4 ms·
If only the US had some way to import a larger workforce
by bickfordb 5y ago
If only the US had some way to import a larger workforce
- HideousKojima 5y agoAnd put higher demand on housing, inflating home and rental prices even further?
- eru 5y agoIf only they had some way of creating more housing?
- HideousKojima 5y agoLand (especially desirable land near good jobs) is in far more limited supply than people willing to immigrate to the US. Zoning and other regulations not withstanding.
- jpgvm 5y agoThe land around most population centers in the US is used incredibly wastefully. If you compare the density of a modern Asian city to a US city the comparison is pretty woeful (probably contributes to the "going back in time" feeling when visiting the US also). Land is there it's just being used wrong.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoNone of those dense Asian cities are affordable. Yes, Shanghai is dense, but for sale prices are as dear as in SF, maybe even dearer if we compare comparable housing rather than just averages.
- eru 5y agoThe sky is the limit.
- imtringued 5y agoRaw land isn't really the problem. Properly zoned land with job opportunities is. Location is a monopoly.
- dannyw 5y agoBuild. More. Homes.
- Sargos 5y agoBuild. Denser. Zones.
- angelzen 5y agoLimit. Population. Growth.
- donatj 5y agoBuild. More. Sprawl. It’s way cheaper to maintain.
- kypro 5y agoBecause as a human I feel most happy when living in a high rise 1 bed apartment overlooking congested streets and inescapable city noise. What about maximising for human wellbeing? I'm actually surprised by how many people here seem to be in favour of packing people into ever denser cities simply for the economy benefits of doing it. I suppose it's just the demographic of people who browse HN.
- rsj_hn 5y agoPeople are not really in favor of it, which is why virtually all cities get less dense over time. People spread out, as they do, the cities get flatter and housing units get bigger. When you look at pictures of old housing units, it's striking how small they are in comparison to newer construction. As people become wealthier, they demand larger living spaces, which means they want to spread out. Now you can offset some of that spreading out by going vertical, but that's extremely costly (space needs to be set aside for stairs, elevators, you need stronger walls, more complex construction, HVAC, etc). Although people like to focus on things like skyscrapers, but those are really rare even in places like NYC. Going vertical is mostly for luxury construction, at least in land rich places (not e.g. Hong Kong). In most places, building lower to the ground is more cost effective so as wealth increases and transportation technology improves, cities become less dense. There is a study about the secular decline in urban density, showing that cities get about 2% less dense every year, and this trend goes back to at least 1910. So no, it's not just zoning, but in general people prefer lower density. The study is by the Lincoln Institute, my favorite think tank dealing with land use issues: https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/working-papers/persistent-decline-urban-densities https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/working-papers/pers... "Using satellite imagery, census data and historical maps, we report on density variation among cities the world over. We find significant differences in the average population density in the built-up areas of a global sample of 120 cities: In 2000, average density was 28±5 persons per hectare in cities in land-rich developed countries, 70±8 in cities in other developed countries, and 135±11 in cities in developing countries. We also find that built-up area densities in this sample declined significantly, at an average annual rate of 2.0±0.4 percent, between 1990 and 2000. We report on the five-fold decline in average tract density in 20 U.S. cities between 1910 and 2000, at an average long-term rate of 1.9 percent per annum,"
- hackly 5y agoWelcome to Canada.
- jbm 5y agoI live in Calgary and all the complaints about housing sounded ridiculous to me. Then I read about PEI's housing shortage and suddenly realized that I was probably in my own bubble.
- ayngg 5y agoCalgary, even with recent economic struggles, has been a sort of magical Christmas land with relatively high wages, low cost of living and urban sprawl development to meet demand. I don't think there are many other places in Canada that tick all those boxes.
- Auracle 5y agoYeah, let’s keep those pesky wages suppressed.