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California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one
- neonate 6y agohttps://archive.is/4OI1H https://archive.is/4OI1H
- slowmovintarget 6y agoThesis of the article: Californians are fleeing California and causing the same housing pressure in the spots they flee to. The real question is whether these other locations can avoid the high-density housing NIMBY response that became entrenched in California. It isn't just a matter of income disparity, which the article pivots to. It's also a matter of density and demand.
- spamizbad 6y agoThe challenge you have is that people view housing as an investment. Americans expect their home values to keep pace with inflation. And because housing values are so expensive, there's a tremendous amount of psychological pressure to "preserve" what they've purchased beyond their own property line (eg: "Neighborhood character"). For these reason, they're going to oppose any new supply entering the market. The only way you're going to fix this problem for good is to have the government step in and force new housing supply into markets, which is going to be extremely unpopular with everyone, including most YIMBYs who would favor removing market barriers. So it's a political impossibility - you can blame it on Boomers but truth is Americans aren't ready to decomodify the housing market.
- lisper 6y agoYou're being very unfair here. When you choose a place to live you are not only choosing the structure in which you reside, you are choosing the surrounding environment as well. People's desire to keep the environment from changing too much extends beyond financial interests. I live in a quiet suburban neighborhood, and I want it to remain a quiet suburban neighborhood even if the value of my house drops. In fact, I would love to see the value of my house drop, along with the value of all the houses around me, because that would make it easier for me to move locally and improve some of the sub-optimal features of my current situation, not least of which is that my house is much too big for my needs. But I can't move to a smaller house because the tax hit I would take makes it cost more than I can justify. The smaller houses around me now cost more than our house did when we bought it, so if we move we take both a one-time capital gains hit and an ongoing property tax hit. None of that would happen if houses depreciated like cars. UPDATE: Please take note that I am not saying I have any kind of right to keep my neighborhood from changing, only that my desire to keep it from changing is not purely financial. (In fact, in my case, it is the exact opposite!)
- sokoloff 6y agoIf your gains are less than $250K (single) or $500K (married-filing-jointly), you've owned it for 2 years, and you've lived there 2 of the last 5 years, your gains are excluded federally. In general, the structure does depreciate very slowly (in real dollars) and the land appreciates in value (at least in desirable areas), typically more than swamping the slight depreciation on the structure.
- lisper 6y agoWe live in Northern California. We bought this house at the bottom of the 2008 crash. Our gains are considerably more than the exclusion limit. (One of the many stupid things about the tax code is that the exclusion limit is not indexed to time.)
- cltby 6y agoThe structure itself does depreciate (ask any landlord!). It's the land value that's surging.
- lisper 6y agoSure, but the structure and the land are tightly bound. I can't buy or sell a structure without also buying or selling the land that it sits on, so this is kind of irrelevant.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoCommercial structures often appreciate as an area gentrifies and starts using legislation to kick out industrial activity in favor of coffee shops and other consumer facing stuff. So the facilities (and permission to operate them) appreciate like there's no tomorrow.
- enraged_camel 6y ago>> The challenge you have is that people view housing as an investment. Americans expect their home values to keep pace with inflation. Because real estate appreciation is one of the few ways left for people to be able to retire somewhat comfortably after working in jobs that pay garbage salaries and having to deal with medical costs that are sky high even with what people call “insurance”.
- rhino369 6y agoIn California, the only reason people can oppose new projects is because the government enables them to have a say in someone else's property. So you don't have to force development, but you do have to remove NIMBY's ability to veto projects. That starts with reforming permitting processes and zoning regulations.
- shuckles 6y agoSingle family zoning, though invented in Berkeley, is a national phenomenon.
- lazide 6y ago‘Having a say in someone else’s property’ is really ‘voters voting for the rules and laws they want’. As long as the rules benefit most people who vote, why would they want to change it? And right now, that is exactly what is happening - it isn’t changing because most people who vote are benefitting from it. It’s a pretty fundamental part of a democracy. Until either 1) more people who don’t benefit from the current rules change the rules through voting, or 2) some non-democratic (in the sense of not directly answerable to an election) institution such as the courts change some rules, or 3) someone manages to convince the voting bloc to vote against their interests and change the rules, it is what is is. All the handwringing about the situation is just hot air.
- jandrese 6y agoOf course the people who want to move in don't get a vote.
