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> To be eligible to live in the village, applicants need to meet three basic criteria: they must demonstrate financial need, have lived in Augsburg for at least

• simlan 5y ago
  And your point is ?
  • arvindamirtaa 5y ago
    Things cost money. Things that don't cost to buy at least as much as they cost to make, are not sustainable by definition and will be riddled with systemic problems like shortage, rationing, etc.
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • chongli 5y ago
    I think their point is that this isn't really social housing, it's a perk for a very exclusive group of people. Not all that different from a waiting list for membership to an exclusive golf course.
    • true_religion 5y ago
      Exclusive being the community of poeple who paid taxes (i.e. the church tithe) for at least 2 years before they fell on hard times? It's hardly charity or a perk. It's basically a local government service.
  • csomar 5y ago
    It doesn't work even though the article is trying to portray this as a functional model and a solution to the housing crisis. > Money for maintaining the village comes from investments in forestry, real estate and entrance fees. It is just a charity with religious requirements.
    • SiempreViernes 5y ago
      If shortage means it "doesn't work", it's not clear to me how exclusion based on income is any better, or indeed if these are actually substantially more than just two names for the same fundamental shortage problem.
      • nanis 5y ago
        > exclusion based on income Exclusion based on price.
        • SiempreViernes 5y ago
          No, when there is any housing shortage it is a matter of empirical fact that landlords select on the income prospective renters can prove.
      • gruez 5y ago
        >If shortage means it "doesn't work", it's not clear to me how exclusion based on income is any better because it provides some sort of objective measure for how badly you want it, and incentivizes/finances more housing developments.
        • cool_dude85 5y ago
          Ah, my shortages are good, your shortages are bad. Makes sense.
          • gruez 5y ago
            I have a feeling you're being sarcastic, but that's exactly what I'm arguing for. If your city only has enough housing for 100,000 people, but there are 150,000 people who want to live there, there's going 50,000 who can't get a house. In other words, a shortage. That's bad, but that number is going to be the same regardless of how you're redistributing it. The question then becomes, can we make the best out of a bad situation? Distributing by price has benefits that I mentioned. What benefits does giving giving it for below-market prices to people whoever's first on a waiting list provide?
• alisonkisk 5y ago
  Not just rationing, but discriminating based on personal benefit to the provider. This is a soul-buying operation, ironic since Catholics aren't supposed to buy and sell souls.
  • javert 5y ago
    Seems doubtful that the patron actually believed that people praying for him would help him in the afterlife. But maybe I'm totally misunderstanding the medieval mind.
    • JackFr 5y ago
      > Seems doubtful that the patron actually believed that people praying for him would help him in the afterlife. Why does that seem doubtful? There are many people (myself included) who feel that way today.
      • javert 5y ago
        Well, I'm aware that there are people that believe this stuff today. But Jakob Fugger, if you actually read about his life, does not appear to have a moral bone in his body in the Catholic sense. That informed my comment. I personally suspect the village was done for show or as some sort of appeasement, not out of genuine faith. Separately, I don't think we as a society that strives to be rational, should be open to claims of belief based on faith. I think they should be immediately discarded as arbitrary claims. Just an FYI, let's steer away from that particular topic (i.e. the legitimacy of believing some part of Catholic doctrine).
    • corpdronejuly 5y ago
      You are absolutely misunderstanding the medieval mind, and many modern religious minds. Many people today believe in the power of prayer for the dead to help the state of the souls of the departed. Not a majority, but enough that you probably know a few who don't speak about it precisely because of the incredulity people express when people actually believe their religion, especially Christianity.
• eesmith 5y ago
  Is rationing ... bad? How would raising the rent change the wait time for ground floor housing? By forcing poor people to move out because richer people want to move in? That doesn't sound like a good thing. According to standard economics, since there's a demand, why isn't there other, new housing along these lines - where costs are paid for by investments and entrance fees rather than rents?
  • kiba 5y ago
    Only 160 residents can live there, which only helps a small amount of people.
  • nanis 5y ago
    > Is rationing ... bad? Yes. When a good or service is always available to anyone who can pay the price, all one needs to do is find the money and one can get it. When prices are set artificially low, both current and long term go down which results in perpetual shortages. Since getting the thing now depends not just on being able to come up with the cash, but relies on the pen of a bureaucrat, corruption seeps in and becomes endemic. This charity is able to get it done by requiring adherence to a specific religion which serves both as a selection and an enforcement mechanism. If one is tempted to think of generalizing this, I would recommend reading about both Western socialists waxing poetic about USSR's "solutions" to housing shortages and the reality of housing in the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, city & urban planning programs as well as architecture schools tend to produce a lot of credentialed people who parrot the former.
