5 ms·

Only US healthcare is an outlier in costs among OECD countries. Housing, food, etc., costs are similar.

thatcat 7y ago
Transportation cost is higher thanks to poor infrastructure. Rent for a single bedroom is higher thanks to poor zoning/building code regulations.
- nonford150 7y ago
  Rent is higher in some areas due to market forces. If I have an apartment and can rent it out for $2500/month why shouldn't I? A 1 bedroom in my immediate are rents for @1800/month. Go 5 miles down the road and the same space rents for $1000-1200/month. Differences? "Desirability" "newness" "better schools (which makes no sense if you don't have kids" "atmosphere (I read everyone looks like me)" You can go into some older areas of the city and find rents below $800/month.
  - falcolas 7y ago
    > If I have an apartment and can rent it out for $2500/month why shouldn't I? Perhaps because “you” value morals other than “make the most money I possibly can”? Or you want to provide housing that’s affordable by those who do the blue collar, nearly-minimum-wage work that powers our modern cities? Profit isn’t everything. I’ll even go so far as to say that the current expectation to get “maximum profits at any cost” is a (“The”?) driving factor in the problems we lament in our society.
    - nonford150 7y ago
      Yes profit isn't everything. Providing a safe, clean place to rent is foremost. But - if $2500 is the market rate for that living space there is no reason not to charge the market rate. The goal of a rental space is to meet those forces. A lower wage worker should expect less amenities, but not should be expected to live in an unsafe dirty place.
  - thatcat 7y ago
    The difference in price between an efficiency / 1br / 2br is often negligible. Explain the market force cause of this. Let's consider why older housing is so much cheaper for a second.. Property tax isn't recalculated until you update the building or rebuild on the property. So it's a huge disincentive to ever change any buildings, split lots, etc.
  - bsanr2 7y ago
    Market forces shaped by poor zoning and building codes. $800/m is still precarious for roughly twice minimum wage. Food is also more expensive and harder to get to in less upscale areas of most cities.
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      Not sure how zoning and codes raises housing prices? Poor codes would result in cheaper housing (with no alarms or sprinkler, weak roofs that collapse under snow load, thin walls etc). And zoning can definitely reduce housing costs. In my city developers were required to mix single-family and multiplex in neighborhoods.
      - bsanr2 7y ago
        The opposite also happens: barring multi-family dwellings that would reduce costs, and enacting codes that would allow for cheaper, but still safe, dwellings. The former is happening in pretty much every city, and there's no shortage of reporting on it, so I'll leave that to you, but for the former, I would specifically look at the laws that are forcing advocates of tiny houses and backyard apartments to continue fighting. Toronto recently reformed their laws to allow for the latter, after years of pressure. Suffice it to say, these situations are far more common in cities than the ones you've described.
coldtea 7y ago
Education, healthcare, transportation -- not to mention bad public services...
- ChrisLomont 7y ago
  >Education Do you mean pre-college? In which case the US spends more per pupil than OECD average by quite a bit. If you mean college, then most OECD countries have nowhere the number of people in college as the US. And there are ample cheap local colleges in the US - people choose more costly ones because they can. >healthcare Yep, I stated that one. We're about twice the per capita cost as OECD countries. That cost is spread through the system, including doctor and nurse salaries being quite a bit higher. This is likely due to Baumol's Cost Disease, since almost all higher skilled jobs in the US pay about twice OECD countries. So to drive our cost to OECD levels, you'd need to mandate locally low salaries for doctors and nurses, which would result in lower quality care. I'm not sure what a solution is here, but it's highly nontrivial. >transportation Gas far cheaper in the US than OECD average, and likely cheaper than most if not all OECD countries. Or did you mean in city busses? In which case ours are similar. Or did you mean metro tickets? Again, same cost. Or are you talking about intra-city routes, in which case again we're similar costs. Please clarify with data. >not to mention bad public services... All depends on where you live. To compare the US (by area and population) to somewhere else, you'd need to include the entire EU, or all of OECD, in which case you're adding places with terrible services. If you want to pick small, nice countries, then pick small, nice states, and again, very similar.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Yes! Surprising how European countries compare to the US in size. All of England and Wales fits nicely within the US state of Iowa for instance.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      On the other hand, they are ~50 million.
  - 7y ago

