33 ms·
California plans to turn the screws on NIMBY cities
- austincheney 5y agoThere is no reason to suggest increased availability will result in increased affordability. The only way to impact affordability is to lower values, the prices people will sell for.
- tanbog5 5y agoI'm no economist, but I'm willing to bet in most markets, must of the time, an increase in supply is often followed by a decrease in cost. Not always of course, and were talking about housing which has a bunch of other factors going on but it's usually helpful.
- austincheney 5y agoSupply/demand ratios don’t work against fixed assets. You can’t clone or replicate a geographic segment of Earth.
- irishloop 5y agoBut you can build higher density housing which increases the overall number of living units in a region, thus increasing the supply.
- zepto 5y agoFor a short period of time you can increase the supply, but the demand will keep up with it.
- Kalium 5y agoAt the risk of being contentious, it may be worth considering that there is no place on earth where the demand to live there is truly infinite. This suggests that demand can be sated and prices brought down with sufficient supply. Of course, there is such a thing as induced demand for housing. Studies of it show that it's not so strong as to eliminate the effect of adding supply to a tight market. With these in mind, why would we not expect demand to eventually fall behind supply as California approaches something resembling a healthy housing market?
- civilized 5y agoI will never understand why so many people are absolutely convinced, on the basis of seemingly no explainable evidence, that basic economics doesn't apply to housing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- zepto 5y agoNeither will I. The number of people who think you can build an infinite number of homes in a finite space of land, or who are unaware of network effects, is surprising.
- civilized 5y agoApple can't build an infinite number of computers either. Chiquita can't grow an infinite number of bananas. And both of these companies are deeply networked in the global economy. So what will happen if Apple triples its computer production, or Chiquita triples its banana production? Does the price magically increase like housing does in NIMBY economics?
- missedthecue 5y agoThis is the skyline of the Bay Area. https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/q4QVkPZrTO8_USbDEe6nPfz8w8c=/0x0:3911x2690/1200x800/filters:focal(1542x1548:2166x2172)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66469054/shutterstock_1264688284__1_.0.jpg https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/q4QVkPZrTO8_USbDEe6nPfz8w8c=... This is the skyline of Hong Kong. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59f3777b64b05fdbae7f32ac/1558551681929-3PF7WDQK4RLRC9WAQH54/HK.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59f3777b64b05f... Hong Kong has cheaper housing while also have 10x as many residents. Same goes for places like Tokyo, Singapore, and Shenzhen. No, you can't create more land, but you can create more housing.
- gumby 5y agoCities have ways to increase the amount of living space per m2 of land: build up.
- civilized 5y agoI don't understand what this abstract terminology means. Do you believe it is impossible to build more housing in California? If so, why? If not, what are you talking about?
- snidane 5y agoHousing is a special story. It doesn't behave according to the standard economic theory of equalizing supply and demand like yogurts or bananas. Housing is strongly inelastic market, meaning you can't increase supply when there is demand easily The market is essentially stalled. It doesn't 'clear'. People would rather keep it idle out of the market than rent or sell under price. On top of that it has entered a bubble territory recently in which people buy, not based on their value judgment of the property, but because they expect to offload it to someone else in the future with a profit. Housing is not a 'supply and demand market dynamic, but a 'greater fool' market dynamic.
- resonantjacket5 5y agoHousing is not actually that special. It is true it doesn't behave according to the econ 101 model that most high schoolers learn in class, but in econ 201+ classes explain it. The main difference is that land is the limiting factor or more accurately legally buildable land in this case with zoning.
- koolba 5y agoHousing in CA is also unique in that the combination of refinance rates and Prop 13 make selling your home for the same house right next door a losing proposition. Most long term owners are deeply incentivized by CA’s property tax cap to never sell and if anything take an equity loan / rent it out. I can’t even imagine the total financial devastation if they suddenly ratcheted up the tax rates via reassessment. It’d be a fire sale for all but the top end of the income ladder.
