5 ms·

I completely agree, but Tokyo also has sensible tax policies to encourage providing housing, and a government that aims for zero unemployment. I really like the

I completely agree, but Tokyo also has sensible tax policies to encourage providing housing, and a government that aims for zero unemployment. I really like their model of ensuring jobs are available so people have money to consume private sector housing, and that there is always such housing available because there is always someone to consume it. There’s about 50 seperate policies places like Sydney and Seoul would need to change to head down that path, but the interests of those in power are largely in keeping prices high it seems…

barry-cotter 5y ago
If there is demand for housing and you do not make supplying that demand illegal someone will supply it. People live in dormitories in Hong Kong right now. Perfectly safe but middle class busybodies don't like flophouses, SROs or dormitories so they make it illegal. If it was legal to provide housing in San Francisco in dorms it would be done. If it was legal to build residential skyscrapers in New York Queens would look like Brooklyn if not Manhattan. Make building housing legal and the market will provide.
- xyzzy123 5y ago
  When you build roads, you get more traffic. I wonder if the following is true? When you build more apartments you get more density and more inward migration and more concentration of opportunity, until the marginal migrant can't afford or doesn't want to live there. The same sort of people are miserable when there's more density as when there was less, except there's more of them. [NOTE: I mostly agree with you and this comment is a bit of a non-sequitur but I hadn't thought about the idea that the problem might actually be "moloch" (in slate star codex terms)].
  - thriftwy 5y ago
    Not building roads/apartments is not a solution, unless you really want to cosplay middle ages in your country. So you will have to build something, somewhere. Actually, roads and apartments are in counter-balance. More resedential high-rises in semi-walkable distance from business districts and public transit = less roads are needed (but there is still congestion due to bottlenecks). More spread-out houses - more traffic as people will drive tens of miles to work. Korea is not sufficiently large that you could stick people so far they're not able to come to megapolis and congest it.
    - mathverse 5y ago
      Korea frequently tries to decentralize and build new districts and cities from scratch.It just does not work because of korean culture.
      - thriftwy 5y ago
        It does not work anywhere in the world. Business and people are quite content with "old" districts and cities.
        mathverse 5y ago
        It's not that.It's the korean approach of doing things.The "bbali bbali" culture where korean ingenuity gets pushed back by their impatience and the need to re-invent themselves very quick. They like to designate certain areas to specific industries and then wonder why it's not such a good approach. Look at Songdo or Pangyo Techno Valley.Both rushed and without much thought. As soon as the gov subsidies ran out the companies wanted to move back because it was both as expensive as in Seoul downtown with little of other benefit. Also 99% of the companies there were korean anyway.
      - imtringued 5y ago
        I am wondering if a super super block model would work. You take a 3x3 block of houses and label it a super block. Then you build a 5x5 block of super blocks and then put commercial zoning in the middle.
        mathverse 5y ago
        It's not about building it.It's about having a plan what to do with it.Koreans are incredible and efficient builders. Korean culture favors one time hit wonders instead of gradual development and continuous improvements.It's the nature of korean culture to just try new things because that is deemed to be better than trying to go with existing ones. So you build a city and just because you built it you expect everyone to just go there.And it has to succeed or it is deemed to be an irrepairable failure. Koreans dream of grandiose big projects that will put them on the world stage like Chaebols once did and they dont see the local opportunities or challenges.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    > When you build roads, you get more traffic. Because roads are practically free to drivers. If you gave me a bigger house for free I would live in it alone even though it was designed for a family of 6. If you charged a sufficient toll on congested roads the congestion would be gone.
- ximeng 5y ago
  https://hongkongfp.com/2017/02/16/1-killed-2-injured-blaze-subdivided-flat-sham-shui-po/ https://hongkongfp.com/2017/02/16/1-killed-2-injured-blaze-s... The subdivided flats are not perfectly safe.

barry-cotter 5y ago

If there is demand for housing and you do not make supplying that demand illegal someone will supply it. People live in dormitories in Hong Kong right now. Perfectly safe but middle class busybodies don't like flophouses, SROs or dormitories so they make it illegal. If it was legal to provide housing in San Francisco in dorms it would be done. If it was legal to build residential skyscrapers in New York Queens would look like Brooklyn if not Manhattan. Make building housing legal and the market will provide.

xyzzy123 5y ago
When you build roads, you get more traffic. I wonder if the following is true? When you build more apartments you get more density and more inward migration and more concentration of opportunity, until the marginal migrant can't afford or doesn't want to live there. The same sort of people are miserable when there's more density as when there was less, except there's more of them. [NOTE: I mostly agree with you and this comment is a bit of a non-sequitur but I hadn't thought about the idea that the problem might actually be "moloch" (in slate star codex terms)].
- thriftwy 5y ago
  Not building roads/apartments is not a solution, unless you really want to cosplay middle ages in your country. So you will have to build something, somewhere. Actually, roads and apartments are in counter-balance. More resedential high-rises in semi-walkable distance from business districts and public transit = less roads are needed (but there is still congestion due to bottlenecks). More spread-out houses - more traffic as people will drive tens of miles to work. Korea is not sufficiently large that you could stick people so far they're not able to come to megapolis and congest it.
  - mathverse 5y ago
    Korea frequently tries to decentralize and build new districts and cities from scratch.It just does not work because of korean culture.
    - thriftwy 5y ago
      It does not work anywhere in the world. Business and people are quite content with "old" districts and cities.
      - mathverse 5y ago
        It's not that.It's the korean approach of doing things.The "bbali bbali" culture where korean ingenuity gets pushed back by their impatience and the need to re-invent themselves very quick. They like to designate certain areas to specific industries and then wonder why it's not such a good approach. Look at Songdo or Pangyo Techno Valley.Both rushed and without much thought. As soon as the gov subsidies ran out the companies wanted to move back because it was both as expensive as in Seoul downtown with little of other benefit. Also 99% of the companies there were korean anyway.
    - imtringued 5y ago
      I am wondering if a super super block model would work. You take a 3x3 block of houses and label it a super block. Then you build a 5x5 block of super blocks and then put commercial zoning in the middle.
      - mathverse 5y ago
        It's not about building it.It's about having a plan what to do with it.Koreans are incredible and efficient builders. Korean culture favors one time hit wonders instead of gradual development and continuous improvements.It's the nature of korean culture to just try new things because that is deemed to be better than trying to go with existing ones. So you build a city and just because you built it you expect everyone to just go there.And it has to succeed or it is deemed to be an irrepairable failure. Koreans dream of grandiose big projects that will put them on the world stage like Chaebols once did and they dont see the local opportunities or challenges.
- imtringued 5y ago
  > When you build roads, you get more traffic. Because roads are practically free to drivers. If you gave me a bigger house for free I would live in it alone even though it was designed for a family of 6. If you charged a sufficient toll on congested roads the congestion would be gone.
ximeng 5y ago
https://hongkongfp.com/2017/02/16/1-killed-2-injured-blaze-subdivided-flat-sham-shui-po/ https://hongkongfp.com/2017/02/16/1-killed-2-injured-blaze-s... The subdivided flats are not perfectly safe.