Transportation cost is higher thanks to poor infrastructure. Rent for a single bedroom is higher thanks to poor zoning/building code regulations.

nonford150 7y ago
Rent is higher in some areas due to market forces. If I have an apartment and can rent it out for $2500/month why shouldn't I? A 1 bedroom in my immediate are rents for @1800/month. Go 5 miles down the road and the same space rents for $1000-1200/month. Differences? "Desirability" "newness" "better schools (which makes no sense if you don't have kids" "atmosphere (I read everyone looks like me)" You can go into some older areas of the city and find rents below $800/month.
- falcolas 7y ago
  > If I have an apartment and can rent it out for $2500/month why shouldn't I? Perhaps because “you” value morals other than “make the most money I possibly can”? Or you want to provide housing that’s affordable by those who do the blue collar, nearly-minimum-wage work that powers our modern cities? Profit isn’t everything. I’ll even go so far as to say that the current expectation to get “maximum profits at any cost” is a (“The”?) driving factor in the problems we lament in our society.
  - nonford150 7y ago
    Yes profit isn't everything. Providing a safe, clean place to rent is foremost. But - if $2500 is the market rate for that living space there is no reason not to charge the market rate. The goal of a rental space is to meet those forces. A lower wage worker should expect less amenities, but not should be expected to live in an unsafe dirty place.
- thatcat 7y ago
  The difference in price between an efficiency / 1br / 2br is often negligible. Explain the market force cause of this. Let's consider why older housing is so much cheaper for a second.. Property tax isn't recalculated until you update the building or rebuild on the property. So it's a huge disincentive to ever change any buildings, split lots, etc.
- bsanr2 7y ago
  Market forces shaped by poor zoning and building codes. $800/m is still precarious for roughly twice minimum wage. Food is also more expensive and harder to get to in less upscale areas of most cities.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Not sure how zoning and codes raises housing prices? Poor codes would result in cheaper housing (with no alarms or sprinkler, weak roofs that collapse under snow load, thin walls etc). And zoning can definitely reduce housing costs. In my city developers were required to mix single-family and multiplex in neighborhoods.
    - bsanr2 7y ago
      The opposite also happens: barring multi-family dwellings that would reduce costs, and enacting codes that would allow for cheaper, but still safe, dwellings. The former is happening in pretty much every city, and there's no shortage of reporting on it, so I'll leave that to you, but for the former, I would specifically look at the laws that are forcing advocates of tiny houses and backyard apartments to continue fighting. Toronto recently reformed their laws to allow for the latter, after years of pressure. Suffice it to say, these situations are far more common in cities than the ones you've described.

coldtea 7y ago

Education, healthcare, transportation -- not to mention bad public services...

ChrisLomont 7y ago
>Education Do you mean pre-college? In which case the US spends more per pupil than OECD average by quite a bit. If you mean college, then most OECD countries have nowhere the number of people in college as the US. And there are ample cheap local colleges in the US - people choose more costly ones because they can. >healthcare Yep, I stated that one. We're about twice the per capita cost as OECD countries. That cost is spread through the system, including doctor and nurse salaries being quite a bit higher. This is likely due to Baumol's Cost Disease, since almost all higher skilled jobs in the US pay about twice OECD countries. So to drive our cost to OECD levels, you'd need to mandate locally low salaries for doctors and nurses, which would result in lower quality care. I'm not sure what a solution is here, but it's highly nontrivial. >transportation Gas far cheaper in the US than OECD average, and likely cheaper than most if not all OECD countries. Or did you mean in city busses? In which case ours are similar. Or did you mean metro tickets? Again, same cost. Or are you talking about intra-city routes, in which case again we're similar costs. Please clarify with data. >not to mention bad public services... All depends on where you live. To compare the US (by area and population) to somewhere else, you'd need to include the entire EU, or all of OECD, in which case you're adding places with terrible services. If you want to pick small, nice countries, then pick small, nice states, and again, very similar.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Yes! Surprising how European countries compare to the US in size. All of England and Wales fits nicely within the US state of Iowa for instance.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    On the other hand, they are ~50 million.
- 7y ago