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It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to make affordable housing. It’s not like the US can’t afford it. It’s a wealthy country, look how much they have for

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to make affordable housing. It’s not like the US can’t afford it. It’s a wealthy country, look how much they have for the military. It’s just not a problem capitalism is gonna solve. There isn’t huge profit to be made. Government could solve it.

ohples 6y ago
Something something socialism, something bootstraps.
luckylion 6y ago
Government can't really solve it either, but Cooperatives are a great way to handle it in my opinion. Next to individual ownership, it's pretty much the only thing where the interests align. You don't want to live in government housing when money is tight and some company offers a quick buck to pluck up that hole in the budget. Coops don't have that problem, they can't be sold, as they're owned by their members, which are largely also their renters.
- gyger 6y ago
  I agree, coops are the way to go with housing. They can be supported by the state in terms of low cost land rental or tax benefits. I am always wondering why not more businesses are structured around coops and the state is not pushing this more.
- cinntaile 6y ago
  That's what Sweden thought as well. Almost all "owned" apartments in Sweden are coops, yet there is a gigantic housing crisis in Sweden. A lot of places around the world have problems with affordable housing. In all those places attempts have been made to solve this issue. If this were an easy problem as many people seem to claim it is (I am not saying you said this) then it would have been solved already. It is not. The people running this fund realize that this problem is a lot harder than what it looks like on the surface.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    Sure, it's not trivial, but it's not a startup-solves-it issue, at least over here. Even without a lot of NIMBYism, the local administration isn't getting the permits done and doesn't open up spaces. In the metropolitan area I live in, we "need" about 50k flats a year. We're getting 6-9k. The bottle neck is in the government, and unless you replace that government with a startup, you're not going to solve "the problem". The other problems with housing are solved pretty well by coops, even though I'm thinking of moving out of mine - providing affordable housing is nice on paper, but it also gets you neighbors that are socially challenged.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bigyikes 6y ago
Maybe I’m naive, but isn’t this exactly the type of thing capitalism is good at doing (lowering prices)? My understanding is that greedy capitalists would love to build more, denser housing here in the Bay, but are unable to due to zoning restrictions as the parent comment suggested. Why isn’t this a problem capitalism can solve?
- lucasmullens 6y ago
  Capitalism itself can't get rid of zoning restrictions, only government can.
- jonny_eh 6y ago
  But local residents block new developments, using zoning and other methods, since new developments (affordable or not) lower their own property values.
- miltondts 6y ago
  There is not much money to be made by building things, at least compared to the money you can make by renting and making sure the supply is constrained.
jonny_eh 6y ago
> Government could solve it But the local government answers to local residents, but new developments don't help existing local residents (home owners), it helps new residents (often immigrants or young people who can't/won't vote).
sien 6y ago
Markets happily developed cheap powerful computers, cheap powerful phones, cheap clothes and cheap food. In the US there is also reasonably cheap housing in large cities like Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Denver, Chicago and Indianapolis. In some large cities on the coast there isn't affordable housing. All these places have market economies. It's just that in places that are really successful if you have restrictive zoning and stop people building housing that people want prices go up. It's also not just a US thing. In Australia, New Zealand and the UK zoning is also restrictive and housing is much harder to afford. Allow people to build up and out and markets will provide affordable housing. Restrict the supply of housing and housing prices will shoot up in successful areas.
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  Markets are geared towards individualised, itemised solutions. They have all kinds of perverse incentives. For example there’s no incentive for car companies to make public transport, or a cheap efficient car. Hence we’ve been seeing cars get larger and fancier instead. In New York and other cities, financiers and banks buy up entire apartment blocks and let them stand empty to drive up property prices. The advantage of the government is it isn’t tied to a profit system.

ohples 6y ago

Something something socialism, something bootstraps.

luckylion 6y ago

Government can't really solve it either, but Cooperatives are a great way to handle it in my opinion. Next to individual ownership, it's pretty much the only thing where the interests align. You don't want to live in government housing when money is tight and some company offers a quick buck to pluck up that hole in the budget. Coops don't have that problem, they can't be sold, as they're owned by their members, which are largely also their renters.

gyger 6y ago
I agree, coops are the way to go with housing. They can be supported by the state in terms of low cost land rental or tax benefits. I am always wondering why not more businesses are structured around coops and the state is not pushing this more.
cinntaile 6y ago
That's what Sweden thought as well. Almost all "owned" apartments in Sweden are coops, yet there is a gigantic housing crisis in Sweden. A lot of places around the world have problems with affordable housing. In all those places attempts have been made to solve this issue. If this were an easy problem as many people seem to claim it is (I am not saying you said this) then it would have been solved already. It is not. The people running this fund realize that this problem is a lot harder than what it looks like on the surface.
- luckylion 6y ago
  Sure, it's not trivial, but it's not a startup-solves-it issue, at least over here. Even without a lot of NIMBYism, the local administration isn't getting the permits done and doesn't open up spaces. In the metropolitan area I live in, we "need" about 50k flats a year. We're getting 6-9k. The bottle neck is in the government, and unless you replace that government with a startup, you're not going to solve "the problem". The other problems with housing are solved pretty well by coops, even though I'm thinking of moving out of mine - providing affordable housing is nice on paper, but it also gets you neighbors that are socially challenged.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

bigyikes 6y ago

Maybe I’m naive, but isn’t this exactly the type of thing capitalism is good at doing (lowering prices)? My understanding is that greedy capitalists would love to build more, denser housing here in the Bay, but are unable to due to zoning restrictions as the parent comment suggested. Why isn’t this a problem capitalism can solve?

lucasmullens 6y ago
Capitalism itself can't get rid of zoning restrictions, only government can.
jonny_eh 6y ago
But local residents block new developments, using zoning and other methods, since new developments (affordable or not) lower their own property values.
miltondts 6y ago
There is not much money to be made by building things, at least compared to the money you can make by renting and making sure the supply is constrained.

jonny_eh 6y ago

> Government could solve it But the local government answers to local residents, but new developments don't help existing local residents (home owners), it helps new residents (often immigrants or young people who can't/won't vote).

sien 6y ago

Markets happily developed cheap powerful computers, cheap powerful phones, cheap clothes and cheap food. In the US there is also reasonably cheap housing in large cities like Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Denver, Chicago and Indianapolis. In some large cities on the coast there isn't affordable housing. All these places have market economies. It's just that in places that are really successful if you have restrictive zoning and stop people building housing that people want prices go up. It's also not just a US thing. In Australia, New Zealand and the UK zoning is also restrictive and housing is much harder to afford. Allow people to build up and out and markets will provide affordable housing. Restrict the supply of housing and housing prices will shoot up in successful areas.

Synaesthesia 6y ago
Markets are geared towards individualised, itemised solutions. They have all kinds of perverse incentives. For example there’s no incentive for car companies to make public transport, or a cheap efficient car. Hence we’ve been seeing cars get larger and fancier instead. In New York and other cities, financiers and banks buy up entire apartment blocks and let them stand empty to drive up property prices. The advantage of the government is it isn’t tied to a profit system.