- lazide 6y agoThe renters do - but they often don’t vote. And realistically, would you want to be subject to the laws passed by someone who doesn’t live in your area? Even if they say they’d like to? It’s bad enough with things like federal marijuana laws vs state ones, and those don’t control where you can live or what gets built next to where you already do.
- majormajor 6y agoThat's not the big challenge. Upzoning and higher density increases the value of the land. That's why developers want to do it in the first place. Cashing out when someone wants to buy up your neighborhood's land, and getting something nicer somewhere else, would be the purely-financial play. The big challenge is that people chose to live in a certain place because it had certain features. And people don't want to have to move constantly. So folks pushing to change the nature of the areas will always cause opposition ("why do we have to leave or change, why can't they go somewhere else?").
- mschuster91 6y ago> The big challenge is that people chose to live in a certain place because it had certain features In Germany, the most sought-after features are quality mobile ans landline internet, as well as decent public transit. The problem is that our Conservative politicians outright sabotaged (Kohl with fibre vs cable TV, Schröder with the UMTS frequency auction) or, at best, simply sat doing nothing (Merkel) any efforts to improve this situation. The result? Everyone who can flees for the cities, while the rural areas generally only house those "left behind". And then politicians complain about exploding rents in cities or people leaving rural areas... well, d'oh, who would have thought young people and modern jobs require Internet.
- Supermancho 6y ago> higher density increases the value of the land. That's a very short curve that quickly inverts. Density of commercial land is what converts the sprawl to an unprecedented explosion of high-rises in an epicenter. The residential density decreases the value of the land after it's been fully developed, which is then purchased for commercial use and "redeveloped". This happens in most cities at some point, where downtown is converted to the new "hip" redevelopment of the previous slums.
- Supermancho 6y ago> For these reason, they're going to oppose any new supply entering the market. Nobody is opposed to new supply entering the market. The opposition is 100% about the devaluation of the area, which is not about the supply per se. If you wanted to build a block up with 500 units which had adequate parking and everyone's homes/land would increase in value 5%, you would have widespread support. The problem of density is solved with substandard buildings that cut corners, alongside the increased density in Southern California.
- jandrese 6y agoIt's really impossible to not view your house as an investment when you've been paying for it for 30 years and have hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in it. This goes double if your plan is to work till retirement, then sell the house and move to someplace more laid back. So really the local government needs to be willing to tell people to pound sand when they hold up new construction. But since the local government is made up of those same people that's not going to happen. It is interesting watching movies and TV just how often the "evil developer" trope appears. Always trying to buy the almost-failed gym/ski slope/TV station/etc... until the plucky underdogs win the contest to save their small business. Developers are never the good guys. They're always the evil gentrifiers who want to let hundreds of families invade the quaint little neighborhood with their high rise eyesore.
- jjav 6y ago> The challenge you have is that people view housing as an investment. Is there any source to this claim? "View as investment" would mean people buy the house with the specific aim of making a profit. As a middle aged homeowner in suburbia where all my acquaintances are in the same demographic, I can't think of anyone ever saying they bought a house with the goal to make a profit. People buy a house so the kids have a place to play and to stabilize the housing expenses to make budgeting easier. Whether it can be sold for a profit or not in 40 years is not a consideration.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- freewilly1040 6y ago>>> That’s because as bad as California’s affordable housing problem is, it isn’t really a California problem. It is a national one. From rising homelessness to anti-development sentiment to frustration among middle-class workers who’ve been locked out of the housing market, the same set of housing issues has bubbled up in cities across the country. They’ve already visited Boise, Nashville, Denver and Austin, Texas, and many other high-growth cities. And they will become even more widespread as remote workers move around. The thesis is that the problem is not limited or caused by California, it' a national problem. California and Californian expat-related growth are just a particularly glaring example.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- umvi 6y ago> Thesis of the article: Californians are fleeing California and causing the same housing pressure in the spots they flee to. Anecdotally, it seems true. Utah housing used to be cheap, but now in Salt Lake valley the prices are just exploding as tons of Californians move to the tech hubs near Lehi and SLC and buy up all the houses with cash
- asdff 6y agoNowhere is building enough housing for growth. In low cost of living places, chances are if you look at population data, the metro region has been stagnant for decades which has alleviated pressure on supply. In any area with growth at all, prices rise because we don't build actual dense housing like we did before WWII (when row houses and mixed use development in walking distance to frequent public transit were the norm everywhere from Manhattan to Los Angeles to downtown Boise, Idaho). We build either tracts of single family homes by clearcutting wildlands adjacent to freeways, or far too little apartments in a single 4-5 story building spanning an entire city block. In comparison to a block of 4-5 story row homes, these apartment builds are a compromise and will come back to bite planners in the coming decades as construction costs continue to rise. Since it's a single building, you can't redevelop this structure without leveling the entire block. That makes it impossible to do unless you are a deep pocketed development corporation, versus a row house that could be owned outright by an individual and redeveloped by that individual to meet the market demand of the growing city.
