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Great! Now go tear down the entire housing stock so we can rebuild it better. Unfortunately, as a society we're already under-building, so we can't really affor

Great! Now go tear down the entire housing stock so we can rebuild it better. Unfortunately, as a society we're already under-building, so we can't really afford to tear down what we've already got. In some places (like here in the Bay Area) it's ridiculously difficult and expensive to build anything, so much of the building stock is untouched since the 1950s and simply rots in place. We'd do well to be as good at home construction as Japan.

baybal2 6y ago
> Great! Now go tear down the entire housing stock so we can rebuild it better. Unfortunately, as a society we're already under-building, so we can't really afford to tear down what we've already got. Well, why not? Japan effectively rebuilt its entire housing stock few times over since WW2, and so did Britain, Germany, and ex-Union countries. I believe USA has more money than the broke USSR did 20 year timelines is easily achievable for USA as a wealthy, and still relatively industrialised country.
- chmod775 6y ago
  >I believe USA has more money than the broke USSR did Note that this doesn't really matter. It especially didn't matter back then in a less globalized economy. The USSR being poor doesn't change anything about their domestic labor pool, which is what is relevant for construction work. The laborers simply charge less. This is same fallacy that leads people to believe we'd magically have more of everything if money hoarded by rich people was distributed across the populace. At best stuff will be distributed better. But bakers won't start baking more bread, nor will car manufacturers be able to start making more cars. Assuming unemployment stays the same, the economic output of goods won't change. Money doesn't produce anything, people do. Money is a tool to guide labor in the right direction and distribute goods. Which means that in order to build more, the USA would either need more construction workers or become more efficient at constructing stuff. The first can be achieved by diverting money and making the job more attractive, the second by creating a competitive environment.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    What else do you propose American workers to produce? More cat video websites? I simply don't see anything much profitable left for USA to produce. No more expensive stuff left to make.
    - chmod775 6y ago
      You probably wrote this before I added the last paragraph to my comment.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    >The first can be achieved by diverting money and making the job more attractive You mean... like the central bank dropping interest rates to an all time low? The low CPI inflation also suggests an underutilized labor force.
- zbrozek 6y ago
  I think money is actually the problem. In a rich country everyone can afford to have opinions about other folks' business, and so we spend years approving projects that take months to complete. Japan has (as far as I can tell as a distant observer) much stronger property rights with regard to what you can build than most of America.
akamaka 6y ago
Most existing buildings can be retrofitted: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/report/united-states-building-energy-efficiency-retrofits/ https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/report/united-states-b...
- zbrozek 6y ago
  At eye-watering expense and with long lead times. Both of those are largely self-inflicted wounds. As with everything, if it were cheaper and faster to do, we'd probably be doing more of it. We'd do well to shorten timelines and costs by removing permitting requirements for most types of work and loosening control over building. We also need to reduce costs of living so a broader occupational dynamic range of people can live in any area. That would expand the labor pool for doing work in urban areas. I don't know anyone who has managed to accomplish nontrivial work on an existing home in Palo Alto in under two years and for less than half a million dollars. One friend has been trying to fix a leaky structure there for ~5 years.
  - akamaka 6y ago
    It’s expensive up front, but it should pay for itself if done right. This is not a trivial finance problem, though. It’s very challenging fund projects with decades-long payoffs.
    - zbrozek 6y ago
      That's probably true in places with sensible construction costs and timelines. But around here it's going to cost me $250k to fix the envelope of my house. If it reduced my energy usage to zero it would take only 70 years to pay for itself. But it won't do that and I won't live that long, so...
      - akamaka 6y ago
        Yep, you nailed the biggest problem. No single person can individually make decisions on those time scales. Future energy costs, interest rates, climate trends, technological changes, and urban planning all need to be factored in. There needs to be a financing system that packages all this together and offers homeowners a simple low-interest construction loan that is cheaper than their energy bills.

baybal2 6y ago

> Great! Now go tear down the entire housing stock so we can rebuild it better. Unfortunately, as a society we're already under-building, so we can't really afford to tear down what we've already got. Well, why not? Japan effectively rebuilt its entire housing stock few times over since WW2, and so did Britain, Germany, and ex-Union countries. I believe USA has more money than the broke USSR did 20 year timelines is easily achievable for USA as a wealthy, and still relatively industrialised country.

chmod775 6y ago
>I believe USA has more money than the broke USSR did Note that this doesn't really matter. It especially didn't matter back then in a less globalized economy. The USSR being poor doesn't change anything about their domestic labor pool, which is what is relevant for construction work. The laborers simply charge less. This is same fallacy that leads people to believe we'd magically have more of everything if money hoarded by rich people was distributed across the populace. At best stuff will be distributed better. But bakers won't start baking more bread, nor will car manufacturers be able to start making more cars. Assuming unemployment stays the same, the economic output of goods won't change. Money doesn't produce anything, people do. Money is a tool to guide labor in the right direction and distribute goods. Which means that in order to build more, the USA would either need more construction workers or become more efficient at constructing stuff. The first can be achieved by diverting money and making the job more attractive, the second by creating a competitive environment.
- baybal2 6y ago
  What else do you propose American workers to produce? More cat video websites? I simply don't see anything much profitable left for USA to produce. No more expensive stuff left to make.
  - chmod775 6y ago
    You probably wrote this before I added the last paragraph to my comment.
- imtringued 6y ago
  >The first can be achieved by diverting money and making the job more attractive You mean... like the central bank dropping interest rates to an all time low? The low CPI inflation also suggests an underutilized labor force.
zbrozek 6y ago
I think money is actually the problem. In a rich country everyone can afford to have opinions about other folks' business, and so we spend years approving projects that take months to complete. Japan has (as far as I can tell as a distant observer) much stronger property rights with regard to what you can build than most of America.

akamaka 6y ago

Most existing buildings can be retrofitted: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/report/united-states-building-energy-efficiency-retrofits/ https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/report/united-states-b...

zbrozek 6y ago
At eye-watering expense and with long lead times. Both of those are largely self-inflicted wounds. As with everything, if it were cheaper and faster to do, we'd probably be doing more of it. We'd do well to shorten timelines and costs by removing permitting requirements for most types of work and loosening control over building. We also need to reduce costs of living so a broader occupational dynamic range of people can live in any area. That would expand the labor pool for doing work in urban areas. I don't know anyone who has managed to accomplish nontrivial work on an existing home in Palo Alto in under two years and for less than half a million dollars. One friend has been trying to fix a leaky structure there for ~5 years.
- akamaka 6y ago
  It’s expensive up front, but it should pay for itself if done right. This is not a trivial finance problem, though. It’s very challenging fund projects with decades-long payoffs.
  - zbrozek 6y ago
    That's probably true in places with sensible construction costs and timelines. But around here it's going to cost me $250k to fix the envelope of my house. If it reduced my energy usage to zero it would take only 70 years to pay for itself. But it won't do that and I won't live that long, so...
    - akamaka 6y ago
      Yep, you nailed the biggest problem. No single person can individually make decisions on those time scales. Future energy costs, interest rates, climate trends, technological changes, and urban planning all need to be factored in. There needs to be a financing system that packages all this together and offers homeowners a simple low-interest construction loan that is cheaper than their energy bills.