5 ms·

> The rise of homelessness is almost equal to the decline of single occupancy housing (flophouses, chicken wire hotels, etc). This has specifically been a huge

by slg 5y ago

> The rise of homelessness is almost equal to the decline of single occupancy housing (flophouses, chicken wire hotels, etc). This has specifically been a huge problem in cities with expensive real estate like Los Angeles and San Francisco. It is why the free market approach to fixing the housing crisis doesn't work. The land is so expensive that it doesn't make financial sense to waste it on low margin affordable housing. Developers realize this, snatch up the current options for housing of last resort like SRO buildings, knock them down, and build luxury condos. Supply of the bottom of the market is decreased in favor of supply at the top of the market and this new construction often is less dense than the housing it replaces. People argue that the new supply will eventually trickle down, but that new supply is always snatched up by people moving into the city leaving the people who used live there with no place to go. There needs to be regulation to force the construction of affordable housing in these markets as the free market has shown it won't be built otherwise.

davidf18 5y ago
The free market approach would work but the real-estate markets are not free markets: There is rent-seeking zoning density restrictions that make the land artificially scarce. Reverse the zoning density restrictions and this will be a return to eliminating the market failure in real-estate.
- slg 5y ago
  Allowing more denser zoning would help, but it doesn't fix the problem I mentioned. As I said, new construction is often replacing higher density affordable housing with lower density luxury housing. This is motivated by profit and not zoning.
  - pas 5y ago
    Mandating density increase would solve this. Of course the problem is that US cities are legally small, the metro areas are big sprawling low density money sinks, and there's very little zoning coordination between cities in a metro area.
    - dantheman 5y ago
      Los Angeles county is enormous and can address this.
      - pas 5y ago
        Can a country override city regulations effectively?
nybble41 5y ago
> The land is so expensive that it doesn't make financial sense to waste it on low margin affordable housing. It doesn't make sense, period. The market is making the ration decision. The city could always buy the expensive real estate and turn it into slums—sorry, "affordable housing"—but this is clearly not a reasonable allocation of limited resources. You want to ensure that everyone has a home, fine, I agree that this is a worthy goal. But those homes don't need to be located in the most expensive areas on the planet. You'd be doing those in need of such housing a favor by relocating them to less expensive areas on the outskirts of the city and concentrating on improving transportation to and from downtown.
- slg 5y ago
  >The market is making the ration decision. The city could always buy the expensive real estate and turn it into slums—sorry, "affordable housing"—but this is clearly not a reasonable allocation of limited resources. No one is saying these need to be city owned properties. The market is making the profit optimizing decision. Regulation can but restrictions on developers and force them to build affordable housing that would still be profitable just not the absolutely most profitable option. It is the same concept as the minimum wage. Sometimes we need to make rules so capitalism doesn't prioritize profit over societal good. >You'd be doing those in need of such housing a favor by relocating them to less expensive areas on the outskirts of the city There are no affordable outskirts for a city like Los Angeles. The SRO housing in neighborhoods like Skid Row were some of the only places in the region that a person on minimum wage could afford to live alone. Forcing those people to move hours away from where they work is not "doing those in need of such housing a favor".
  - nybble41 5y ago
    > No one is saying these need to be city owned properties. … Regulation can but restrictions on developers and force them to build affordable housing that would still be profitable just not the absolutely most profitable option. That's just the city seizing developers' property for public use without compensation. Buying the property would give the city moral authority to decide how it's used, while also accurately tracking the cost of the city's policies as opposed to burying that cost in regulations. > It is the same concept as the minimum wage. This is not winning you any points. I'm opposed to that too. You're not changing the actual minimum wage, which is always zero unless you're also guaranteeing everyone a job regardless of willingness to do useful work (which would make this more of a UBI than a minimum wage). You're just ensuring that anyone who can't produce enough value to be worth paying your minimum wage becomes unemployable. > There are no affordable outskirts for a city like Los Angeles. Then maybe we need to consider that not everyone needs to live (or work) in Los Angeles. If your LA job doesn't pay enough to afford unsubsidized housing in LA then you're basically working for free, at best. Housing is not the primary issue here; what you need is a different job in a more affordable city. I'm not a fan of just handing someone a one-way bus fare and sending them off to be someone else's problem, but if you add job placement and housing in the new location to the package I think it becomes a workable option.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> It is why the free market approach to fixing the housing crisis doesn't work. There is no free market approach to fixing any crisis; “free market” means the absence of pursuit of centralize goals like fixing crises. There may be market-oriented approaches (i.e., subsidies and/or taxes to alter supply and/or demand to incentivize the desired results), but that's a different issue.
dantheman 5y ago
There doesn't need to be regulation to force construction - they need to remove the regulation that prohibits construction.
- challengly 5y ago
  Why is that downvoted? It's correct. Talk to anyone who has tried to build housing in these cities. It's all but illegal to build and you need to have the right connections with the political class, along with great wealth to have any hope.
ric2b 5y ago
> The land is so expensive that it doesn't make financial sense to waste it on low margin affordable housing. Isn't part of the problem that these places have regulations against high density housing? If San Francisco allowed for high-rises to be built I bet developers would be running over themselves to build affordable housing. Better transportation would also help.