- jeffbee 6y agoIt's handy to say "nowhere is building" but it's not really supported by the data. Look at Dallas and Houston compared to San Francisco. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=B6Tc https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=B6Tc
- kwk1 6y agoYour quote chopped off an important qualifier present in the original comment.
- jeffbee 6y agoExplain? The fact that the population of greater Houston has more than doubled in 30 years tends to support the idea that they are building enough for growth. They've got a city the size of Berkeley that didn't even exist 50 years ago.
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- Naac 6y agoWhy did the title get changed from the original NYT title? "The Californians Are Coming. So Is Their Housing Crisis."
- dang 6y agoWe changed it because it was baity. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. When we do that, we try to replace the title with representative language from the article itself (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22representative%20language%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). There's nearly always something—if not a subheading, then a sentence in the article body—that neutrally summarizes the article. (The latter was the case here.) Doing this rather than making up titles ourselves lets the content speak for itself, and in the case of big media articles is probably closer to the author's intent, since authors don't write headlines.
- Naac 6y agoThanks for the explanation, and for the all the effort you guys put in moderating the site.
- sokoloff 6y agoI feel like I got served an appetizer and a small dessert, with no main course in between. California has a housing crisis in some cities. Californians are moving out of those cities. The cities that they're moving into are experiencing an increase in demand (directly restating the previous). That's pushing up prices (not shocking), which is preventing some people with less money from outbidding people with more money (also not shocking). Conclusion: Single Family Zoning is bad, but only a few places have been enlightened enough to limit or ban it. OK, maybe, but strikes me as an argument from declaration of opinion rather than a logical conclusion from the priors. The only thing new I learned from this article is a rough estimate of how much higher an ex-Californian's budget is on average, which was novel but hardly surprising.
- kodah 6y ago> The only thing new I learned from this article is a rough estimate of how much higher an ex-Californian's budget is on average, which was novel but hardly surprising. My story related to this: Californians (and other comparatively rich people) moved to Dallas, TX in droves and outpriced an already saturated housing market. This was happening far before COVID but I think it was really mostly talked about in the circles of state to state income inequality which is largely ignored. When you have loans like the FHA or VA loan this means while you may be qualified for a loan, you'll never actually get a house near where you work in big cities. Instead, you're forced to buy in towns that are increasingly far away from these cities. As someone who has been through this nightmare I don't think "Single Family Zoning is bad, but only a few places have been enlightened enough to limit or ban it" is the right conclusion or even near it. Generally speaking, remote work can help alleviate this problem because then you remove the problem that I experienced which is that I was driving 2.5 hours to and from work every day. Some other things that I've read is that these people also destabilize the cost of goods in enough quantity. The outcome is that communities that have seen decades of development will soon price out the resident who paid for its development in taxes only to reward people who are taking advantage of inequality.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago> The outcome is that communities that have seen decades of development will soon price out the resident who paid for its development in taxes only to reward people who are taking advantage of inequality. Sounds like the plight of poor people from developing/poor nations who have to contend with people from developed/rich nations.
- LatteLazy 6y agoIt's an urban problem. No one is short of space in bumfuck, nowhere. The jobs are all in cities. Workers need to be in cities. Commuting by car isn't viable on a large scale. Other forms of commuting require investment (building rail etc) and governments won't do that. So house prices spiral.
