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Thanks! I wasn't thinking of opposition to gentrification/displacement. We hear similar arguments in DC, but they tend to come from current residents, who are

Thanks! I wasn't thinking of opposition to gentrification/displacement. We hear similar arguments in DC, but they tend to come from current residents, who are often Black or other PoC, and not traditional (young, white) liberals. Related anecdote: After gentrification, DC gets some interesting side-effects... there are several "neighborhood" churches where most of the congregants live 30+ minutes away in the suburbs, due to being priced out of the local rental market. And these church-goers do everything in their power to block bicycle lanes downtown, because they need the street-side parking for the church.

EricE 6y ago
"gentrification" is just a way for people to be NIMBY while feeling noble at the same time. It would be pretty freaking hilarious if it didn't harm so many people - especially those at the lower end of the housing spectrum. It's the ultimate in selfishness "I'm secure with my affordable housing - screw everyone else" :p Two things can be true at the same time - you can be economically disadvantaged and also be a selfish asshole too. I'm so sick of people giving groups a total pass on not being toxic, selfish assholes because they also are also part of a "protected" class.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  I didn't give anybody a pass. :shrug:
- dang 6y ago
  Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying for a different sort of conversation here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
fossuser 6y ago
I don’t think it’s the building that creates gentrification - it’s the lack of supply. Increasing supply to meet demand should reduce prices. Not building to keep housing crappy enough to reduce demand doesn’t work (and doesn’t everyone prefer to live in a nicer place?). If that fails they fall back on generic environment arguments, “taking down any building is bad for the environment”. I think it’s all just status quo bias and resistance to change, resistance to building. All of the arguments that come after that are driven entirely by motivated reasoning. If you lean left it’s the left nimby canon, if you lean right it’s the right version of that. I just want more housing supply.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  Increasing supply to meet demand should reduce prices. That is the argument and the desire. Have any cities ever proven that it's true? My experience has universally been that prices go up indefinitely, until the local economy dies and there is no money left to pay the rent.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    Tokyo and Singapore come to mind - it requires proper incentives to be in place. The US is a mess given the incentives towards home ownership as an investment. The Bay Area and California make this incentive worse with Prop 13.
  - seryoiupfurds 6y ago
    I don't have a link to hand but I remember reading that rents in Seattle dropped after they started approving more rental buildings. If 10,000 yuppies move to town and 1000 apartments' worth of old buildings are torn down to build new apartments for them, then 1000 people are displaced. But consider the alternative: if 10,000 yuppies move in and no new housing is built, they'll bid up the price of run down old buildings until nobody else can afford them, and 10,000 people are displaced.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  I don’t think it’s the building that creates gentrification - it’s the lack of supply. Increasing supply to meet demand should reduce prices. Over long enough time-spans and large enough areas of a city, I agree. But, that doesn't change the impact on individuals who get priced out of their specific apartment (where that apartment was rented below market because it was run-down, and was replaced with a market-rate apartment). Which isn't to say its right/correct that the individual can potentially block development to the detriment of the city as a whole. We would all be much better off with a different approach to zoning/development.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    > "where that apartment was rented below market because it was run-down, and was replaced with a market-rate apartment" I'm going to be a little pedantic, but I think we're mostly in agreement. A rundown apartment is not priced at 'below market' - it gets the price the market supports which is just lower than a nice place that more people want. That demand still exists, it just prices up other stuff even higher. In a restricted supply environment that price will still be very high, it just won't be as high as a place that's actually nice (which will be even higher). It's why awful places in Palo Alto are worth $2M (see: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Palo-Alto/3785-Park-Blvd-94306/home/1149731 https://www.redfin.com/CA/Palo-Alto/3785-Park-Blvd-94306/hom... - in case that link goes away it's a basically condemned house for $1.7M next to train tracks. It's dirty and they didn't even clean up before taking pictures.) I'll concede that if you replace crappy housing with nicer housing (and don't increase the number of units overall) some of the demand that wouldn't consider it before now will so the market price goes up (and the market price of other fancier housing likely reduces a bit). > "Which isn't to say its right/correct that the individual can potentially block development to the detriment of the city as a whole. We would all be much better off with a different approach to zoning/development." In total agreement here - I wish there was a way to align incentives such that we built a lot more housing. It'd be cool if there was a way to have people have vested interest in a city's success rather than their own home asset price via scarcity. Maybe a way for people to recognize increased city GDP directly or something? I'm just making stuff up, but clearly the current set up causes a lot of problems.

