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Most people don't vote in local elections. ~99.9% of the US (by land area) bans multi-family housing, and those laws mostly come from city councils and neighbor

Most people don't vote in local elections. ~99.9% of the US (by land area) bans multi-family housing, and those laws mostly come from city councils and neighborhood committees dominated by wealthy, retired homeowners.

choeger 6y ago
Interesting. In Germany you see kind of the opposite: The (often wealthy and well-connected) people in local politics vote for whatever drives the prices for real estate upwards. Guess who owns the real estate that is not (yet) allowed for building?
- mywittyname 6y ago
  That's how it is in the USA too. San Fran is the most salient and popular example of this. It's not limited to just wealthy here either. Almost every considers how something will "affect their property values." Oh, and it's not even like people use studies to determine how property values are effected. They literally just make shit up in their head, and if they think it will drive down property values, it's a veto. It's why things in the USA are the way they are. Anything not SFHs with big yards and 3 car garages are "bad for property values."
- khuey 6y ago
  They vote for higher real-estate prices but that doesn't in general require multifamily housing, scarcity works just as well.
  - choeger 6y ago
    Well, say you have 1000m^2 to sell. In Germany, in a relatively dense area, you can build two one-family homes on that real estate. Considering the financing requirements and the relatively small size of the plots you can sell the real estate for maybe 600k in total, assuming that a family can pay 600k for a house and real estate and 50% goes into the latter. (This is a rough estimate for generic metropolitan areas, might be much lower in areas where there is place to build, might also be much higher in some areas.) If you do a multi-family home, you can easily build up to 8 town houses or largish apartments on that same area. Say you sell each of these for 500k, leaving the family a good argument to move into this more dense configuration. Even if the construction costs stay the same (they won't), that would leave you with 1.6M for the whole real estate.
impendia 6y ago
Bingo. Decisions are made by those that show up. I'd encourage anyone who cares about these issues to vote, to contact local politicians, to attend local debates or city council meetings.

choeger 6y ago

Interesting. In Germany you see kind of the opposite: The (often wealthy and well-connected) people in local politics vote for whatever drives the prices for real estate upwards. Guess who owns the real estate that is not (yet) allowed for building?

mywittyname 6y ago
That's how it is in the USA too. San Fran is the most salient and popular example of this. It's not limited to just wealthy here either. Almost every considers how something will "affect their property values." Oh, and it's not even like people use studies to determine how property values are effected. They literally just make shit up in their head, and if they think it will drive down property values, it's a veto. It's why things in the USA are the way they are. Anything not SFHs with big yards and 3 car garages are "bad for property values."
khuey 6y ago
They vote for higher real-estate prices but that doesn't in general require multifamily housing, scarcity works just as well.
- choeger 6y ago
  Well, say you have 1000m^2 to sell. In Germany, in a relatively dense area, you can build two one-family homes on that real estate. Considering the financing requirements and the relatively small size of the plots you can sell the real estate for maybe 600k in total, assuming that a family can pay 600k for a house and real estate and 50% goes into the latter. (This is a rough estimate for generic metropolitan areas, might be much lower in areas where there is place to build, might also be much higher in some areas.) If you do a multi-family home, you can easily build up to 8 town houses or largish apartments on that same area. Say you sell each of these for 500k, leaving the family a good argument to move into this more dense configuration. Even if the construction costs stay the same (they won't), that would leave you with 1.6M for the whole real estate.

impendia 6y ago

Bingo. Decisions are made by those that show up. I'd encourage anyone who cares about these issues to vote, to contact local politicians, to attend local debates or city council meetings.