- pcwalton 5y ago> The market is essentially stalled. It doesn't 'clear'. People would rather keep it idle out of the market than rent or sell under price. This theory fails to explain why housing prices in San Francisco fell during the dotcom bust. https://www.bayareamarketreports.com/trend/3-recessions-2-bubbles-and-a-baby https://www.bayareamarketreports.com/trend/3-recessions-2-bu...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y agoThe network effects of cities increase with density. The more people move there, the more incentive there is for people to move there. The cost of housing is a function of that marginal person who is on the verge of moving there. If I’m on the edge, then all my friends and all my employers move there, then I have even more reason to move there too. When you move there, I’m willing to pay more to move there too. In other words demand isn’t constant. As I understand it, it’s an open question as to whether more housing means lower prices via simple supply and demand, or higher prices via network effects.
- ItsMonkk 5y agoExactly. Every person living in a city is a positive externality for the businesses. And every business is a positive externality for the residents. It's a network effect. The more people in a city, the better it is. The people who own empty lots contribute nothing, and their empty lot keeps going up in value. When you incentivize people to say no to housing because the more they say no, the higher the value of the house, they are going to say no. It doesn't matter how much the state demands. You don't want centralized forces creating a mess, you want decentralized forces. We need to stop swimming upstream. The only way out of this is to tax the land equal to those positive externalities. The only way out is a Land Value Tax. When you under tax the land, the price of the house balloons. Once you have a Land Value Tax in place and increased housing supply means lower taxes, all the NIMBY's will quickly convert to YIMBY's - it will be a breeze to get new housing built. Fix the incentives. Land Value Tax[0]. [0]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-progr...
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago> the more they say no, the higher the value of the house Isn’t the argument we’re talking about saying the opposite? The more housing (i.e. the more they say yes), the higher the value of their house?
- ItsMonkk 5y ago
- tedunangst 5y agoSuggestions for how a city might arbitrarily lower property values? People are willing to pay $750k for my condo. How does the city convince them they only want to pay $500k?
- jtbayly 5y agoBus in homeless people to do drugs and poop on your steps. That ought to take care of it.
- mint2 5y agoNope, that had zero success in lowering SF prices and only resulted in some well off people making very callous remarks at the plight of others. Sure maybe it kept them from going even higher but we don’t have the counterfactual available to ever know.
- austincheney 5y agoIf you need a case study Detroit successfully lowered values pretty dramatically more than 10 years ago.
- civilized 5y agoDetroit had and continues to have an enormous amount of abandoned, decrepit housing that no one wants to buy. Maybe that's why they have low housing prices. I doubt that the city government had much to do with it.
- boring_twenties 5y agoI remember looking at some of those houses. One was listed for sale for $1,500. Not a typo, one thousand five hundred dollars. The catch was that the property taxes were still like $15k a year or something.
- tedunangst 5y agoFollowed by an economic boom as people from around the country moved there for the cheap housing?
- Gigachad 5y agoYou can increase land value while decreasing housing value. Building high density housing you can build affordable housing on incredibly high land values
- SamReidHughes 5y agoHave you never seen an order book? Do you not get how they work?
- jayd16 5y agoIt's fine to argue price elasticity but its silly to say there's "no reason to suggest."
- austincheney 5y agoHow so? Honestly, California deserves to fail here if they continue to repeat the same ineffectual things while ignoring data and inventing conclusions that have never proven true.
- pengaru 5y agoIf you add enough housing+residents it will lower the values as the places become overcrowded metropolises less people want to live in. But somewhere like the SF Bay Area has a loooooong way to go before it gets anywhere near that bad. Relative to most of the nation, it can get heaps worse in terms of crowding and QoL and still look exceptionally good. I don't see prices going down anytime soon, except if something like the homeless problem evolves into a continuous stream of violence and structure fires.
- geogra4 5y ago> If you add enough housing+residents it will lower the values as the places become overcrowded metropolises less people want to live in. Maybe at some extremely high level it becomes untenable but both Manhattan and Paris are very desirable places to live and they have 3-4x the population density of sf.
