are moving from six car trains to eight car trains. That doesn’t make the trips any faster, but allows meeting unmet demand. Nobody disputes that’s a win.) There may be a downside if you’re just encouraging people to move out of the city into suburbs, but in many cases living in the city isn’t an option for those people to begin with. In any case, no equivalent downside exists for housing—the new houses will generally be sold to people who weren’t living in your city and paying taxes there to begin with.
- TheIronYuppie 8y ago
  It's considered undesirable for anyone that hates traffic. So the OPs statement is actually incorrect. It's not: More lanes = same traffic It's: More lanes = MORE traffic It's called induced demand. https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/ https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/
roenxi 8y ago
I can think of three mechanisms to bring down house prices: 1) Build more houses 2) Reduce the amount of lending banks do 3) Distant third, if the government has mucked up the tax/renting incentives so much that people are leaving houses empty that should be fixed. They all sound good to me. However, if the complaint underlying "prices are too high" is that people don't have a place to live then that can't be fixed without growing the stock of available housing. Growth is required. We don't want people to have to chose where they live because there aren't enough houses being built, we want them to move based on economic opportunity or because they like the lifestyle. Traffic is different from housing. In a moment of flippancy, I suggest that nobody wants to be sitting in traffic, but they are happy to be sitting in their own house.
- WillPostForFood 8y ago
  I'd add: 4) move the jobs to less expensive cities. The discussion largely driven by a very small area in a few cities that have been extremely successful at job growth in tech, finance, and lobbying. There isn't a housing affordability crisis across most of the country.
  - bryan_w 8y ago
    I'd add: 5) move the people to less expensive cities. The discussion largely driven by a very small area in a few cities that have been extremely successful at job growth in tech, finance, and lobbying. There isn't a housing affordability crisis across most of the country.
- JamesBarney 8y ago
  Just a note number two doesn't express rent or actual home cost. Just home prices.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > 2) Reduce the amount of lending banks do > 3) Distant third, if the government has mucked up the tax/renting incentives so much that people are leaving houses empty that should be fixed. From what I read, the amount of lending banks do is specifically because of government policy. Specifically, fixed-rate 30-year mortgages do not occur in the wild. You're more likely to see 10-year mortgages -- and that means borrowing a lot less.
- speedplane 8y ago
  > I can think of three mechanisms to bring down house prices: ... Reduce the amount of lending banks do How will this reduce the actual cost of housing? If banks lend less, interest rates will go up, which will lower the value of homes. However, the value of the home will go down in proportion to the higher interest rates. So the homes will be valued less, but they will cost exactly the same taking into account the higher interest rates. The only one who wins here are the banks who get higher interest rates.
MR4D 8y ago
If the population is growing, what’s the alternative?
- zanny 8y ago
  Currently its price the poor out of participation in the most productive markets like its good for them to have no opportunities to get ahead because whole regions of the country are price gated out of their reach by NIMBYs that want the same skyline SF et al had in 1970.

rayiner 8y ago

> Nobody talks like this about traffic. More lanes, same slow traffic speed. Yep, that's newly satisfied demand. It's also widely considered undesirable and self-defeating. It’s only considered undesirable by urbanists. Building more lanes allows more people to travel without making commute times longer. That’s a win. (Here in DC, we are moving from six car trains to eight car trains. That doesn’t make the trips any faster, but allows meeting unmet demand. Nobody disputes that’s a win.) There may be a downside if you’re just encouraging people to move out of the city into suburbs, but in many cases living in the city isn’t an option for those people to begin with. In any case, no equivalent downside exists for housing—the new houses will generally be sold to people who weren’t living in your city and paying taxes there to begin with.

TheIronYuppie 8y ago
It's considered undesirable for anyone that hates traffic. So the OPs statement is actually incorrect. It's not: More lanes = same traffic It's: More lanes = MORE traffic It's called induced demand. https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/ https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/

roenxi 8y ago

I can think of three mechanisms to bring down house prices: 1) Build more houses 2) Reduce the amount of lending banks do 3) Distant third, if the government has mucked up the tax/renting incentives so much that people are leaving houses empty that should be fixed. They all sound good to me. However, if the complaint underlying "prices are too high" is that people don't have a place to live then that can't be fixed without growing the stock of available housing. Growth is required. We don't want people to have to chose where they live because there aren't enough houses being built, we want them to move based on economic opportunity or because they like the lifestyle. Traffic is different from housing. In a moment of flippancy, I suggest that nobody wants to be sitting in traffic, but they are happy to be sitting in their own house.

WillPostForFood 8y ago
I'd add: 4) move the jobs to less expensive cities. The discussion largely driven by a very small area in a few cities that have been extremely successful at job growth in tech, finance, and lobbying. There isn't a housing affordability crisis across most of the country.
- bryan_w 8y ago
  I'd add: 5) move the people to less expensive cities. The discussion largely driven by a very small area in a few cities that have been extremely successful at job growth in tech, finance, and lobbying. There isn't a housing affordability crisis across most of the country.
JamesBarney 8y ago
Just a note number two doesn't express rent or actual home cost. Just home prices.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
> 2) Reduce the amount of lending banks do > 3) Distant third, if the government has mucked up the tax/renting incentives so much that people are leaving houses empty that should be fixed. From what I read, the amount of lending banks do is specifically because of government policy. Specifically, fixed-rate 30-year mortgages do not occur in the wild. You're more likely to see 10-year mortgages -- and that means borrowing a lot less.
speedplane 8y ago
> I can think of three mechanisms to bring down house prices: ... Reduce the amount of lending banks do How will this reduce the actual cost of housing? If banks lend less, interest rates will go up, which will lower the value of homes. However, the value of the home will go down in proportion to the higher interest rates. So the homes will be valued less, but they will cost exactly the same taking into account the higher interest rates. The only one who wins here are the banks who get higher interest rates.

MR4D 8y ago

If the population is growing, what’s the alternative?

zanny 8y ago
Currently its price the poor out of participation in the most productive markets like its good for them to have no opportunities to get ahead because whole regions of the country are price gated out of their reach by NIMBYs that want the same skyline SF et al had in 1970.