4 ms·

One big problem is expensive housing, caused by lack of supply. This increases commute times, stress in employees, more wear and tear on roads, and of course i

by sliken 6y ago

One big problem is expensive housing, caused by lack of supply. This increases commute times, stress in employees, more wear and tear on roads, and of course increases staff costs (for those staff with valuable skills). Yet cities don't build houses, everyone seems to want them magically to be built in someone else's city. Another big contributor is ridiculous property taxes where two adjacent identical homes might pay 4x different rates because of when they bought the house. Making it harder for cities to have predictable taxes and requires higher property taxes (but only for those that have bought recently), which makes home owners less mobile and the real estate market less efficient. Just seems insane that when house prices spike (see problem #1) that cities are often on the verge of bankruptcy.

Lammy 6y ago
> Yet cities don't build houses It seems like no small coincidence that all the restrictive construction/environmental policies date to the 1960s and 1970s. This is in the state that once passed a State Constitution amendment to undo a fair housing act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_California_Proposition_14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_California_Proposition_14 http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea
foogazi 6y ago
> Making it harder for cities to have predictable taxes and requires higher property taxes (but only for those that have bought recently), But property taxes for homeowners are very predictable My concern is government always wants more money - prop 13 put a hard limit on that. Prop tax money should be vey predictable for cities - assume no houses are sold, yearly increases around 2%, work with that > Just seems insane that when house prices spike (see problem #1) that cities are often on the verge of bankruptcy. What’s the correlation here? Don’t get it
prostoalex 6y ago
> Yet cities don't build houses, everyone seems to want them magically to be built in someone else's city. California high-speed rail was pitched as a solution to address housing costs at the estimated cost of $80.3 bln https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-12/california-bullet-train-adds-another-1-billion-to-projected-costs-for-project https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-12/californ... The problems you mentioned are are only becoming obvious since the high-speed rail project been so mismanaged.

by sliken 6y ago

Lammy 6y ago

> Yet cities don't build houses It seems like no small coincidence that all the restrictive construction/environmental policies date to the 1960s and 1970s. This is in the state that once passed a State Constitution amendment to undo a fair housing act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_California_Proposition_14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_California_Proposition_14 http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea

foogazi 6y ago

> Making it harder for cities to have predictable taxes and requires higher property taxes (but only for those that have bought recently), But property taxes for homeowners are very predictable My concern is government always wants more money - prop 13 put a hard limit on that. Prop tax money should be vey predictable for cities - assume no houses are sold, yearly increases around 2%, work with that > Just seems insane that when house prices spike (see problem #1) that cities are often on the verge of bankruptcy. What’s the correlation here? Don’t get it

prostoalex 6y ago

> Yet cities don't build houses, everyone seems to want them magically to be built in someone else's city. California high-speed rail was pitched as a solution to address housing costs at the estimated cost of $80.3 bln https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-12/california-bullet-train-adds-another-1-billion-to-projected-costs-for-project https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-12/californ... The problems you mentioned are are only becoming obvious since the high-speed rail project been so mismanaged.