5 ms·

While I agree with you that housing shortages affect a minority of the US population in a handful of cities, I think that just looking at the population of thes

by harryh 7y ago

While I agree with you that housing shortages affect a minority of the US population in a handful of cities, I think that just looking at the population of these cities as a percent of whole understates the impact of the problem. The cities are homes to some of the most important and dynamic industries in the country and the high cost of housing is a big barrier preventing many people from moving to these cities to take advantage of the opportunities these cities provide. This, in turn, limits the human capital available to these industries. I see this as a pretty big problem.

rayiner 7y ago
I agree with you that it’s a big problem. But it’s not Washington’s problem, as suggested in the NYT article. It’s a local problem for the affected cities.
- harryh 7y ago
  Ah yes, I agree with that. The cities (and to some degree the states with initiatives like SB-50) need to work this out.
  - surfmike 7y ago
    In California it will never get resolved at a city level since cities are almost all against upzoning. Agreed that state is appropriate place to handle it though (not federal).
    - harryh 7y ago
      I have a vague hope that the city governments in question will, at some point, stop being awful. I am willing to admit that this hope might be irrational and wishful thinking.
      - DoreenMichele 7y ago
        Some of the problem is actually at the federal level. That makes it tough for cities to solve it.
        tptacek 7y ago
        What parts of San Diego, LA, and San Francisco's housing problems are at the federal level?
        DoreenMichele 7y ago
        I don't know. I do know federal policies and programs significantly impact the kind of housing that gets built. It strongly favors single family detached homes in its various programs, including financing instruments. Federal programs post WW2 were involved in the birth of the modern day suburb. We wanted housing and we created it in droves. We created a particular kind of housing -- single family detached designed for the nuclear family. That became our standard and remains our standard.
        surfmike 7y ago
        Citation? We also created a lot of public housing projects in cities after WWII.
        DoreenMichele 7y ago
        In a nutshell, America had a huge pent up demand for housing because of the Great Depression which immediately preceded WW2. Large numbers of American men served in the military during WW2, nominally granting "all" of them the same benefits, including access to help with mortgages. In practice, this mostly went to white soldiers. The Birth And Death Of America's Oldest Suburb is about Levittown. https://thecommunityalliance.blogspot.com/2005/08/birth-and-death-of-americas-oldest.html https://thecommunityalliance.blogspot.com/2005/08/birth-and-... Levittown gets its name from its builder, the firm of Levitt & Sons, Inc. ... which built the district as a planned community for returning World War II veterans between 1947 and 1951. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown,_New_York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown,_New_York The G.I. Bill aimed to help American World War II veterans adjust to civilian life by providing them with benefits including low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans and financial support. African Americans did not benefit nearly as much as White Americans. Historian Ira Katznelson argues that "the law was deliberately designed to accommodate Jim Crow". In the New York and northern New Jersey suburbs 67,000 mortgages were insured by the G.I. Bill, but fewer than 100 were taken out by non-whites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_and_the_G.I._Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_and_the_G.I.... In the United States, suburbanization began to occur in mass amounts after World War II, when soldiers returned home from war and wanted to live in houses outside of the city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburbanization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburbanization The rapid growth of homeownership and the rise of suburban communities helped drive the postwar economic boom. Suburban neighborhoods of single-family homes tore their way through the outskirts of cities. William Levitt built the first Levittown, the archetype suburban community, in 1946 in Long Island, New York. The country’s suburban share of the population rose from 19.5% in 1940 to 30.7% by 1960. Homeownership rates rose from 44% in 1940 to almost 62% in 1960. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ushistory2ay/chapter/the-rise-of-suburbs-2/ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ushistory2ay/chapter/the-r...
