6 ms·

The induced demand aspect is one I've found interesting for a long time. The linked studies are interesting, but they seem to be looking at just short-term imp

The induced demand aspect is one I've found interesting for a long time. The linked studies are interesting, but they seem to be looking at just short-term impacts, which I don't think would reveal anything of a potential "high demand -> new housing -> new commercial/business development to serve and take advantage of higher density -> even higher demand -> higher prices" cycle. In developed countries, prices seem to be highest in the most developed, densest cities, which is why I suspect this loop exists. (The counter-argument, which you could make based on SF, would probably be something like "a business cycle of growth like that can happen even without new residential construction, and then you just have even higher prices and more displacement as a result than if you'd built residential to match the business growth." But I wonder if this is ideal for the long-term health of the city or state/country at large, in cases of a bubble or compared to some of that business growth being spread out in more regions.)

closeparen 6y ago
Many usages of "induced demand" in this debate are really talking about increase in quantity demanded, i.e. more people will buy housing at a lower price. The YIMBY response is "of course, that's the point" but for many left-NIMBYs the point was to reduce pressure on the budgets of existing households; accommodating these new buyers is not helpful (and might be harmful).
- maxthegeek1 6y ago
  "New buyers" == immigrants.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    Or people who were stuck with roommates/family and now able to form their own households.
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    Living in SF made me realize just how close the west coast progressive rhetoric is to Trumpism. It's a strongly malthusian, always striking a tone of collective loss/victimization - helplessness in the defense of a birthright against some all invasive, malignant out-group based around a yearning for some rose tinted idea of the past.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      Housing in a given neighborhood is actually malthusian. You can not produce land. Also, defending the in-group is good, actually, when the in-group is 99% of people of lower income. The problem with Trumpism is the defense of a xenophobic/racist ingroup and economic malthusianism in the production of commodities. There is no issue in and of itself in having a ingroup, especially one that is rabidly inclusive, and no issue recognizing that you cannot endlessly produce more housing on finite land area cities.
      - closeparen 6y ago
        The whole argument is about getting more people onto the same land via taller buildings. "Endlessly" seems disingenuous in this context; we are nowhere near the technological limits on scaling cities. We are choosing not to pick up trivial wins.
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        Actually, no, we are really not that far away. When you start building taller, you do start having four important issues. First, you start having issues destroying existing housing and replacing it with taller buildings, which in the period in between leads to less supply, and then the rent on the taller buildings often is barely lower than it was before. You also start having issues with traffic, obviously, and air quality, which can easily get so bad that no improvement is possible any more, especially when you cannot force people to use very high performance public transit The third issue is that as you are already at taller structures, it gets more and more expensive to make things taller still - not only are the existing structures already incredibly expensive to build and thus really expensive to replace, but the structures you replace them with are also more and more expensive. Which leads to the result that simply increasing density is not a solution to the problem but instead a temporary fix, as you rapidly brush up against the density limits of your economics and infrastructure, such that even the very densest places such as Hong Kong have hugely unaffordable housing. And as you arrive to your limit, the 6-7% rent increase clock keeps ticking and ticking, sometimes even faster than you can reduce it via increased supply while you're doing a massive building, let alone when you're not anymore. So yes, there is simply no way to fix skyrocketing rent by simply scaling cities vertically. The truth is that in the end there is a hard limit to how cheap you can make housing in a free market. And you're just stuck there. The root cause is that you can't build more land. So the only solutions that work long-term require at least partial decomodification.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    I'm sorry, but this is incredibly disconnected from real life. In the real world, recent immigrants don't get to own property, much less own property to rent it out at increasing prices. New buyers are absolutely not immigrants. Most immigrants are new renters, and cost sensitive ones at that.
- majormajor 6y ago
  > Many usages of "induced demand" in this debate are really talking about increase in quantity demanded, i.e. more people will buy housing at a lower price. Pretty much every market of interest for this debate is supply limited, so more people CAN'T buy housing if all that changes is price. It just becomes more of a lottery. That's not what I nor the linked article are talking about - more an idea that continual growth may not necessarily ever lead to long-term downward price movement.
Ericson2314 6y ago
In the US, "spread out" == suburbanization which is a huge failure failure on so many levels. (Bad for environment, causes loneliness and isolation, and plain less ROI because proximity creates the dynamic economy). Unless we have a fully "post-growth" economy, we need more Urban core.
- majormajor 6y ago
  Spread out here would really more refer to separate cities (with varying levels of urbanness) e.g. Austin, Denver, etc, since the densest cities don't really have room for more suburbanization. Is there a point where proximity a la SF turns into too much of a monoculture to still be as long-term beneficial? (Those other cities, though, do have room to grow outward still, and so far keep going out; it will be interesting to see how long they can sustain that.)
  - zip1234 6y ago
    The inner suburbs should stop subsidizing it by not widening freeways. Right now outward expansion is highly subsidized by everyone paying for those roads and not just the people living 1hr away from the city center that are commuting.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    No cities in 2021 should be growing outward. Tracy, CA is an abomination, but so is the Sunset in SF. Broadway Junction in Brooklyn should be a second midtown. Building up Austin proper or building those up is equally good in my mind.
- andromeduck 6y ago
  It also makes for inefficient infrastructure expenditures or poor quality of service.
aidenn0 6y ago
Geography is important for those cities too. Nobody "builds up" in the US unless there's no place for the sprawl to go. Compare Atlanta and Houston to New York and San Francisco.

