5 ms·

Housing is only expensive in (big) cities but we all need to go there because of jobs. Good hobs are only created in (big) cities because that's where the talen

Housing is only expensive in (big) cities but we all need to go there because of jobs. Good hobs are only created in (big) cities because that's where the talent is. Solution is to build more cities and provide seed / anchor jobs. Government could do that easily. Rural land is cheap. Government could build a "starter pack" of 1000 homes and move one of their offices from a big city there to provide employment. Borrow / print money to do this instead of QE. Heck, with the current prices the whole thing could be financed by leasing or reselling gov owned buildings in "old city" cenres.

fock 7y ago
at least here in europe, the real talent (as opposed to business-people) in my experience doesn't care a lot (why should you, if you're a workaholic) about where they work, except that I know a lot of people who don't want to move a lot. What's happening instead is Google importing a 1000 employees, paying them half of SoCal (but still double the rate of local companies in the past - thougbhthe profit/employee wage ratio is probably similar, so....) and the admin-people cheer because it's such a nice cheap city. Students and service workers are less convinced about that idea of "we need this good jobs". I'm also courious who owns the land, if we are not doing private, individual ownership. What's the argument for having a (privately-owned) company own the land instead of just leasing it from the government for some dozen years and developing it? I agree that the current market-based, everyone own a home approach is really inefficient, but to reintroduce surveillance capitalistic serfdom (serve your masters, because they own everything) seems like the wrong way to go... EDIT: well, spent the hungover morning researching Google comp and if glassdoor & linkedin are correct, they actually pay a quite normal salary for basic SWEs, which also explains why they like to import a lot of people and none of the locals I know work there...
choeger 7y ago
Add to that the infrastructure to commute between medium-sized cities easily (either by Carbon-neutral air travel or fast trains, which both need upfront support) and you are golden, I guess.
foogazi 7y ago
sounds good but what government officials would want to move to a starter city? Maybe they could start it with a Space Force military base and a STEM focused college to serve the military’s needs. Congress and lobbyists would go nuts for that $$$
sien 7y ago
There's plenty of affordable housing in America where people do want to live as well: "According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, lightly-regulated Houston has seen its civilian labor force grow by 20 percent in the last decade, compared to the San Francisco metro area's 16 percent. Some 21 Fortune 500 companies have their headquarters in Houston. What's more, for every job the Houston metro area has added, it's also permitted another unit of housing. As a result, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $841, and home prices are below the national average." From here : https://reason.com/2019/11/05/bernie-sanders-blames-apple-fo.. https://reason.com/2019/11/05/bernie-sanders-blames-apple-fo.... It's not rocket science. If you want affordable housing make it easy for people to build and increase supply. It's remarkable how Silicon Valley is all about solving big problems for the world but demonstrates with Bay Area housing that some problems don't need technology, they just need reasonable government and if you don't have that, well, things don't work. To be fair, this problem is global. Many places that are doing well that haven't allowed enough construction like London, Sydney, Stockholm, Melbourne, Paris and other places demonstrate the same failure to enable enough housing construction. Posted the same comment earlier this week. The Economist's take on housing this week isn't up to their usual standard. They ignore the parts of the US where houses are still cheap and there is economic growth like Texas, Atlanta and other places. The special is worth reading though, there are interesting facts about how around the world supply has kept up with demand. Home ownership is compatible with cheaper housing. It's just that rules need to be made to ensure that you can keep supply going. That means rezoning things on a regular basis to keep housing affordable. Also probably a land value tax would help.
- alwayslearning0 7y ago
  It's also because those cities were complete dumpster fires a decade ago. Ever walked in downtown Atlanta? Every other street is a row of abandoned delapidated houses. It's easy to get local government to build new homes when half hour cityscape is homes that are falling apart. The bay area suffers from having 2/3 of their growing direction be water. It's not as simple as you make it out to be.
- hurricanetc 7y ago
  Have you ever looked at Houston on a map? I’m not trying to be sarcastic. It’s enormous and the sprawl is incredible. The metro area dwarfs the size of every major city in California, combined. People drive an hour to work each direction on one of many 12 lane highways. The “special thing” that Houston has done is have virtually infinite land, a giant ocean port, and absolutely zero care or concern for the climate or the future.
treebornfrog 7y ago
Movement has started [1] [1]culdesac.com
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