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  It's also a problem for everyone who can't afford to move to these cities and get a better job.
- istjohn 7y ago
  If it's holding back the country, it's a national problem.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    No it’s not. Housing and zoning is an archetypal state and local problem. The problem is caused by state and local housing policies, and can be fixed by state and local housing policies. Most of the country doesn’t have a housing problem, and they shouldn’t have to deal with the self-inflected problems of a handful of (rich) urban areas.
    - pizzazzaro 7y ago
      "Handful of rich, urban areas" "Rich, Urban areas" "Rich, Urban" Considering the way that "urban" became a euphemism relating to low-income inner-city African Americans, I want you to stop and think about the way you're saying there's nothing wrong. Here we are, universally gentrifying anywhere there's actually jobs. We apparently dont care where people go, or if there are jobs there to be had. The regulatory scale of each instance may be local, but the effects are national, even international. Britain, Germany, the US, Canada, even France has serious problems with runaway housing rents. Even those "median income" cities cited in another comment has seen median housing rent rise by 50% in the last 15 years while wages stay flat. But since the responsibility lies with your city council, (and not, say, global international banks treating our housing as "investments" that magically never decreade in price, even after housing bubbles collapse!) this must be a local issue! But who cares about those low-income people and where they're going. Let them eat cake! Are you the kind of person who cannot understand why young people want some Socialism?
      - rayiner 7y ago
        Not all urban areas are rich, but the housing crisis is limited to a few that are rich. If New York’s and San Francisco’s housing policies are causing rent to become unaffordable for many of their residents, those metro areas have the responsibility and the resources to fix the problem. That has nothing to do with the vast majority of the country where housing remains affordable. The idea that job growth is limited to a few high cost metro areas is a myth. Job growth in the south is very strong. From 2005-2013, California and New York underperformed in terms of job growth compared to Montana, Idaho, Texas, Utah, Oklahoma, North Carolina, etc. http://www.policymattersohio.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/figure4.1.png http://www.policymattersohio.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/... You can tell the housing crisis is a local issue because it’s not evenly distributed. America actually has some of the most affordable housing (comparing average house price to average income) out of large metro areas in the developed world: https://www.newgeography.com/content/005858-housing-affordability-and-standard-living-the-14th-annual-demographia-international-housing-affordability-survey https://www.newgeography.com/content/005858-housing-affordab.... The “socialism” angle is odd. It’s the most progressive and heavily regulated cities that are burdening their young people with unaffordable housing. The unemployment rate in Indianapolis is 3.2% (less than half the rate of Paris) and you can buy a house for just 3 times the median income. The unemployment rate in LA is 4.5% and a house costs 9 times the median income. From a housing perspective, it seems like we need more Mike Pence and less Gavin Newsom, not the other way around.