closeparen 6y ago

Many usages of "induced demand" in this debate are really talking about increase in quantity demanded, i.e. more people will buy housing at a lower price. The YIMBY response is "of course, that's the point" but for many left-NIMBYs the point was to reduce pressure on the budgets of existing households; accommodating these new buyers is not helpful (and might be harmful).

maxthegeek1 6y ago
"New buyers" == immigrants.
- closeparen 6y ago
  Or people who were stuck with roommates/family and now able to form their own households.
- andromeduck 6y ago
  Living in SF made me realize just how close the west coast progressive rhetoric is to Trumpism. It's a strongly malthusian, always striking a tone of collective loss/victimization - helplessness in the defense of a birthright against some all invasive, malignant out-group based around a yearning for some rose tinted idea of the past.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    Housing in a given neighborhood is actually malthusian. You can not produce land. Also, defending the in-group is good, actually, when the in-group is 99% of people of lower income. The problem with Trumpism is the defense of a xenophobic/racist ingroup and economic malthusianism in the production of commodities. There is no issue in and of itself in having a ingroup, especially one that is rabidly inclusive, and no issue recognizing that you cannot endlessly produce more housing on finite land area cities.
    - closeparen 6y ago
      The whole argument is about getting more people onto the same land via taller buildings. "Endlessly" seems disingenuous in this context; we are nowhere near the technological limits on scaling cities. We are choosing not to pick up trivial wins.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        Actually, no, we are really not that far away. When you start building taller, you do start having four important issues. First, you start having issues destroying existing housing and replacing it with taller buildings, which in the period in between leads to less supply, and then the rent on the taller buildings often is barely lower than it was before. You also start having issues with traffic, obviously, and air quality, which can easily get so bad that no improvement is possible any more, especially when you cannot force people to use very high performance public transit The third issue is that as you are already at taller structures, it gets more and more expensive to make things taller still - not only are the existing structures already incredibly expensive to build and thus really expensive to replace, but the structures you replace them with are also more and more expensive. Which leads to the result that simply increasing density is not a solution to the problem but instead a temporary fix, as you rapidly brush up against the density limits of your economics and infrastructure, such that even the very densest places such as Hong Kong have hugely unaffordable housing. And as you arrive to your limit, the 6-7% rent increase clock keeps ticking and ticking, sometimes even faster than you can reduce it via increased supply while you're doing a massive building, let alone when you're not anymore. So yes, there is simply no way to fix skyrocketing rent by simply scaling cities vertically. The truth is that in the end there is a hard limit to how cheap you can make housing in a free market. And you're just stuck there. The root cause is that you can't build more land. So the only solutions that work long-term require at least partial decomodification.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  I'm sorry, but this is incredibly disconnected from real life. In the real world, recent immigrants don't get to own property, much less own property to rent it out at increasing prices. New buyers are absolutely not immigrants. Most immigrants are new renters, and cost sensitive ones at that.
majormajor 6y ago
> Many usages of "induced demand" in this debate are really talking about increase in quantity demanded, i.e. more people will buy housing at a lower price. Pretty much every market of interest for this debate is supply limited, so more people CAN'T buy housing if all that changes is price. It just becomes more of a lottery. That's not what I nor the linked article are talking about - more an idea that continual growth may not necessarily ever lead to long-term downward price movement.

Ericson2314 6y ago

In the US, "spread out" == suburbanization which is a huge failure failure on so many levels. (Bad for environment, causes loneliness and isolation, and plain less ROI because proximity creates the dynamic economy). Unless we have a fully "post-growth" economy, we need more Urban core.

majormajor 6y ago
Spread out here would really more refer to separate cities (with varying levels of urbanness) e.g. Austin, Denver, etc, since the densest cities don't really have room for more suburbanization. Is there a point where proximity a la SF turns into too much of a monoculture to still be as long-term beneficial? (Those other cities, though, do have room to grow outward still, and so far keep going out; it will be interesting to see how long they can sustain that.)
- zip1234 6y ago
  The inner suburbs should stop subsidizing it by not widening freeways. Right now outward expansion is highly subsidized by everyone paying for those roads and not just the people living 1hr away from the city center that are commuting.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  No cities in 2021 should be growing outward. Tracy, CA is an abomination, but so is the Sunset in SF. Broadway Junction in Brooklyn should be a second midtown. Building up Austin proper or building those up is equally good in my mind.
andromeduck 6y ago
It also makes for inefficient infrastructure expenditures or poor quality of service.

aidenn0 6y ago

Geography is important for those cities too. Nobody "builds up" in the US unless there's no place for the sprawl to go. Compare Atlanta and Houston to New York and San Francisco.