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I don't think it's directly a consequence of the local economies, moreso a consequence of bad town planning. Heritage town planning use to allow 3m * 15m houses

I don't think it's directly a consequence of the local economies, moreso a consequence of bad town planning. Heritage town planning use to allow 3m * 15m houses with no setback. Many better-planned towns eventually introduced more complex legislation to stop this. In lots of parts of Latin America they haven't. Today, in many parts of Colombia, you can take a 150m2 block and build six (!) floors on it provided you have just 10m frontage. So instead of expanding outwards, the cities just became a lot denser, and economics forced up the price up of the land because the land potential is so high. What it takes is a gutsy mayor to implement policies such as requiring at least 1m side setback on houses and 3m for apartments, having caps on the floor-space ratio to 50% instead of 98%, not allowing subdivisions on lands that have less than 15m frontage or 600m2 total area etc. This would basically see the housing market crash - lots of people will lose lots of money. But its a necessary evil. The other angle to this is welfare being given based on the area you live in. Instead of housing support (in the form of tax and utility cost concessions) being distributed based on someone's personal financial situation, the means-test is based on the land classification that the property is built on. The land classification doesn't change whether the house is old or new, or if you build an apartment block on it. Which basically forces higher density in areas with better tax and utility cost concessions - aka poorer areas. In Colombia, this means that buying land in the highest-class areas costs as much - or in many cases less - than middle-class areas. This also introduced an almost caste-like system where people would only hang out from people from their own classification and would look down on people in lower classifications. I appreciate shared-housing is a thing in Dublin (it is in Sydney too, and I have similar feelings to you about it) but the situation in many parts of Latin America exists for somewhat different reasons.

barry-cotter 7y ago
> What it takes is a gutsy mayor to implement policies such as requiring at least 1m side setback on houses and 3m for apartments, having caps on the floor-space ratio to 50% instead of 98%, not allowing subdivisions on lands that have less than 15m frontage or 600m2 total area etc. This would basically see the housing market crash - lots of people will lose lots of money. But its a necessary evil. What you propose is a giant subsidy to middle class life at the expense of poor people. This would take land that currently houses poor people and make that illegal. It also bans building a house with a courtyard on a lot below a certain size. This wouldn’t help poor people. It would just force them to commute to their work from further away. The housing support system described is particularly stupid but housing support doesn’t generally help anyway. The money just ends up in property holder’s or landowners’ pockets, whether in increased land prices or higher rental prices. The only way to decrease prices is by increasing supply, whether of land or housing.
- stevenjohns 7y ago
  > What you propose is a giant subsidy to middle class life at the expense of poor people. The "poor" people are extremely poor to the point that you cannot comprehend. And they have to stay there and live there for their entire lives because the current system forces them to. It is impossible for them to move out because of how unaffordable the cities are and how heavily the system is rigged against them. They have nothing. These people are already commuting long distances and already live in unregulated, unmarked ghettos. Here[0] is a photo of one of those places I took back in March so you understand the extent of it. The only people who "lose" here are the current land owners of legal properties. Renters will end up with lower rent because housing will rapidly devalue to a tenth of its original value - every single house will stop being the foreign investment opportunity that it currently is. > This would take land that currently houses poor people and make that illegal. Clearly it's not retroactively applied. Town planning and zoning almost never is. > It also bans building a house with a courtyard on a lot below a certain size. I mean, I guess? But it also forces properties to have back and front yards, as well as side access, instead of being 100% concrete built wall-to-wall through to the footpath. > This wouldn’t help poor people. It would just force them to commute to their work from further away. I'm not sure how it would do anything else other than help poor(er) people and allow them to start living inside expanding cities rather than living on the extreme outskirts. [0] https://i.imgur.com/b2AKhfJ.jpg https://i.imgur.com/b2AKhfJ.jpg
  - jacobolus 7y ago
    Your photo shows a natural stage of development of most rapidly industrializing places. (Actually, this is the second stage of development for most neighborhoods, after a first stage consisting of all temporary structures with no infrastructure or services whatsoever.) Shanty towns looked just like this in quickly growing American and European cities 100–150 years ago. And look like this today throughout Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, ... People living in those conditions are not permanently poor and hopeless. They are upwardly mobile (albeit from a very low baseline, often as rural peasants forced off their land by lack of rural economic opportunity), with neighborhoods improving rapidly, and generally quite a dynamic economy. Come back and take another photo of precisely the same spot in 25 years and you will see something dramatically different: decently constructed permanent structures; proper plumbing, electricity, sanitation, roads; real city services; and in general an integrated normal city neighborhood as the city keeps pushing outward. Many of the kids growing up in those shanty-towns today will be small-business owners, and plenty of their kids will be highly educated white-collar professionals. Observers who try to interpret poor neighborhoods with middle class standards end up so focused on the apparent discomfort involved that they can’t see the parts that are ingenious, fascinating, hopeful, and rapidly improving.
benj111 7y ago
"So instead of expanding outwards, the cities just became a lot denser, and economics forced up the price up of the land because the land potential is so high" But then, if the land was so much more expensive in the city, people would just move to the outskirts where land is so much cheaper. Land is always going to be more valuable in the middle of a city so it makes sense to make best use of it. What you suggest is a recipe for urban sprawl.
- 0815test 7y ago
  The commenter says that people residing in some (historically poor) places get subsidized. This can definitely be a cause of density increasing beyond the optimum point. But yes, I would just phase out that system and replace it with something more sensible, such as an incomes-based safety net.
icebraining 7y ago
> Many better-planned towns eventually introduced more complex legislation to stop this. Can you give a couple of examples of the towns that have such legislation and low housing prices, despite having strong demand to live there?

