3 ms·
> by which you mean Houston, since it's the only one. Well, and Minneapolis, and Grand Rapids (which has had no SFH zoning for over a decade straight now, but
by maxsilver 7y ago
> by which you mean Houston, since it's the only one.
Well, and Minneapolis, and Grand Rapids (which has had no SFH zoning for over a decade straight now, but despite this, has had endured a ~2.5x increase in housing prices, and almost a 2x increase in rents). But yeah, Houston is a perfect example of this too.
And of course, 70%+ of all cities in the Midwest have no enforced zoning. They have zoning laws on the books of course, but regularly waive them with variances for almost every project that requests one.
I get that in California specifically, zoning rules actually have a little bit of bite, so in California specifically, fighting zoning rules might be a good thing, and HN is very California-centric, so people's opinions on topics are heavily influenced by their local situation.
But California is not the whole of the US, that tactic won't work anywhere else, because by Californian standards, the rest of the country effectively already has almost no zoning. (Either literally, or effectively through waivers/variances).
Every other mid-sized-or-larger city in the US is already in "build baby build" mode 24/7, and it's only ever increased prices everywhere it's happened. This should be clear to anyone who has ever paid for an property assessment -- property is valued almost entirely by the cost of the nearby property. The more valuable anything nearby gets, the higher prices everyone will have to pay.
- redisman 7y agoThe simple root-cause is that people are moving back to the cities right? Flight to the suburbs has reverted for now. Ironically the high prices are driving people back to the suburbs once they have kids.
- tathougies 7y agoA doubling over the course of a decade is not really concerning. That is the expected doubling time if prices increase 7% yoy, which is slightly under (some would argue a lot under, maybe almost half) the return on stocks. In so far as housing is a form of investment for those willing to buy and rent, then one would expect that the return is around the rate of (basically) risk free return on the stock market.