by slg 5y ago

davidf18 5y ago

The free market approach would work but the real-estate markets are not free markets: There is rent-seeking zoning density restrictions that make the land artificially scarce. Reverse the zoning density restrictions and this will be a return to eliminating the market failure in real-estate.

slg 5y ago
Allowing more denser zoning would help, but it doesn't fix the problem I mentioned. As I said, new construction is often replacing higher density affordable housing with lower density luxury housing. This is motivated by profit and not zoning.
- pas 5y ago
  Mandating density increase would solve this. Of course the problem is that US cities are legally small, the metro areas are big sprawling low density money sinks, and there's very little zoning coordination between cities in a metro area.
  - dantheman 5y ago
    Los Angeles county is enormous and can address this.
    - pas 5y ago
      Can a country override city regulations effectively?

nybble41 5y ago

> The land is so expensive that it doesn't make financial sense to waste it on low margin affordable housing. It doesn't make sense, period. The market is making the ration decision. The city could always buy the expensive real estate and turn it into slums—sorry, "affordable housing"—but this is clearly not a reasonable allocation of limited resources. You want to ensure that everyone has a home, fine, I agree that this is a worthy goal. But those homes don't need to be located in the most expensive areas on the planet. You'd be doing those in need of such housing a favor by relocating them to less expensive areas on the outskirts of the city and concentrating on improving transportation to and from downtown.

slg 5y ago
>The market is making the ration decision. The city could always buy the expensive real estate and turn it into slums—sorry, "affordable housing"—but this is clearly not a reasonable allocation of limited resources. No one is saying these need to be city owned properties. The market is making the profit optimizing decision. Regulation can but restrictions on developers and force them to build affordable housing that would still be profitable just not the absolutely most profitable option. It is the same concept as the minimum wage. Sometimes we need to make rules so capitalism doesn't prioritize profit over societal good. >You'd be doing those in need of such housing a favor by relocating them to less expensive areas on the outskirts of the city There are no affordable outskirts for a city like Los Angeles. The SRO housing in neighborhoods like Skid Row were some of the only places in the region that a person on minimum wage could afford to live alone. Forcing those people to move hours away from where they work is not "doing those in need of such housing a favor".
- nybble41 5y ago
  > No one is saying these need to be city owned properties. … Regulation can but restrictions on developers and force them to build affordable housing that would still be profitable just not the absolutely most profitable option. That's just the city seizing developers' property for public use without compensation. Buying the property would give the city moral authority to decide how it's used, while also accurately tracking the cost of the city's policies as opposed to burying that cost in regulations. > It is the same concept as the minimum wage. This is not winning you any points. I'm opposed to that too. You're not changing the actual minimum wage, which is always zero unless you're also guaranteeing everyone a job regardless of willingness to do useful work (which would make this more of a UBI than a minimum wage). You're just ensuring that anyone who can't produce enough value to be worth paying your minimum wage becomes unemployable. > There are no affordable outskirts for a city like Los Angeles. Then maybe we need to consider that not everyone needs to live (or work) in Los Angeles. If your LA job doesn't pay enough to afford unsubsidized housing in LA then you're basically working for free, at best. Housing is not the primary issue here; what you need is a different job in a more affordable city. I'm not a fan of just handing someone a one-way bus fare and sending them off to be someone else's problem, but if you add job placement and housing in the new location to the package I think it becomes a workable option.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> It is why the free market approach to fixing the housing crisis doesn't work. There is no free market approach to fixing any crisis; “free market” means the absence of pursuit of centralize goals like fixing crises. There may be market-oriented approaches (i.e., subsidies and/or taxes to alter supply and/or demand to incentivize the desired results), but that's a different issue.

dantheman 5y ago

There doesn't need to be regulation to force construction - they need to remove the regulation that prohibits construction.

challengly 5y ago
Why is that downvoted? It's correct. Talk to anyone who has tried to build housing in these cities. It's all but illegal to build and you need to have the right connections with the political class, along with great wealth to have any hope.

ric2b 5y ago

> The land is so expensive that it doesn't make financial sense to waste it on low margin affordable housing. Isn't part of the problem that these places have regulations against high density housing? If San Francisco allowed for high-rises to be built I bet developers would be running over themselves to build affordable housing. Better transportation would also help.