- chasd00 6y ago> The jobs are all in cities. Workers need to be in cities. This is beginning to change and the pandemic quickened the pace. If Starlink comes online and works as promised it will further speed up the process. I think there are many people who live in a crowded city only because that's where the office is and would chose to live elsewhere if it were possible.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- asdff 6y agoThere are also plenty of people who spend way more than they should on a home in a good school district. In fact, a lot of people opt to trade a good commute to work just for that. It's not as simple as "move to the middle of nowhere." School from home clearly doesn't work for a lot of children, given how many private schools have been skirting the rules and how many parents were/are desperate to find an in person tutor during this pandemic.
- imtringued 6y agoI agree that availability of jobs is the driving factor of migration. There are lots of decaying towns with no hope of recovery. However, the children that were born there did go to college. Their best option is to go somewhere else and it would be foolish of them to not set their aim high and to at least try their luck in one of the bigger cities.
- cwbrandsma 6y agoWhere I live used to be bumf*ck, nowhere. Hardly anyone could point it on the map, usually thinking it was in an entirely different part of the country. Even if someone did know of the town, the normal respone was "why would anyone want to live there". Now it is the city featured in this article, and has doubled in size since I've lived here. Even the big town where I grew up, Twin Falls, ID, whose only actual claim to fame is a failed jump by Evil Knievel, has more than doubled in size over the last 20 years.
- GoOnThenDoTell 6y agoLong ago: let’s go West Now: let’s go East
- mmaunder 6y agoIf you could animate it the flow might look like it bounces off the west coast and heads back inland. Technically, cities are infestations of humans.
- petschge 6y agoIt might look like that. But it doesn't. At least not yet. Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_center_of_the_United_States_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_center_of_the_United_Stat...
- pirocks 6y agoI would argue this isn't a California problem or a national problem. It's a global problem. Example: Hong Kong. In Hong Kong the government funds itself in large part through property ownership. They are therefore incentivised to make housing as expensive as possible. The result is predictable. I would argue that in democracies this will remain a problem as long as the majority of voters benefit from high housing prices. When combined with rent control you don't need to own property to benefit from high housing prices, since you are likely paid as if you where paying market rate rent. I don't really see any practical solutions. Work from home might change things a bit but I'm pessimistic, since lots of people want to live near stuff, which requires living near other people, which means someone has an inventive to raise prices. Perhaps boomers cashing out all there housing at once might help things.
- AdrianB1 6y agoHong Kong has a very limited territory to build on, while most of the USA is free space. Yes, you are right on the bad government incentive.
- pirocks 6y ago> Hong Kong has a very limited territory to build on, while most of the USA is free space. Yes, you are right on the bad government incentive. Hong Kong has limited space but aren't utilizing it well. Tons of it is empty. See the pie chart here:https://www.pland.gov.hk/pland_en/info_serv/statistic/landu.html https://www.pland.gov.hk/pland_en/info_serv/statistic/landu....
- AdrianB1 6y agoAffordable housing is a misleading term used for a few different situations: unless the problem is well defined, there is no proper solution. if affordable means anyone should own a house, no matter the income or lack of - that is utopia. If affordable means cheap enough that lower third income bracket can still afford a house, there are solutions - high density blocks of flats like we have all over in Europe. But if you want cheap houses in the middle of an upscale neighborhood, that is nonsense. The size of the house is an inverse of the income even in Europe: people who can afford live in single homes or lower density constructions, the people that cannot afford that live in high density places, but you cannot build a couple of towers in the middle of a low density neighborhood, it was tried in UK and failed miserably for everyone.
- imtringued 6y agoYou're not supposed to build towers. You're supposed to incrementally upzone neighborhoods over time. detached single family housing to row houses, row houses to 2 story apartment buildings, 2 story apartment buildings to 3-4 story apartment buildings and so on. Building big towers does work, but only if they are surrounded by other, slightly smaller towers.
- asdff 6y agoWe are so behind the eightball in regards to how much housing capacity has been built that we really need to drop the 2-3-4 story apartment and go straight to 40 story towers in a lot of places. I think people on this board think we are at some comfortable stasis in housing right now; we are not. Working class families in cities like LA might be cramming five bodies and three incomes in a one bedroom apartment. The tenement conditions made famous by 1800s NYC have never really gone away for the working poor.
- JJMcJ 6y agoIncremental: Take an R-1 neighborhood. Don't necessarily allow 10 floor buildings, though that wouldn't be the end of the world. Maybe allow 25% of houses to be turned into duplexes, even less of a change than row houses. That alone would increase units available. Humor: The famous Painted Ladies, a block of Victorians in San Francisco, one end of the block has a 7 floor apartment building.