- pengaru 5y agoRight, which means you can effectively ruin SF through the lens of many existing residents, by turning it into a Manhattan, and still not have affordable housing there. So why do it?
- kelnos 5y agoConsider that Brooklyn has over 2x the density of SF, but median home prices 40% less. I agree that turning SF into Manhattan would ruin it in many people's eyes, but turning it into Brooklyn would be... not all that much of a change?
- vnchr 5y agoTorture as a metaphor for state government interference with individual liberties over local land use? Sounds about right.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago> individual liberties over local land use The whole problem with NIMBYism is neighbors gaining political power to tell other property owners what they can do with their land. If you're actually for individual liberty over local land use you would be 100% against NIMBYism.
- cornel_io 5y agoYour "individual liberty" to prevent people from building reasonable amounts of housing on their own land is a pretty shitty liberty that I'm fine with the state trampling. If local control is so important to you then the bluest state in the country is probably not a good fit, Dems generally are not local control maximalists.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoI agree with the thrust of your statement, but "Dems generally are not local control maximalists" is true of both parties, who are more than happy to throw their general principles re: local control out the window when a locality passes a law they disagree with. Just ask anyone in a major city in Texas, where it seems like half the laws passed by the state legislature are there to overturn bills passed by the Austin city council.
- vorpalhex 5y agoAt some point a city has a maximum density determined not only by housing but services, transportation and basic things like water. Given forest fires and insufficient groundwater, I really wonder how this is going to go. At some point high prices are a signal that a city is full.
- LogonType10 5y agoAll I see in San Francisco are three story houses; not a proper subway in sight. People want to have a town house with a lawn in the middle of a city and this is the result.
- kelnos 5y agoYup. And our pitiful excuse for a new subway has so far taken 11 years to build and won't be operational until next year... in theory. > People want to have a town house with a lawn in the middle of a city and this is the result. Not even a townhouse; a detached single-family home!
- resonantjacket5 5y agoOpting for low density make no sense if you are worried about forest fires or insufficient groundwater. Suburban houses use more water per person not less compared to urban dwellers. The forest fires near houses are caused by the low density zoning forcing home builders to build closer and closer to forest fire prone areas. > At some point high prices are a signal that a city is full. It can also be a sign of low supply
- phendrenad2 5y agoSF doesn't rely on groundwater. SF water is piped in from the mountains. And it isn't actually at risk of running out. City water needs are tiny compared to what the farms in California use.
- vorpalhex 5y agoSF water is piped in because their groundwater is depleted and they are using other areas water. This led to the shutter of several cities at the time (1900s ish). While farms do use significantly more water, they also are not in the city and they produce food. Farmers generally feel they should be able to use their water instead of the city leeching it.
- zz865 5y agoRevoking Proposition 13 is best solution. If boomers had to pay 1% tax on the current value of their CA house they'd quickly downsize.
- nostromo 5y agoYeah, let’s kick old ladies out of their houses so we can get a piece. If they wanted to stay in their neighborhood they should have made more money before retiring. Sarcasm aside, I’d like to see an example of increasing taxes on a good or service somehow making it cheaper.
- austincheney 5y agoHere is an example specific to personal real estate: https://www.virtualcpaforyou.com/comparestatetaxrates https://www.virtualcpaforyou.com/comparestatetaxrates
- nostromo 5y agoThat’s not evidence. You’d need to show a case where an increase in taxes caused a good’s total cost to become cheaper.
- austincheney 5y agoI could argue that its causing 70000 people per year to leave California for Texas to pay those increased property taxes. Well, its only an increase in percentage of estimated asset principle, but in actual dollars its still substantially less. 2% of 250,000 is 5000 which is less than 1% of 750000.
- Aunche 5y agoI care less about the old person being pressured to sell their multimillion dollar house than a poor person stuck in an area with a poor job market because they can't afford to move to a better one. Of course, since the latter is the status quo, people don't think about it as much. Increasing the property tax would allow California to cut their sales tax, which would benefit lower income people.
