3 ms·

This doesn't help in the short term, because building takes time. Moving people is faster than constructing buildings.

TuringNYC 5y ago
You're right it does not help in the short term, but we've been speaking about the Bay Area problems (for example) for two decades and vigorously discussing it in the past decade -- building five years ago could have solved today's problem. Similarly, we could speak about it for another decade, or we could build now and solve part of the problem in five years. This also doesn't exclude other fixes that can happen orthogonally.
Telemakhos 5y ago
> building takes time It does not have to take nine months (the national average) to build a house or a hundred houses. Housing can be and in times of necessity has been built rapidly and well. My favorite example is Hilton Village in Newport News, VA, built to house workers at Newport News Shipyard at the tail end of and after World War I. Five hundred units were constructed within two years, and they were built cheaply yet with a randomization to the sequence of models and detailing that kept the houses from feeling like a cookie-cutter development, avoiding pitfalls into which many suburbs today fall. A hundred years later the homes remain occupied and in fact prized today for their charm. The barriers to affordable, desirable, swiftly built housing are artificial.
- prostoalex 5y ago
  Manufactured housing is probably the best bet for "built cheaply yet with a randomization", but most high-cost-of-living areas lack the available land. So then you need to build up, and that opens the Pandora's box of building code compliance, labor costs and material cost. The city of Los Angeles presumably has access to average material costs and average labor costs, but the simple apartment complex they developed to house the homeless still ended up at $746,000 a unit https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/las-homeless-housing-now-costs-more-than-some-luxury-condos/2425373/ https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/las-homeless-ho...
BurningFrog 5y ago
"Moving people" OTOH sounds violent.
- sanxiyn 5y ago
  It doesn't have to. For example, if people are moving from Bay Area to Texas, we should think about how to accelerate that.
bsenftner 5y ago
Isn't Jimmy Carter and Habit For Humanity building new homes, each in under 30 days, around the southern east coast? https://allthatsinteresting.com/jimmy-carter-houses https://allthatsinteresting.com/jimmy-carter-houses
LegitShady 5y ago
You're unlikely to find an instant solution to a problem decades in the making, period.

You're right it does not help in the short term, but we've been speaking about the Bay Area problems (for example) for two decades and vigorously discussing it in the past decade -- building five years ago could have solved today's problem. Similarly, we could speak about it for another decade, or we could build now and solve part of the problem in five years. This also doesn't exclude other fixes that can happen orthogonally.

Telemakhos 5y ago

> building takes time It does not have to take nine months (the national average) to build a house or a hundred houses. Housing can be and in times of necessity has been built rapidly and well. My favorite example is Hilton Village in Newport News, VA, built to house workers at Newport News Shipyard at the tail end of and after World War I. Five hundred units were constructed within two years, and they were built cheaply yet with a randomization to the sequence of models and detailing that kept the houses from feeling like a cookie-cutter development, avoiding pitfalls into which many suburbs today fall. A hundred years later the homes remain occupied and in fact prized today for their charm. The barriers to affordable, desirable, swiftly built housing are artificial.

prostoalex 5y ago
Manufactured housing is probably the best bet for "built cheaply yet with a randomization", but most high-cost-of-living areas lack the available land. So then you need to build up, and that opens the Pandora's box of building code compliance, labor costs and material cost. The city of Los Angeles presumably has access to average material costs and average labor costs, but the simple apartment complex they developed to house the homeless still ended up at $746,000 a unit https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/las-homeless-housing-now-costs-more-than-some-luxury-condos/2425373/ https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/las-homeless-ho...

BurningFrog 5y ago

"Moving people" OTOH sounds violent.

sanxiyn 5y ago
It doesn't have to. For example, if people are moving from Bay Area to Texas, we should think about how to accelerate that.

bsenftner 5y ago

Isn't Jimmy Carter and Habit For Humanity building new homes, each in under 30 days, around the southern east coast? https://allthatsinteresting.com/jimmy-carter-houses https://allthatsinteresting.com/jimmy-carter-houses

LegitShady 5y ago

You're unlikely to find an instant solution to a problem decades in the making, period.