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I have a possibly stupid question... Parts of america have really really high housing costs... like really high... and a bunch of people want to live there, an

I have a possibly stupid question... Parts of america have really really high housing costs... like really high... and a bunch of people want to live there, and a lot of people there are poor (atleast compared to housing prices). Why the hell do you still build single family houses, or one/two floor buildings in areas where you need to fit a bunch of people (eg. both photos in the article)? I'm from a former socialist country, and housing for working families back then looked (still does) like this: https://i.imgur.com/pmpcaOL.png https://i.imgur.com/pmpcaOL.png https://i.imgur.com/YowiKVe.png https://i.imgur.com/YowiKVe.png Modern buildings look a bit better, with ground floors for commercial use, and underground parking, but still: https://i.imgur.com/AFpUiuX.jpg https://i.imgur.com/AFpUiuX.jpg I understand single or two floor buildings if you're building something in rural alabama... there's a lot of space there, and the land is cheap.... But places like san francisco? That, I don't get.

dagw 6y ago
But places like san francisco? That, I don't get. Short answer. The people who already live there don't want to be neighbors with those sorts of buildings and any politician that suggests it will be voted out of office.
- Mauricebranagh 6y ago
  A counterpoint - You then get jerry built high rises built to minimum standards and smaller rooms which leads to tragedy's like Grenfell tower. Also with covid and the rise of home working you know what people realy realy want? a second room for an office and a Garden (Yard).
  - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
    > A counterpoint - You then get jerry built high rises built to minimum standards and smaller rooms which leads to tragedy's like Grenfell tower. The old socialist buildings are made form reinforced (rebar) concrete... even the inside walls... and outside walls.. and sometimes even balcony ledges. Even occasional gas explosions usually just blow out some windows.
olalonde 6y ago
> Why the hell do you still build single family houses, or one/two floor buildings in areas where you need to fit a bunch of people (eg. both photos in the article)? Mostly bad regulations like rent control and zoning.
TulliusCicero 6y ago
This question was made for me. It's not the market; obviously there's demand for higher density housing, and were it allowed, people would make more of it. It's almost always local regulations that make producing such housing difficult, or more commonly, flat out impossible. Most American residential land is zoned for exclusively large single family homes in big lots. This is true even in most major metro areas. You can read a little bit about this here in this article that compared American zoning with Japanese zoning: https://marketurbanism.com/2019/03/19/why-is-japanese-zoning-more-liberal-than-us-zoning/ https://marketurbanism.com/2019/03/19/why-is-japanese-zoning... The gist of how it got this way is: racism and classism. The racism used to be more relevant, these days the classism is. You see, if you require that to live in a neighborhood, you must be able to own or rent a property with a minimum amount of land, it's easy to keep out people of lesser economic resources. A poorer family that might be willing to live an apartment in a nicer area will find that no such housing exists there, and being unable to afford a full house, they are excluded, hence the term 'exclusionary zoning'. This also has the effect of keeping those poor kids out of local schools. So yeah, it's economic segregation that America pretends doesn't count as segregation somehow, even though the effects are plain as day.
LandR 6y ago
In your first phot, In my country those sort of buildings would be viewed very negatively, many would expect the people in them to be poor, lower-class, living off benefits etc. There are lots of stereotypes about the sort of people that live in those type of buildings. People would NOT want that sort of building near their home worried it would lead to more crime, lower property prices etc. Now, your last modern building. People would pay a small fortune to live in something like that in a trendy area in a city... They would probably be classed as luxury apartments, come with a large rents or buying costs.
- ajsnigrutin 6y ago
  But the idea is still the same... just the outside look has changed. Build a 5, 10 story apartment building, underground parking, and fit hundreds of people in a space, that would otherwise be used by 5-10 houses (20, 30 people). First photos are from belgrade, when that design was "modern" from 1960-1980s, and the last, modern one is from ljubljana, built recently.
Hard_Space 6y ago
I'm a British immigrant to Bucharest, nearly 4 years, and I live in a slightly smaller version of the housing in your images, a 4-floor 1986 block in the south of the city, adjacent to Vacaresti park. In London, this type of housing might be depressing, but here it is normal -- and when you take away 'neighbor envy', it's hard to express the difference it makes to one's own sense that you've reached some equilibrium in your environment and your life. The TV ads here might be full of people in detached houses, but that kind of residence is very rare in this country - at least in cities like Bucharest and Cluj. In short, Bucharest folk are used to it, and practically no-one in the US is. For them, it's 'the projects'.
refurb 6y ago
The answer for a city like San Francisco is all the available land was built on 70 years ago (with a few exceptions).
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  Yeah, but SF also still mandates low densities in most of its neighborhoods: https://sfplanning.org/resource/zoning-height-and-bulk-districts https://sfplanning.org/resource/zoning-height-and-bulk-distr... It could change that to help make housing more affordable, and chooses not to.
wooger 6y ago
Lots of people want to live there. But do the people who live there (and own property there) want lots more people to live there? Not really no. And in some cases definitely not anywhere near them. Cities work well at a certain size and population, but the services and infrastructure never get upgraded to match big increases in population like tower blocks. Not to mention the view from people's houses across the bay will be gone as soon as high rises are built. If I'm happy with the status quo & I have lots of money, why would I ever stop doing everything possible to maintain it?

dagw 6y ago

But places like san francisco? That, I don't get. Short answer. The people who already live there don't want to be neighbors with those sorts of buildings and any politician that suggests it will be voted out of office.