- rank0 5y agoOne thing I don’t understand about the housing debate is why any specific area needs to be “affordable” If I can’t afford to live in an area, it seems to me the solution is to live somewhere else. Maybe I’m missing something. I’m open to new ideas here but I really don’t get it.
- bradleyjg 5y agoI could flip that question around. Almost the entire country is low density. Why does Palo Alto need to be?
- rank0 5y agoI mean it doesn’t NEED to be expensive it just is. The folks living there don’t want to change their local zoning laws. I don’t really feel like I should have a say if I don’t live there. The burden of proof for an argument should come from the side which is trying to make a change.
- bradleyjg 5y agoI think we take hyperlocalism too far. If Americans shouldn’t have a say in California and Californians shouldn’t have a say in Palo Alto, then why not have each block be sovereign? Or maybe each house?
- rank0 5y agoWhen it comes to local issues like zoning I think it makes sense that the people actually living there get to decide.
- JackFr 5y agoTo take that to the extreme would be to eliminate zoning. After all I own the property - why should anyone else tell me what I can do with it? If you’re from much of the US, that sounds ludicrous — but then what is the optimal level to put zoning restrictions in?
- anamax 5y ago"California" isn't going to do anything about NIMBY cities. The California state govt is going to hose politically disfavored communities. Atherton and Pacific Heights will NOT see any substantive changes.
- kwertyoowiyop 5y agoSo, high-rises in East Palo Alto.
- daenz 5y agoI watched the New York Times opinion piece "Liberal Hypocrisy is Fueling American Inequality. Here’s How." [0] recently. This quote sums it up perfectly: >You cannot say you are against inequality in America, unless you are willing to have affordable housing built in your neighborhood. Progressive cities should be leading by example, since they have legislative and executive control, but it's especially unsettling to see them take actions that indicate the opposite of the values that they espouse. 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDgcjVGHIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDgcjVGHIw
- mixmastamyk 5y agoEveryone’s for “affordable housing.” It isn’t allowed to exist except in rare synthetic occasions however, and nimbys often know that.
- latch 5y agoIs this particularly unique to inequality? You cannot say you are against animal cruelty unless you are willing to stop eating factory-farmed meat? You cannot say you are against fossil fuels unless you are willing to stop driving [gasoline-powered] automobiles You cannot say you are against child labor unless you are willing to give up coffee/cocoa/textiles ...
- helen___keller 5y agoYou've listed personal actions. Allowing affordable housing to be built is a collective / political action. The equivalent would be something like "you cannot say you are against animal cruelty unless you support legislation against animal cruelty", and I think that's reasonable.
- spamizbad 5y agoYour analogies don't really track. It would be like saying: You cannot say you're for affordable housing unless you're personally willing (and eligible) to live in an affordable unit. (for the record, if I was eligible, I would love to).
- loufe 5y agoAn interesting story in the two most important Canadian cities in my life, Toronto and Montréal, tell is about density. Toronto is in a gas-fueled affordability crisis, real estate prices have left the solar system. Montréal is starting to heat up but by most metrics is still considered affordable. While there are several externalities (language barrier au Québec, higher paying jobs in Toronto), one of the biggest reasons I've seen cited is the extreme amount of rental apartments available in Montréal. A mass exodus 1980s-2000s with the FLQ crisis, parmis d'autres, freed up tons of buildings from the 60s and 70s which still have not been saturated 'til this day. The huge selection of functional, old apartment buildings has a price-depressing effect on local real estate. Why would I buy a house for 700k ($3000 mortgage, etc) when I can get a 5 1/2 (3 bdrm) for $1200 a month within biking distance of downtown. Now, while this helps explain the current situation, the lord knows that nobody in their right mind would consider investing in non-luxury apartment/condo towers when they have so many other lodgings suppressing home values. But that's kind of what needs to happen in TO as well, IMO.
