6 ms·

The article states that Vienna's population in 1914 (at the beginning of WW1) was 2 million, vs 1.9 million today. I'm no housing policy expert, but isn't it po

The article states that Vienna's population in 1914 (at the beginning of WW1) was 2 million, vs 1.9 million today. I'm no housing policy expert, but isn't it possible that Vienna's rents are stable and low in part because they haven't had to increase their housing stock in over 100 years? It seems to me that a new-world city like Vancouver that has grown tremendously over that period wouldn't be directly comparable.

tom_mellior 6y ago
> Vienna's population in 1914 (at the beginning of WW1) was 2 million, vs 1.9 million today. You can't just take those two data points and assume that they are connected by a straight line. Vienna was down to about 1.5 million around 1990 and has been growing since. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna#Demographics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna#Demographics > Vienna's rents are stable and low For the record, they are neither. There has been crazy, and accelerating, growth in rental costs over the last ten years.
- I_am_tiberius 6y ago
  I assume that concerns many cities worldwide but it seems that currently everyone is trying to get rid of cash and take cheap loans to buy real estate. I check the real estate websites in Austria on a daily basis and can say that real estate supply has definitely decreased during the past year.
renewiltord 6y ago
Interestingly, SF's population has only grown 13% from 1950 to 2020. The housing prices have grown rather differently, though. Curious to see, isn't it?
- krisroadruck 6y ago
  I imagine it has only grown 13% precisely because housing prices have grown drastically. If enough housing supply was added to keep rents reasonable, I imagine there would be a lot more people there. Instead raising rents allows the city to cycle out the less wealthy and exchange them for the more wealthy.
- cheriot 6y ago
  Yet employment increased 40% from 1990 to 2019[1]. Increasing employment while maintaining a cap on the number homes drives up the value of the homes closest to all those jobs. [1] 2523.4/1798.7 = 1.4 from https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SANF806NAN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SANF806NAN
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Fun fact, if you want to reduce the price of houses, increase the supply instead of instituting rent control and hoping for spooky action at a distance.
    - Retric 6y ago
      Alternatively, just limit office space and thus local jobs. Except that’s not what local residents want. SF is doing everything it can to maximize home prices while minimizing rent and property tax increase for current residents. Which is arguably exactly what’s in current local voters best interest. Democracy working as intended?
      - vmception 6y ago
        > Democracy working as intended? 0-day: San Francisco real estate prices vulnerable to 51% attack.
        Retric 6y ago
        Sure, though you have to get people to vote opposite their personal interests, granted that’s fairly common behavior. Anyway, this seems to be something you can’t actually say as people strongly object without articulating why.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Fun fact, if you want to reduce the price of houses, increase the supply instead of instituting rent control and hoping for spooky action at a distance. That doesn't work either, though it may slow the rate of price growth. If you want to reduce the price of housing, tank the local economy. It's the only thing that works. Supply side policy is neutralized by its own effect on accelerating/decelerating economic growth, e.g., the attack you suggest doesn't work because reducing the growth of the cost of housing in the short-term accelerates local economic growth which creates upward demand-side pressure on housing, and eventually there are limits to supply in any geographical region (and even moreso in any commute time radius, since density shrinks the radius for any given time.) If you want to reduce the ratio between median wages and the cost of housing (which is probably more important than nominal or even real housing prices), attack the distribution of income.
jeffbee 6y ago
The countervailing trend is that the number of people per household has fallen greatly in the last 100 years, so even a city without a growing population needs construction to keep up.
polote 6y ago
It could also be the opposite, rent stable => population not growing
larsiusprime 6y ago
Yes, increasing population generally leads to increasing land prices, so I think that's a good question. There are other things that drive land values up, however, such as just generally increased productivity due to technology and any other factor (because a more productive population earns more and can thus afford to pay more in rent to their landlords). For a full assessment I would like to see other Austrian cities that have had similarly stable population sizes but don't have Vienna's policies.
- gyulai 6y ago
  Vienna is a bit out of the ordinary in that regard because it has been a stronghold of leftist government. The 2nd and 3rd biggest cities in Austria are Graz and Linz which don't have that kind of left-leaning policy. You can rent flats there for rates similar to Vienna public housing. But those are much smaller cities. Vienna is more comparable to Munich for instance where rents are much higher and which is a city that, arguably, has less to offer along many dimensions of quality-of-life.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    All this talk of Vienna and Munich make me think of malt.
  - larsiusprime 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing! Question: > has less to offer along many dimensions of quality-of-life. Which one are saying has less to offer, Munich or Vienna?
    - alamortsubite 6y ago
      Munich.
statstutor 6y ago
Not really. Islington (London)'s population is around half what it was in 1914, but rents are out-of-control.
mwerd 6y ago
D.C.'s population has gone down since the 1950s and it still faces affordable housing and homeless issues. I don't think population growth or decline is a clear driver.
mschuetz 6y ago
Standards of living were vastly different back then. It used to be the norm that 6-7 people were living in the same room, and apartments were about 22m² [1]. Toilets were outside the apartment. etc. Since then, old houses were upgraded and massive amounts of new houses were built to accommodate a rising standard of living. Just in the past 30 years, formerly cheap regions at outer parts of Vienna, with houses that were only habitable during summer, developed into enormously expensive upper-middle class areas with single-family houses. [1] https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000067989262/wohnhistoriker-wohnen-war-ein-riesengeschaeft-fuer-investoren https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000067989262/wohnhistorike...
pchristensen 6y ago
I don't have the numbers handy, but household size has shrunk dramatically over the last 100 years. I would guess that today's 1.9M people represent 50-100% more househoulds than 1914's 2M.

tom_mellior 6y ago

> Vienna's population in 1914 (at the beginning of WW1) was 2 million, vs 1.9 million today. You can't just take those two data points and assume that they are connected by a straight line. Vienna was down to about 1.5 million around 1990 and has been growing since. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna#Demographics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna#Demographics > Vienna's rents are stable and low For the record, they are neither. There has been crazy, and accelerating, growth in rental costs over the last ten years.

