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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

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.
        closeparen 6y ago
        Each incremental person who can afford to live in a city is a good thing. For the person, for the city, for the environment, for the economy, for the world. Will you eventually run out of economically feasible buildings to build? Sure. But along the way, millions of people get what they want and couldn't have before. Swap drives across sprawl for subway commutes. Exchange "whatever's around" jobs for better ones that create more value. Get access to richer cultures and more potential friends. Decommodification is not magic. Scarcity is still there. Unless you're going to expropriate from current owners, it mainly means the government buys housing on someone's behalf. The government suffers exactly the same problems as market-rate buyers there. Relieve scarcity, lower prices as much as you can, and tax revenue to those programs can do more good.
- 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.

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.
      - closeparen 6y ago
        Each incremental person who can afford to live in a city is a good thing. For the person, for the city, for the environment, for the economy, for the world. Will you eventually run out of economically feasible buildings to build? Sure. But along the way, millions of people get what they want and couldn't have before. Swap drives across sprawl for subway commutes. Exchange "whatever's around" jobs for better ones that create more value. Get access to richer cultures and more potential friends. Decommodification is not magic. Scarcity is still there. Unless you're going to expropriate from current owners, it mainly means the government buys housing on someone's behalf. The government suffers exactly the same problems as market-rate buyers there. Relieve scarcity, lower prices as much as you can, and tax revenue to those programs can do more good.
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.