Mauricebranagh 6y ago
A counterpoint - You then get jerry built high rises built to minimum standards and smaller rooms which leads to tragedy's like Grenfell tower. Also with covid and the rise of home working you know what people realy realy want? a second room for an office and a Garden (Yard).
- ajsnigrutin 6y ago
  > A counterpoint - You then get jerry built high rises built to minimum standards and smaller rooms which leads to tragedy's like Grenfell tower. The old socialist buildings are made form reinforced (rebar) concrete... even the inside walls... and outside walls.. and sometimes even balcony ledges. Even occasional gas explosions usually just blow out some windows.

olalonde 6y ago

> Why the hell do you still build single family houses, or one/two floor buildings in areas where you need to fit a bunch of people (eg. both photos in the article)? Mostly bad regulations like rent control and zoning.

TulliusCicero 6y ago

This question was made for me. It's not the market; obviously there's demand for higher density housing, and were it allowed, people would make more of it. It's almost always local regulations that make producing such housing difficult, or more commonly, flat out impossible. Most American residential land is zoned for exclusively large single family homes in big lots. This is true even in most major metro areas. You can read a little bit about this here in this article that compared American zoning with Japanese zoning: https://marketurbanism.com/2019/03/19/why-is-japanese-zoning-more-liberal-than-us-zoning/ https://marketurbanism.com/2019/03/19/why-is-japanese-zoning... The gist of how it got this way is: racism and classism. The racism used to be more relevant, these days the classism is. You see, if you require that to live in a neighborhood, you must be able to own or rent a property with a minimum amount of land, it's easy to keep out people of lesser economic resources. A poorer family that might be willing to live an apartment in a nicer area will find that no such housing exists there, and being unable to afford a full house, they are excluded, hence the term 'exclusionary zoning'. This also has the effect of keeping those poor kids out of local schools. So yeah, it's economic segregation that America pretends doesn't count as segregation somehow, even though the effects are plain as day.

LandR 6y ago

In your first phot, In my country those sort of buildings would be viewed very negatively, many would expect the people in them to be poor, lower-class, living off benefits etc. There are lots of stereotypes about the sort of people that live in those type of buildings. People would NOT want that sort of building near their home worried it would lead to more crime, lower property prices etc. Now, your last modern building. People would pay a small fortune to live in something like that in a trendy area in a city... They would probably be classed as luxury apartments, come with a large rents or buying costs.

ajsnigrutin 6y ago
But the idea is still the same... just the outside look has changed. Build a 5, 10 story apartment building, underground parking, and fit hundreds of people in a space, that would otherwise be used by 5-10 houses (20, 30 people). First photos are from belgrade, when that design was "modern" from 1960-1980s, and the last, modern one is from ljubljana, built recently.

Hard_Space 6y ago

I'm a British immigrant to Bucharest, nearly 4 years, and I live in a slightly smaller version of the housing in your images, a 4-floor 1986 block in the south of the city, adjacent to Vacaresti park. In London, this type of housing might be depressing, but here it is normal -- and when you take away 'neighbor envy', it's hard to express the difference it makes to one's own sense that you've reached some equilibrium in your environment and your life. The TV ads here might be full of people in detached houses, but that kind of residence is very rare in this country - at least in cities like Bucharest and Cluj. In short, Bucharest folk are used to it, and practically no-one in the US is. For them, it's 'the projects'.

refurb 6y ago

The answer for a city like San Francisco is all the available land was built on 70 years ago (with a few exceptions).

TulliusCicero 6y ago
Yeah, but SF also still mandates low densities in most of its neighborhoods: https://sfplanning.org/resource/zoning-height-and-bulk-districts https://sfplanning.org/resource/zoning-height-and-bulk-distr... It could change that to help make housing more affordable, and chooses not to.

wooger 6y ago

Lots of people want to live there. But do the people who live there (and own property there) want lots more people to live there? Not really no. And in some cases definitely not anywhere near them. Cities work well at a certain size and population, but the services and infrastructure never get upgraded to match big increases in population like tower blocks. Not to mention the view from people's houses across the bay will be gone as soon as high rises are built. If I'm happy with the status quo & I have lots of money, why would I ever stop doing everything possible to maintain it?