fock 7y ago

at least here in europe, the real talent (as opposed to business-people) in my experience doesn't care a lot (why should you, if you're a workaholic) about where they work, except that I know a lot of people who don't want to move a lot. What's happening instead is Google importing a 1000 employees, paying them half of SoCal (but still double the rate of local companies in the past - thougbhthe profit/employee wage ratio is probably similar, so....) and the admin-people cheer because it's such a nice cheap city. Students and service workers are less convinced about that idea of "we need this good jobs". I'm also courious who owns the land, if we are not doing private, individual ownership. What's the argument for having a (privately-owned) company own the land instead of just leasing it from the government for some dozen years and developing it? I agree that the current market-based, everyone own a home approach is really inefficient, but to reintroduce surveillance capitalistic serfdom (serve your masters, because they own everything) seems like the wrong way to go... EDIT: well, spent the hungover morning researching Google comp and if glassdoor & linkedin are correct, they actually pay a quite normal salary for basic SWEs, which also explains why they like to import a lot of people and none of the locals I know work there...

choeger 7y ago

Add to that the infrastructure to commute between medium-sized cities easily (either by Carbon-neutral air travel or fast trains, which both need upfront support) and you are golden, I guess.

foogazi 7y ago

sounds good but what government officials would want to move to a starter city? Maybe they could start it with a Space Force military base and a STEM focused college to serve the military’s needs. Congress and lobbyists would go nuts for that $$$

sien 7y ago

There's plenty of affordable housing in America where people do want to live as well: "According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, lightly-regulated Houston has seen its civilian labor force grow by 20 percent in the last decade, compared to the San Francisco metro area's 16 percent. Some 21 Fortune 500 companies have their headquarters in Houston. What's more, for every job the Houston metro area has added, it's also permitted another unit of housing. As a result, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $841, and home prices are below the national average." From here : https://reason.com/2019/11/05/bernie-sanders-blames-apple-fo.. https://reason.com/2019/11/05/bernie-sanders-blames-apple-fo.... It's not rocket science. If you want affordable housing make it easy for people to build and increase supply. It's remarkable how Silicon Valley is all about solving big problems for the world but demonstrates with Bay Area housing that some problems don't need technology, they just need reasonable government and if you don't have that, well, things don't work. To be fair, this problem is global. Many places that are doing well that haven't allowed enough construction like London, Sydney, Stockholm, Melbourne, Paris and other places demonstrate the same failure to enable enough housing construction. Posted the same comment earlier this week. The Economist's take on housing this week isn't up to their usual standard. They ignore the parts of the US where houses are still cheap and there is economic growth like Texas, Atlanta and other places. The special is worth reading though, there are interesting facts about how around the world supply has kept up with demand. Home ownership is compatible with cheaper housing. It's just that rules need to be made to ensure that you can keep supply going. That means rezoning things on a regular basis to keep housing affordable. Also probably a land value tax would help.

alwayslearning0 7y ago
It's also because those cities were complete dumpster fires a decade ago. Ever walked in downtown Atlanta? Every other street is a row of abandoned delapidated houses. It's easy to get local government to build new homes when half hour cityscape is homes that are falling apart. The bay area suffers from having 2/3 of their growing direction be water. It's not as simple as you make it out to be.
hurricanetc 7y ago
Have you ever looked at Houston on a map? I’m not trying to be sarcastic. It’s enormous and the sprawl is incredible. The metro area dwarfs the size of every major city in California, combined. People drive an hour to work each direction on one of many 12 lane highways. The “special thing” that Houston has done is have virtually infinite land, a giant ocean port, and absolutely zero care or concern for the climate or the future.

treebornfrog 7y ago

Movement has started [1] [1]culdesac.com

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]