3 ms·

I think one problem at least is that if an area gets filled with young professionals with cash to burn, the businesses in the area either start realising they c

I think one problem at least is that if an area gets filled with young professionals with cash to burn, the businesses in the area either start realising they can start charging premium rates for things or they get bought by people who do. In addition to this, as the area becomes more desirable and affluent, landlords realise that they can increase the rents. This means that over time, the area becomes unaffordable for those who have lived there for decades, unless there's something like rent control introduced.

cactus2093 5y ago
> unless there's something like rent control introduced. s/rent control/more housing/ and then yes. Or perhaps do both, even better use housing vouchers instead. But you'll never rent control your way to a functional, affordable city. It can be a better bandaid than doing nothing at all but it's too untargeted and has too many downsides. And it very much falls into that same trap of thinking that young people aren't real residents who also need housing.
- antihero 5y ago
  More housing seems to be very difficult though - developers are much more interested in building luxury flats that they can sell to people who aren't even going to live there, because that is a better return on their investment. Local councils are struggling horribly to build because land is so expensive. Local council budgets are strangled enough as it is, and social housing is quite costly. This sort of scale has to be driven at government level and the tories have a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as possible so that their voter base sees a return on their investment.
  - cactus2093 5y ago
    This is complete nonsense in so many ways. Multi-unit housing is mostly illegal to build, and even projects that do meet zoning requirements can get blocked by endless red tape. Fix that and housing becomes cheaper to build and it won’t all be “luxury”. Also, “luxury” is just a nimby boogeyman and doesn’t mean anything. Older housing is still very expensive, because there is simply not enough housing. Even if new housing does come with a small premium over older, people move out of older housing into the newer housing freeing up space in the slightly less expensive older units for lower income residents, and the market as a whole gets less expensive as you build enough housing to meet demand.

cactus2093 5y ago

> unless there's something like rent control introduced. s/rent control/more housing/ and then yes. Or perhaps do both, even better use housing vouchers instead. But you'll never rent control your way to a functional, affordable city. It can be a better bandaid than doing nothing at all but it's too untargeted and has too many downsides. And it very much falls into that same trap of thinking that young people aren't real residents who also need housing.

antihero 5y ago
More housing seems to be very difficult though - developers are much more interested in building luxury flats that they can sell to people who aren't even going to live there, because that is a better return on their investment. Local councils are struggling horribly to build because land is so expensive. Local council budgets are strangled enough as it is, and social housing is quite costly. This sort of scale has to be driven at government level and the tories have a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as possible so that their voter base sees a return on their investment.
- cactus2093 5y ago
  This is complete nonsense in so many ways. Multi-unit housing is mostly illegal to build, and even projects that do meet zoning requirements can get blocked by endless red tape. Fix that and housing becomes cheaper to build and it won’t all be “luxury”. Also, “luxury” is just a nimby boogeyman and doesn’t mean anything. Older housing is still very expensive, because there is simply not enough housing. Even if new housing does come with a small premium over older, people move out of older housing into the newer housing freeing up space in the slightly less expensive older units for lower income residents, and the market as a whole gets less expensive as you build enough housing to meet demand.