- zz865 5y agoMontreal used to have more people than Toronto, now Toronto has more. That shows Toronto is better at building new housing? https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/20402/toronto/population https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/20402/toronto/population https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/20384/montreal/population https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/20384/montreal/population
- loudandskittish 5y agoNo, it shows that a lot of people left Montreal when the major financial and media institutions moved their HQs to Toronto after Bill 101 was passed in 1977.
- zz865 5y agoIt certainly helps to make housing more affordable.
- smnrchrds 5y ago
- throwawaysea 5y agoCities and their existing residents have a right to protect the quality of life and neighborhood character they want. They are not obligated to accommodate newcomers and population influxes, nor should they be. Why does every attractive and desirable city have to be affordable or accessible? People need to stop being entitled and just move somewhere else where they can make ends meet, if they cannot cut it in a place that is in high-demand. No one is entitled to live wherever they want at whatever price they want.
- EricDeb 5y agoAnd no one is entitled to continually live in an unchanging, ungrowing, ever-appreciating in value community that is the same as 1970. We all live in a society. Though I am sympathetic to your argument too. Not everyone can live in manhattan and it should be more expensive.
- joe-collins 5y agoAh yes, "neighborhood character", that pervasive dog whistle. For a practical consideration, California might look towards the future and seriously consider the population limits imposed by water scarcity. But even there, sufficient political will and investment could start desalinating out of the readily available ocean. Sure, it's horribly power inefficient, but it's there, and so is abundant solar power potential, meaning that the only final concerns are NIMBY and environmental concerns, of which the latter, at least, are serious (but in the face of water shortages, should be discounted, and if the current long-term drought trend holds, we should probably start assuming shortages and boiling some fish sooner than later).
- throwawaysea 5y agoIt’s not a dog whistle - come on, that’s just an incredibly tired way to dismiss arguments one disagrees with by insinuating something sinister. People have a right to protect what they cherish and the communities they’ve helped build. The entitlement of others who want the same doesn’t justify weird and vague labels like “dog whistle”. Also, NIMBY is a tired and dismissive pejorative. It’s just an ad hominem attack that is fashionable among “urbanists”.
- ravenstine 5y agoThey should start with Beverly Hills.
- User23 5y agoAnd yet I doubt that we’ll see high density mixed use developments along the coast in Malibu.
- rcpt 5y agoThere aren't many jobs in Malibu. I used to work for HRL, the largest employer there, and it wasn't a big place. Unless the goal is Corsuscant I don't really see a reason to build up over there.
- User23 5y ago> Unless the goal is Corsuscant I don't really see a reason to build up over there. You are aware there’s a housing shortage in California. Building high density mixed use projects in basically empty places like Malibu would be a great way to help alleviate that shortage. And development will create those jobs. Fundamentally there’s a dynamic feedback loop between population density and employment opportunities. Increasing population creates the need for jobs and those jobs drive further economic growth.
- 14 5y agoIs there even the workers needed to build all these houses we need? We have in my city a plan for a >4000 houses to be built. I asked my brother who is a carpenter how could they do that. He said either a lot of workers and some time or fewer workers and a lot of time. The company he works for already struggles to find skilled workers to build houses so makes me wonder how can we build all these places when it seems the crews are already currently too busy.
- dehrmann 5y agoThere aren't. My fear with the current infrastructure bill is it's a really lousy time for it when there's already a shortage for construction workers. It's what should have been passed in 2010 when construction workers were out of work.
- 88840-8855 5y agosame thing in Germany; unis are flooded but nobody wants to do an apprenticeship anymore. prices for even the smallest repairs in my flat that i rent have exploded and i have to wait for a long time until they even come. migration doesn't solve this issue either. I'm volunteering at the local refugee center. while qualified "EU blue card" expats have an academic background and work in offices, the lower qualified migrants who came in 2015+ from Syria and Iraq are not interested in getting an apprenticeship in labor intensive jobs. My brother, a carpenter, had left germany 5 years ago and migrated to Canada. Life is better there, he says.
- 14 5y agoHey where about is your brother? I am Canadian on Vancouver Island. Come say hi some time.