    • jorvi 5y ago
      > Yes. When a good or service is always available to anyone who can pay the price, all one needs to do is find the money and one can get it. This sounds nice but breaks down because shelter is a human need, it is not a new iPhone. I am aware that the solution to housing crises is build build build, and that the more profit is in developing housing the more there is being built, but pretending a place to live is like any other common good is cold and wrong.
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• kiba 5y ago
  Yeah. This is not really social housing. It does makes me wonder how low the price of social housing can go while still being sustainable either to be subsidized by the government or payable by tenants. Land use policies, that is transportation and housing makes up about 30% of the cost in the average American budget, which suggests living in America is pretty expensive.[1] 1. https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-household-budget https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-household-budget
  • cies 5y ago
    Came to the same conclusion that "catholics only housing" cannot be social housing...
    • asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
      I wonder how strictly they check up on your mass attendance. I'm not sure the ethics of lying to pass an unethical religious-based test for housing, but it strikes me that there must be at least one resident that is not as dedicated to the church as most.
      • tsbischof 5y ago
        It could be as simple as checking tax records: in Germany, tithing is incorporated directly into tax declarations and payroll systems.
      • cies 5y ago
        Still not very social if its "catholics only". That they're checking on your church attendance makes it all feel very bigbrothery to me. Non the less cool they manage to keep prices down: much lower than actual social housing operated by govt.
      • nanis 5y ago
        > Social worker Doris Herzog is the first point of contact for most applicants. She checks church registers to ensure they're Catholic and interviews them on their living situation.
• jka 5y ago
  Are there any statistics on the number of units of livable accommodation in the world, per country?
  • nanis 5y ago
    Define "livable accommodation". That aside, in the U.S., there is https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/ahs.html https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/ahs.html
    • jka 5y ago
      Thank you very much - I think that shows that (for the US): - in 2015 there were an estimated 118,290k housing units - in 2017 there were an estimated 121,560k housing units - in 2019 there were an estimated 124,135k housing units (note that the majority of these -- more than 70,000k in each case -- are single, detached houses) Those are quite useful starting factors - roughly one housing unit per three persons in the population, and roughly 5% growth in capacity over four years. The next few steps would be to match those against population and property price trends, check for correlations, and perhaps narrow and regionalize the data to look for any notable outliers. (not sure when I'll get to those, but it'll be a good learning experience I'm sure)
• dbingham 5y ago
  Those things happen in markets with price signals too. Rationing and persistent shortage are happening in housing markets around the world broadly. It's kind of a given that any social housing like this is going to have a limited number of rooms. And as a result, only so many people will be able to live there. That's not some clear proof of market theory. Because the other half of market theory - about how price signals drive behavior of rational actors - doesn't hold up.
  • thebean11 5y ago
    Do you have an example where rationing is occurring without price controls? I don't have experience outside of the US, but in the two US markets with probably the biggest housing shortages (SF, NYC, maybe Austin nowadays?), if you give me 8k a month I'll find an apartment tomorrow.
    • syshum 5y ago
      It is also unfair to blame market prices for the situation in NYC and SF as largely the price increases and shortages are driven by insane zoning and other regulations that makes building, maintaining, and turning over housing near impossible. That is not market forces, that is government controls
    • lakis 5y ago
      Good luck going to Mount Athos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Athos#Access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Athos#Access Money is not an issue. But unless your a man, you can't get in, period. Oh, you mean you want to live there. No problem, just change your religion. "Residents on the peninsula must be men aged 18 and over who are members of the Eastern Orthodox Church and also either monks or workers"
      • nanis 5y ago
        > Good luck going to Mount Athos OK, so here we once again have a situation where the price mechanism is not allowed to operate. For a moment, I thought this was a private gated community in San Fransisco. > Mount Athos (/ˈæθɒs/; Greek: Άθως, [ˈa.θos]) is a mountain and peninsula in northeastern Greece and an important centre of Eastern Orthodox monasticism. It is governed as an autonomous polity within the Hellenic Republic. Mount Athos is home to 20 monasteries under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. Oh, another religious membership test. How is this at all pertinent to the functioning of the price mechanism? Especially when it is government enforced? > Although Mount Athos is legally part of the European Union like the rest of Greece, the Monastic State of the Holy Mountain and the Athonite institutions have a special jurisdiction which was reaffirmed during the admission of Greece to the European Community (precursor to the EU).[5] This empowers the Monastic State's authorities to regulate the free movement of people and goods in its territory; in particular, only males are allowed to enter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Athos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Athos