barry-cotter 7y ago

> What it takes is a gutsy mayor to implement policies such as requiring at least 1m side setback on houses and 3m for apartments, having caps on the floor-space ratio to 50% instead of 98%, not allowing subdivisions on lands that have less than 15m frontage or 600m2 total area etc. This would basically see the housing market crash - lots of people will lose lots of money. But its a necessary evil. What you propose is a giant subsidy to middle class life at the expense of poor people. This would take land that currently houses poor people and make that illegal. It also bans building a house with a courtyard on a lot below a certain size. This wouldn’t help poor people. It would just force them to commute to their work from further away. The housing support system described is particularly stupid but housing support doesn’t generally help anyway. The money just ends up in property holder’s or landowners’ pockets, whether in increased land prices or higher rental prices. The only way to decrease prices is by increasing supply, whether of land or housing.

stevenjohns 7y ago
> What you propose is a giant subsidy to middle class life at the expense of poor people. The "poor" people are extremely poor to the point that you cannot comprehend. And they have to stay there and live there for their entire lives because the current system forces them to. It is impossible for them to move out because of how unaffordable the cities are and how heavily the system is rigged against them. They have nothing. These people are already commuting long distances and already live in unregulated, unmarked ghettos. Here[0] is a photo of one of those places I took back in March so you understand the extent of it. The only people who "lose" here are the current land owners of legal properties. Renters will end up with lower rent because housing will rapidly devalue to a tenth of its original value - every single house will stop being the foreign investment opportunity that it currently is. > This would take land that currently houses poor people and make that illegal. Clearly it's not retroactively applied. Town planning and zoning almost never is. > It also bans building a house with a courtyard on a lot below a certain size. I mean, I guess? But it also forces properties to have back and front yards, as well as side access, instead of being 100% concrete built wall-to-wall through to the footpath. > This wouldn’t help poor people. It would just force them to commute to their work from further away. I'm not sure how it would do anything else other than help poor(er) people and allow them to start living inside expanding cities rather than living on the extreme outskirts. [0] https://i.imgur.com/b2AKhfJ.jpg https://i.imgur.com/b2AKhfJ.jpg
- jacobolus 7y ago
  Your photo shows a natural stage of development of most rapidly industrializing places. (Actually, this is the second stage of development for most neighborhoods, after a first stage consisting of all temporary structures with no infrastructure or services whatsoever.) Shanty towns looked just like this in quickly growing American and European cities 100–150 years ago. And look like this today throughout Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, ... People living in those conditions are not permanently poor and hopeless. They are upwardly mobile (albeit from a very low baseline, often as rural peasants forced off their land by lack of rural economic opportunity), with neighborhoods improving rapidly, and generally quite a dynamic economy. Come back and take another photo of precisely the same spot in 25 years and you will see something dramatically different: decently constructed permanent structures; proper plumbing, electricity, sanitation, roads; real city services; and in general an integrated normal city neighborhood as the city keeps pushing outward. Many of the kids growing up in those shanty-towns today will be small-business owners, and plenty of their kids will be highly educated white-collar professionals. Observers who try to interpret poor neighborhoods with middle class standards end up so focused on the apparent discomfort involved that they can’t see the parts that are ingenious, fascinating, hopeful, and rapidly improving.

benj111 7y ago

"So instead of expanding outwards, the cities just became a lot denser, and economics forced up the price up of the land because the land potential is so high" But then, if the land was so much more expensive in the city, people would just move to the outskirts where land is so much cheaper. Land is always going to be more valuable in the middle of a city so it makes sense to make best use of it. What you suggest is a recipe for urban sprawl.

0815test 7y ago
The commenter says that people residing in some (historically poor) places get subsidized. This can definitely be a cause of density increasing beyond the optimum point. But yes, I would just phase out that system and replace it with something more sensible, such as an incomes-based safety net.

icebraining 7y ago

> Many better-planned towns eventually introduced more complex legislation to stop this. Can you give a couple of examples of the towns that have such legislation and low housing prices, despite having strong demand to live there?