4 ms·

What makes any one think that taking away parking will increase poor people housing? That seems to be the biggest shortage. Why would I turn my parking into h

by mises 7y ago

What makes any one think that taking away parking will increase poor people housing? That seems to be the biggest shortage. Why would I turn my parking into housing I run at a low profit or even a loss, rather than up-scale luxury housing? I can make more money off that. And forcing a certain number of units of poor housing will only decrease supply further. I have yet to see evidence to the contrary. Secondly, there are cities where aught but driving is not practical. See Houston; when I lived there, I had to drive often one-hundred-fifty miles per day to different places. There is also no one center; I may have one client in the woodlands, one in Bellaire, one in Sugarland, one in the Ship Channel. How do you propose to fix this? it is too big and too dense for the traditional "hub-and-spoke" model to work, too hot for scooters or bicycles (it regularly hits one-hundred-five degrees this time of year).

bluGill 7y ago
If you can build and fill luxury apartments I don't know why you would build apartments for the poor: the profits are higher in the luxury apartments. California has a big problem in that they make it too hard to get the permits to build anything so everything that goes in is luxury apartments (they force low income housing, but this is forced) However what if we changed things: you could easily get the permits you need to build whatever. After a few years the market for luxury apartments will be saturated. Now when you look at the do I build lower cost apartments, or luxury apartments you build the lower cost wins because your expected income from luxury apartments is zero. Actually the above isn't true in good cities either: all new apartments are luxury. 10 years latter they are out of style, but it is cheaper to rent them for less than to remodel to whatever the latest style is. After 50 years they are low income housing because only low income people will accept the dated of a style. LA hasn't been building enough for long enough that this can't come into play.

by mises 7y ago

bluGill 7y ago

If you can build and fill luxury apartments I don't know why you would build apartments for the poor: the profits are higher in the luxury apartments. California has a big problem in that they make it too hard to get the permits to build anything so everything that goes in is luxury apartments (they force low income housing, but this is forced) However what if we changed things: you could easily get the permits you need to build whatever. After a few years the market for luxury apartments will be saturated. Now when you look at the do I build lower cost apartments, or luxury apartments you build the lower cost wins because your expected income from luxury apartments is zero. Actually the above isn't true in good cities either: all new apartments are luxury. 10 years latter they are out of style, but it is cheaper to rent them for less than to remodel to whatever the latest style is. After 50 years they are low income housing because only low income people will accept the dated of a style. LA hasn't been building enough for long enough that this can't come into play.