by harryh 7y ago

rayiner 7y ago

I agree with you that it’s a big problem. But it’s not Washington’s problem, as suggested in the NYT article. It’s a local problem for the affected cities.

harryh 7y ago
Ah yes, I agree with that. The cities (and to some degree the states with initiatives like SB-50) need to work this out.
- surfmike 7y ago
  In California it will never get resolved at a city level since cities are almost all against upzoning. Agreed that state is appropriate place to handle it though (not federal).
  - harryh 7y ago
    I have a vague hope that the city governments in question will, at some point, stop being awful. I am willing to admit that this hope might be irrational and wishful thinking.
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      Some of the problem is actually at the federal level. That makes it tough for cities to solve it.
      - tptacek 7y ago
        What parts of San Diego, LA, and San Francisco's housing problems are at the federal level?
        DoreenMichele 7y ago
        I don't know. I do know federal policies and programs significantly impact the kind of housing that gets built. It strongly favors single family detached homes in its various programs, including financing instruments. Federal programs post WW2 were involved in the birth of the modern day suburb. We wanted housing and we created it in droves. We created a particular kind of housing -- single family detached designed for the nuclear family. That became our standard and remains our standard.
        surfmike 7y ago
        Citation? We also created a lot of public housing projects in cities after WWII.
        DoreenMichele 7y ago
        In a nutshell, America had a huge pent up demand for housing because of the Great Depression which immediately preceded WW2. Large numbers of American men served in the military during WW2, nominally granting "all" of them the same benefits, including access to help with mortgages. In practice, this mostly went to white soldiers. The Birth And Death Of America's Oldest Suburb is about Levittown. https://thecommunityalliance.blogspot.com/2005/08/birth-and-death-of-americas-oldest.html https://thecommunityalliance.blogspot.com/2005/08/birth-and-... Levittown gets its name from its builder, the firm of Levitt & Sons, Inc. ... which built the district as a planned community for returning World War II veterans between 1947 and 1951. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown,_New_York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown,_New_York The G.I. Bill aimed to help American World War II veterans adjust to civilian life by providing them with benefits including low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans and financial support. African Americans did not benefit nearly as much as White Americans. Historian Ira Katznelson argues that "the law was deliberately designed to accommodate Jim Crow". In the New York and northern New Jersey suburbs 67,000 mortgages were insured by the G.I. Bill, but fewer than 100 were taken out by non-whites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_and_the_G.I._Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_and_the_G.I.... In the United States, suburbanization began to occur in mass amounts after World War II, when soldiers returned home from war and wanted to live in houses outside of the city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburbanization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburbanization The rapid growth of homeownership and the rise of suburban communities helped drive the postwar economic boom. Suburban neighborhoods of single-family homes tore their way through the outskirts of cities. William Levitt built the first Levittown, the archetype suburban community, in 1946 in Long Island, New York. The country’s suburban share of the population rose from 19.5% in 1940 to 30.7% by 1960. Homeownership rates rose from 44% in 1940 to almost 62% in 1960. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ushistory2ay/chapter/the-rise-of-suburbs-2/ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ushistory2ay/chapter/the-r...
BurningFrog 7y ago
It's also a problem for everyone who can't afford to move to these cities and get a better job.
istjohn 7y ago
If it's holding back the country, it's a national problem.
- rayiner 7y ago
  No it’s not. Housing and zoning is an archetypal state and local problem. The problem is caused by state and local housing policies, and can be fixed by state and local housing policies. Most of the country doesn’t have a housing problem, and they shouldn’t have to deal with the self-inflected problems of a handful of (rich) urban areas.
  - pizzazzaro 7y ago
    "Handful of rich, urban areas" "Rich, Urban areas" "Rich, Urban" Considering the way that "urban" became a euphemism relating to low-income inner-city African Americans, I want you to stop and think about the way you're saying there's nothing wrong. Here we are, universally gentrifying anywhere there's actually jobs. We apparently dont care where people go, or if there are jobs there to be had. The regulatory scale of each instance may be local, but the effects are national, even international. Britain, Germany, the US, Canada, even France has serious problems with runaway housing rents. Even those "median income" cities cited in another comment has seen median housing rent rise by 50% in the last 15 years while wages stay flat. But since the responsibility lies with your city council, (and not, say, global international banks treating our housing as "investments" that magically never decreade in price, even after housing bubbles collapse!) this must be a local issue! But who cares about those low-income people and where they're going. Let them eat cake! Are you the kind of person who cannot understand why young people want some Socialism?
    - rayiner 7y ago
      Not all urban areas are rich, but the housing crisis is limited to a few that are rich. If New York’s and San Francisco’s housing policies are causing rent to become unaffordable for many of their residents, those metro areas have the responsibility and the resources to fix the problem. That has nothing to do with the vast majority of the country where housing remains affordable. The idea that job growth is limited to a few high cost metro areas is a myth. Job growth in the south is very strong. From 2005-2013, California and New York underperformed in terms of job growth compared to Montana, Idaho, Texas, Utah, Oklahoma, North Carolina, etc. http://www.policymattersohio.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/figure4.1.png http://www.policymattersohio.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/... You can tell the housing crisis is a local issue because it’s not evenly distributed. America actually has some of the most affordable housing (comparing average house price to average income) out of large metro areas in the developed world: https://www.newgeography.com/content/005858-housing-affordability-and-standard-living-the-14th-annual-demographia-international-housing-affordability-survey https://www.newgeography.com/content/005858-housing-affordab.... The “socialism” angle is odd. It’s the most progressive and heavily regulated cities that are burdening their young people with unaffordable housing. The unemployment rate in Indianapolis is 3.2% (less than half the rate of Paris) and you can buy a house for just 3 times the median income. The unemployment rate in LA is 4.5% and a house costs 9 times the median income. From a housing perspective, it seems like we need more Mike Pence and less Gavin Newsom, not the other way around.