- mjevans 6y agoRenting sucks. There's no stability, the expectation that you'll be priced out of a place, and none of the money or time you invest in anything there is truly yours. 'Single family' dwellings tend to have a small bit of yard space (not directly a plus for me), an air-gap with other units that helps with some noise abatement, and sometimes a choice of utilities (like Internet). There's room to park the nomad-mobile (the car that's required for efficient traversal of the many suburban wastelands and the gaps between cities). If you own, rather than rent, you're able to change and modify many things. There are still issues of BBQs, intense dryer scent bombs, and smokers. Parties, loud vehicles, and other annoyances too. +++ my own ideal solution criteria +++ * Able to own * Able to modify inside the walls * Privacy of noise isolation * Privacy of fresh air * Internet choice (#1) * Parking included (#2) The privacy issues I see most easily resolved by requiring mechanical isolation spaces, similar to the old wetwalls, between units, above and beneath as well. My ceiling should not be directly hanging off of someone else's floor. The extra mechanical space also allows room for proper ducting of intakes and exhausts to allow a building intake of fresh air through a common filtration unit, and exhaust through a similar scrubber unit to remove particulate matter and minimize ecological pollution. #1 Internet choice would happen after the last mile. The last mile being municipal fiber to ethernet links, and transit at high speed for base taxpayer cost to 2-3 peering points out of the local set. Real choice would be offered by competition at those locations. Peering points might be likely at government command and control centers (city hall, police hq, fire stations), or temples of information worship (libraries, schools, post offices?). #2 Parking is the terminus of the inter-city and inter-state interlink that currently exists. This doesn't have to be per building. A 'cave of steel' like city could have interfaces (parking garages) at the edges, ideally with monitored space, even small storage boxes (garages) for cars. Naturally these would also be cargo terminals and there'd be a good transit system between them and everyplace within the city. This would require urban planning, mass transit and/or people-mover belts, and maybe an electric cargo drone delivery system. BTW, wouldn't an electric cargo drone delivery system be a lovely civic infrastructure aid? Completely eliminates the most annoying aspects of all current delivery services.
- nutshell89 6y agoSort of a counterpoint to renting vs. owning housing, I've rented for the last 8 years. I don't have to worry about the constant home-ownership surprises my parents have had to deal with (renovations, pests, upkeep), I've been able to move to improve my commute with each job change, and I've made friends with each successive move. I have given up stability, but the price to rent ratio in my city points far in favor towards renting, and I've mostly been able to invest the income that would have gone towards a mortgage in the stock market. Edit: I've moved 5 times in the last 8 years not including a temporary move back to my parents' during the pandemic.
- rayiner 6y agoPeople focus on the supply side, which is important, but has anyone looked at the demand side? How do people have so much money to drive up these prices? I grew up in an 1,100 square foot house, built in 1950, my parents bought for $175,000 in 1989. Today Redfin has it at $660,000. Its a drab house in a drab suburb of DC. It's no boom town--the population of the town has grown just 10% in 30 years. But everyone just has so much more money now (and I guess interest rates are low, so people have a lot of credit).
- nutshell89 6y agoThe access to cheap credit drives up the price of the underlying asset. You can see it in auto loans, where the average price of a new vehicle has ballooned to over $40,000 in recent years while loan payment periods stretch to 5, 6 and even 7 years. Part of the increase is no doubt because new cars are getting larger, safer, and more technologically complex — but I think that part of it is that auto-makers have less of an incentive to control costs if their margins increase.
- leetcrew 6y agothis isn't quite the same. if you compare like-for-like as much as possible (eg, base 2000 honda civic vs 2020 civic), msrp for new cars has not kept pace with inflation. adjusted for inflation, the price of an entry-level car has fallen in the last twenty years (even as the lowest end cars have become far more capable, safe, and efficient). easy access to credit may have increased the average price paid for a new vehicle (by shifting buyers up-market), but unlike in the case of housing, this does not deprive buyers of the chance to buy a cheap car. people buying bmws on 84 month loans doesn't mean you can't get a brand new versa for $15k OTD.