EricE 6y ago

"gentrification" is just a way for people to be NIMBY while feeling noble at the same time. It would be pretty freaking hilarious if it didn't harm so many people - especially those at the lower end of the housing spectrum. It's the ultimate in selfishness "I'm secure with my affordable housing - screw everyone else" :p Two things can be true at the same time - you can be economically disadvantaged and also be a selfish asshole too. I'm so sick of people giving groups a total pass on not being toxic, selfish assholes because they also are also part of a "protected" class.

alistairSH 6y ago
I didn't give anybody a pass. :shrug:
dang 6y ago
Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying for a different sort of conversation here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

fossuser 6y ago

I don’t think it’s the building that creates gentrification - it’s the lack of supply. Increasing supply to meet demand should reduce prices. Not building to keep housing crappy enough to reduce demand doesn’t work (and doesn’t everyone prefer to live in a nicer place?). If that fails they fall back on generic environment arguments, “taking down any building is bad for the environment”. I think it’s all just status quo bias and resistance to change, resistance to building. All of the arguments that come after that are driven entirely by motivated reasoning. If you lean left it’s the left nimby canon, if you lean right it’s the right version of that. I just want more housing supply.

nitrogen 6y ago
Increasing supply to meet demand should reduce prices. That is the argument and the desire. Have any cities ever proven that it's true? My experience has universally been that prices go up indefinitely, until the local economy dies and there is no money left to pay the rent.
- fossuser 6y ago
  Tokyo and Singapore come to mind - it requires proper incentives to be in place. The US is a mess given the incentives towards home ownership as an investment. The Bay Area and California make this incentive worse with Prop 13.
- seryoiupfurds 6y ago
  I don't have a link to hand but I remember reading that rents in Seattle dropped after they started approving more rental buildings. If 10,000 yuppies move to town and 1000 apartments' worth of old buildings are torn down to build new apartments for them, then 1000 people are displaced. But consider the alternative: if 10,000 yuppies move in and no new housing is built, they'll bid up the price of run down old buildings until nobody else can afford them, and 10,000 people are displaced.
alistairSH 6y ago
I don’t think it’s the building that creates gentrification - it’s the lack of supply. Increasing supply to meet demand should reduce prices. Over long enough time-spans and large enough areas of a city, I agree. But, that doesn't change the impact on individuals who get priced out of their specific apartment (where that apartment was rented below market because it was run-down, and was replaced with a market-rate apartment). Which isn't to say its right/correct that the individual can potentially block development to the detriment of the city as a whole. We would all be much better off with a different approach to zoning/development.
- fossuser 6y ago
  > "where that apartment was rented below market because it was run-down, and was replaced with a market-rate apartment" I'm going to be a little pedantic, but I think we're mostly in agreement. A rundown apartment is not priced at 'below market' - it gets the price the market supports which is just lower than a nice place that more people want. That demand still exists, it just prices up other stuff even higher. In a restricted supply environment that price will still be very high, it just won't be as high as a place that's actually nice (which will be even higher). It's why awful places in Palo Alto are worth $2M (see: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Palo-Alto/3785-Park-Blvd-94306/home/1149731 https://www.redfin.com/CA/Palo-Alto/3785-Park-Blvd-94306/hom... - in case that link goes away it's a basically condemned house for $1.7M next to train tracks. It's dirty and they didn't even clean up before taking pictures.) I'll concede that if you replace crappy housing with nicer housing (and don't increase the number of units overall) some of the demand that wouldn't consider it before now will so the market price goes up (and the market price of other fancier housing likely reduces a bit). > "Which isn't to say its right/correct that the individual can potentially block development to the detriment of the city as a whole. We would all be much better off with a different approach to zoning/development." In total agreement here - I wish there was a way to align incentives such that we built a lot more housing. It'd be cool if there was a way to have people have vested interest in a city's success rather than their own home asset price via scarcity. Maybe a way for people to recognize increased city GDP directly or something? I'm just making stuff up, but clearly the current set up causes a lot of problems.