I_am_tiberius 6y ago
I assume that concerns many cities worldwide but it seems that currently everyone is trying to get rid of cash and take cheap loans to buy real estate. I check the real estate websites in Austria on a daily basis and can say that real estate supply has definitely decreased during the past year.

renewiltord 6y ago

Interestingly, SF's population has only grown 13% from 1950 to 2020. The housing prices have grown rather differently, though. Curious to see, isn't it?

krisroadruck 6y ago
I imagine it has only grown 13% precisely because housing prices have grown drastically. If enough housing supply was added to keep rents reasonable, I imagine there would be a lot more people there. Instead raising rents allows the city to cycle out the less wealthy and exchange them for the more wealthy.
cheriot 6y ago
Yet employment increased 40% from 1990 to 2019[1]. Increasing employment while maintaining a cap on the number homes drives up the value of the homes closest to all those jobs. [1] 2523.4/1798.7 = 1.4 from https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SANF806NAN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SANF806NAN
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Fun fact, if you want to reduce the price of houses, increase the supply instead of instituting rent control and hoping for spooky action at a distance.
  - Retric 6y ago
    Alternatively, just limit office space and thus local jobs. Except that’s not what local residents want. SF is doing everything it can to maximize home prices while minimizing rent and property tax increase for current residents. Which is arguably exactly what’s in current local voters best interest. Democracy working as intended?
    - vmception 6y ago
      > Democracy working as intended? 0-day: San Francisco real estate prices vulnerable to 51% attack.
      - Retric 6y ago
        Sure, though you have to get people to vote opposite their personal interests, granted that’s fairly common behavior. Anyway, this seems to be something you can’t actually say as people strongly object without articulating why.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Fun fact, if you want to reduce the price of houses, increase the supply instead of instituting rent control and hoping for spooky action at a distance. That doesn't work either, though it may slow the rate of price growth. If you want to reduce the price of housing, tank the local economy. It's the only thing that works. Supply side policy is neutralized by its own effect on accelerating/decelerating economic growth, e.g., the attack you suggest doesn't work because reducing the growth of the cost of housing in the short-term accelerates local economic growth which creates upward demand-side pressure on housing, and eventually there are limits to supply in any geographical region (and even moreso in any commute time radius, since density shrinks the radius for any given time.) If you want to reduce the ratio between median wages and the cost of housing (which is probably more important than nominal or even real housing prices), attack the distribution of income.

jeffbee 6y ago

The countervailing trend is that the number of people per household has fallen greatly in the last 100 years, so even a city without a growing population needs construction to keep up.

polote 6y ago

It could also be the opposite, rent stable => population not growing

larsiusprime 6y ago

Yes, increasing population generally leads to increasing land prices, so I think that's a good question. There are other things that drive land values up, however, such as just generally increased productivity due to technology and any other factor (because a more productive population earns more and can thus afford to pay more in rent to their landlords). For a full assessment I would like to see other Austrian cities that have had similarly stable population sizes but don't have Vienna's policies.

gyulai 6y ago
Vienna is a bit out of the ordinary in that regard because it has been a stronghold of leftist government. The 2nd and 3rd biggest cities in Austria are Graz and Linz which don't have that kind of left-leaning policy. You can rent flats there for rates similar to Vienna public housing. But those are much smaller cities. Vienna is more comparable to Munich for instance where rents are much higher and which is a city that, arguably, has less to offer along many dimensions of quality-of-life.
- giantg2 6y ago
  All this talk of Vienna and Munich make me think of malt.
- larsiusprime 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing! Question: > has less to offer along many dimensions of quality-of-life. Which one are saying has less to offer, Munich or Vienna?
  - alamortsubite 6y ago
    Munich.

statstutor 6y ago

Not really. Islington (London)'s population is around half what it was in 1914, but rents are out-of-control.

mwerd 6y ago

D.C.'s population has gone down since the 1950s and it still faces affordable housing and homeless issues. I don't think population growth or decline is a clear driver.

mschuetz 6y ago

Standards of living were vastly different back then. It used to be the norm that 6-7 people were living in the same room, and apartments were about 22m² [1]. Toilets were outside the apartment. etc. Since then, old houses were upgraded and massive amounts of new houses were built to accommodate a rising standard of living. Just in the past 30 years, formerly cheap regions at outer parts of Vienna, with houses that were only habitable during summer, developed into enormously expensive upper-middle class areas with single-family houses. [1] https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000067989262/wohnhistoriker-wohnen-war-ein-riesengeschaeft-fuer-investoren https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000067989262/wohnhistorike...

pchristensen 6y ago

I don't have the numbers handy, but household size has shrunk dramatically over the last 100 years. I would guess that today's 1.9M people represent 50-100% more househoulds than 1914's 2M.