- akhilcacharya 6y agoEveryone talks about the billionaires soaking up the windfall for the last 40 years, but really it's the upper middle class that's leading the charge here. Massive wealth inequality in this country is being driven by an increasingly prosperous upper middle class [0]. [0] https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-dangerous-separation-of-the-american-upper-middle-class/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-dangerous-separation-...
- nutshell89 6y agoThe problem is that not only is there zero appetite to phase out housing-as-investment boosting policies like the mortgage interest deduction, imputed rent exemption, and cap gains exemption at the federal level, en vogue affordable housing strategies have focused on keeping interest rates low, providing 1st time home-buyer tax credits, and strengthening fair lending regulations. The U.S.(western nations with high housing costs really) are drunk on the housing-as-investment model, and zoning increases and / or social housing positive policies will always take a back seat when speculative profits are involved.
- opportune 6y agoI think removing many of these housing discounts would only partially impact housing costs, since these affect the majority of buyers and most home purchasing decisions are made on the basis of the monthly payment. That is, after removing some of these policies, people would probably still end up paying the same monthly payment, just with lower nominal housing costs. The bigger issue to me is the constriction of supply. The suburban development pattern in many areas is simply unable to support the densities needed to manage regional issues well, causing traffic issues and forcing people to live very far from their places of work. I also have more unpopular opinions that there is too much "protected" land in areas like the bay area (specifically in the North Bay). Regardless of that, California needs to do better to fix the supply problem, because these housing policy failures are slowly beginning to affect more and more areas outside of just the bay area and SoCal, and the measures passed so far just don't cut it. Also, prop 13 has essentially removed much of the "carrying costs" which penalize undeveloped land usage (prop 13 isn't the only thing here, IIRC there are also lots of state/federal tax deductions you can get from not using land, oddly enough). And the low property tax rates across the board really penalize young high earners since the low taxes are made up for with income/sales taxes.
- dcolkitt 6y agoI think both you and OP have a point. The way it ties together is that "owner-occupied housing as a retirement plan" creates the political demand for NIMBY supply restrictions. When people have 500% of their net worth tied up in a single piece of property, that created very strong incentives to lobby for policies that prop up the value of that asset. You take away the tax incentives, and the mortgage subsidies. People probably still wind up with similar monthly payments. But now as a percentage of their wealth, housing becomes much less important. A 10% decline in home prices no longer leads to a global financial crisis. That makes it a lot easier to build a political coalition to increase housing supply.
- zxcvbn4038 6y agoI’ve been looking at housing prices periodically and it’s discouraging to find people wanting 200k-300k for mid-century houses in places you’d never find another job if the telecommuting trend ever reversed and so far it is just a trend driven by forced circumstances. Companies may be all for remote working while the alternative is shutting down, but what happens after the pandemic? Does everyone get recalled to the nearest office the first down quarter? Does your New York salary turn into a New Mexico salary to prop up profits?
- leetcrew 6y agowe are living in a volatile time right now. I too am considering buying a house and/or finding a different job. but unless you have a large appetite for risk, the prudent move is to wait for things to stabilize a bit. I think within a year or so we should have a better picture of where the remote trend is going.
- topspin 6y ago> Does everyone get recalled to the nearest office the first down quarter? No. The habits of the past were only viable because everyone was indulging them. Those habits have been broken. Whether it's the lower cost of operation due to not squandering money on unnecessary facilities or the greater pool of talent available to those that accommodate remote workers or the business continuity advantages of a workforce that can continue to function despite this and inevitable future infectious disease problems remote work is here to stay. Those businesses that can leverage remote work will outcompete those that might but don't.
- chiefalchemist 6y agoAs long as money is relatively cheap (to borrow) for those qualified to borrow unaffordable housing is going to be a problem. Cheap and easy loans increase demand. Increased demand increases prices. More and more are left out of the market (as buyer), are left to become renters (covering the cost of the inflated mortgages). Rinse and repeat. In short: the problem with unaffordable housing is not simply solved by raising the minimum wage. In fact, that'll raise housing prices further by allowing the market to bear more. Note: The same can be said of student loans and the cost of housing, sans the mortgage/lease bit.
- tqi 6y agoWhy is this always framed as a problem caused by people looking for a place to live? I moved to SF for a job. I'm not the one who decided to not build enough new housing for 30 years. I'm not the one who decided to approve all those new office buildings. Yet I was the problem for renting an overpriced apartment from an SF native who bought in the 90s, and now pays less than $8K/yr in taxes on a place worth over $1M. And now I'm still the problem if I decide to leave?
- Guest42 6y agoI find it pretty ironic that in Idaho they would oppose a scenario that is aligned to “free market” principles and that Oregon would oppose immigration. I once took a job in Portland and had stuff thrown at my car because of the CA license plate along with screaming “go back to your own state.” Opinions change very quickly once they involve people personally.
- rayiner 6y ago“When California sends people north to Oregon, they’re not sending their best and brightest. They’re drug dealers and smugglers. Some, I assume, are good people.” — my sixth generation Oregonian wife.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zippergz 6y agoI've lived in several US cities over the course of my life, and the only constant is that whoever you talk to, the problems are caused by the people who moved there after them.
- ashtonkem 6y agoI’d say that another constant is the belief that living in a place for a certain period of time confers a sense of ownership over a city, along with the right to decide who should and should not live there. You obviously see that in states where Californians are moving, but you even see that in California against those who moved there recently for a job. Frankly I find it completely bizarre.
- maerF0x0 6y agoIt strikes me as a simple solution to turn abandoned malls into homes. Many malls are centrally located, near transit, and have plenty of parking. For the ones that are indoor style, you could even have easily accessed amenities like a gym or something. I wonder what the issue is besides zoning laws?
- ashtonkem 6y agoIndustrial buildings are built to very different codes and requirements than residential buildings. Off the top of my head, I think that a dearth of insulation and water pipes would be an issue, along with the ratio of exterior to interior space (no windows leads to depression fast). It reminds me of industrial loft apartments that sprung up when Midwestern small manufacturing died. I knew some people who lived in one and their quality of life was pretty terrible compared to purpose built residential housing. Their place was cold and all mechanicals had to be run in exterior conduit which was ugly and hard to keep clean. Better than being homeless though.
- maerF0x0 6y agoOh 100% would need a retrofit. But millions of square feet of space and walls shouldnt go to waste either. I'm mostly suggesting that a rezone + retrofit is probably better than finding bare land and build new or than to tear down the mall and build again. That unless the density demands residential towers.
- offtop5 6y agoCalifornia is uniquely messed up because of Prop 13. There's way too much regulation to getting anything built, unless somehow less land starts to exist in States like Texas which don't cripple housing developers, it'll always be much cheaper to leave the Golden State. From my time in LA I found there to be a very nasty spiral. Whereas young adults will never be able to get their own places to live, this impedes their maturing, and then you end up with 30 something year old brats who feel entitled to everything. I don't even want these people as friends, nonetheless romantic partners. Once I left La I found it much easier to find amazing, hard-working folks.
- gautamcgoel 6y agoThis comment is pretty gross, even by HN standards. Me and my friends are all in our twenties living just outside LA (Pasadena). They are some of the kindest and hardest-working people I know. Don't blame the city for your poor choice in acquaintances.
- offtop5 6y agoI don't blame the kids who can't move out. California should have a better housing policy. I came from a very very bad home and luckily I was able to find a place for 600 or so. That's impossible now.
- MrMan 6y agoThis anti-NIMBY astroturfing on HN is fascinating. There is a repetitive hammering of a short list of talking points. I am from the East Coast which is very built up. We largely don't have this weird NIMBY anger. In a lot of places here there are tons of tall buildings being built. The whole angry discourse is alien to me. No one moving to New York is angrily ranting about "NIMBYS" undermining their supposed right to cheap housing. Or not when I moved to NYC.
- helen___keller 6y ago> This anti-NIMBY astroturfing on HN is fascinating. There is a repetitive hammering of a short list of talking points. I'm not sure it's reasonable to call something "astroturfing" for this reason. Astroturfing specifically refers to inorganic discourse, there's plenty of organic anti-NIMBY anger > I am from the East Coast which is very built up. We largely don't have this weird NIMBY anger. In a lot of places here there are tons of tall buildings being built. The whole angry discourse is alien to me. Speak for yourself, there's plenty of YIMBY types in Boston, because the urban core is plenty dense but many of the surrounding towns and cities (which aren't in Boston proper) are low density, despite having rail lines straight to downtown Boston, which has contributed to our awful rent costs. Frankly I had heard that it's the same issue in the outer boroughs in New York but maybe I was mistaken.
- rpiguyshy 6y agobump