- nicbou 5y agoTo be fair, I'm not sure if the apprenticeship path is even available to immigrants, let alone known to them. They are still nebulous to me, and helping immigrants move here is my job. Besides, the language requirements for apprenticeships is likely much stricter than for cushy office jobs.
- narrator 5y agoThe NIMBY's are striking back though. They are working on a ballot proposition to revoke this law for the November 2022 election. Might even pass: https://localcontrolca.com/ https://localcontrolca.com/
- madvoid 5y agoThank you for the link. My mayor is on here which I'm very unhappy about.
- almost_usual 5y agoSo SFH in HOA neighborhoods in the Bay will get way more expensive.
- kelnos 5y agoAs they should! If you want to make inefficient use of scarce land, you should have to pay more to do so.
- paisawalla 5y agoSo much for the American Dream, right? Let's dive headlong back into the communal longhouse that is the European continent, where only the wealthy deserve backyards.
- mdorazio 5y agoThe "American Dream" was coined when the population of the US was less than half what it is today, and when significantly more of the population was perfectly happy to live in small towns rather than in dense cities. The US changed; the dream needs to change, too.
- almost_usual 5y agoWe also came out of a World War mostly untouched (infrastructure) and victorious.
- mint2 5y agoAll the new developments I’ve seen lately in CA are massive boxes with essentially zero yard. So it’s already like that.
- kelnos 5y agoI don't think "deserve" is an accurate representation of the situation. People with more money will have more means to increase their luxury. That's been the case as long as we've had money. Regardless, you're presenting a false dichotomy. There are many great alternatives to single-family homes that need not be communal longhouses. And if you want a good-sized plot of land, maybe don't move to an urban environment. You can't have everything.
- jollybean 5y agoTexas has low density, affordable home prices and a lot of growth. NYC has high density, unaffordable pricing and little growth. In the US, the most expensive places are generally the most dense i.e. urban areas. I think the issue ought to be looked at from different angles.
- kelnos 5y agoIt's a little weird to compare Texas to NYC. Maybe compare Austin to NYC? Austin is starting to see a lot of the same problems; the main difference is that their growth is comparatively new.
- zbrozek 5y agoI'm really excited about SB-9 to remove some of my town's ability to slow down and prevent me from merely fixing the house that I have. Unfortunately they're already coming up with ways to resist change - some probably-legal, some probably-not-legal.
- throaway46546 5y agoI'm curious how they are doing so.
- zbrozek 5y agoThey're going to pass an ordinance that tries to apply maximally restrictive rules (e.g., limit homes built to 800 sqft and a single story) to any project they think benefits from SB-9. That's probably legal, even if against the spirit of the law. They're also going to tack on deed restrictions to limit the newly created parcels to being affordable to the lowest levels of income possible. I'm not sure that's legal, nor how that works mechanically. The super dumb thing, however, is that SB-9 applies to single unit projects just as much as to multi unit ones. Specifically it calls out "no more than two" units right in the first paragraph of the first section. One is no more than two. I think this hastily crafted ordinance will limit even the town's desired SFH footprint to 800 sqft on qualifying parcels - which is probably about 25-50% of the town. That's absolutely not the intended consequence, but what do you expect of a panicking NIMBY government? Here's the memo from the interim planning director: https://civicclerk.blob.core.windows.net/stream/LOSALTOSHILLSCA/5ab685aa-6c9e-4e2a-acdb-ea37a942b4c8.pdf?sv=2015-12-11&sr=b&sig=aMWf6FsYjDJbsaKHq%2FWq4wIMMwBhw0IsxmKZNzR16XU%3D&st=2021-11-15T06%3A07%3A03Z&se=2022-11-15T06%3A12%3A03Z&sp=r&rscc=no-cache&rsct=application%2Fpdf https://civicclerk.blob.core.windows.net/stream/LOSALTOSHILL...
- luckydata 5y agothat will go well. Pulling out my pop corn.
- chrischen 5y agoThey should try giving incentives to localities that build dense housing. I think NIMBY have a point that if we pick a specific place that place gets screwed with all the negatives of an influx of people, so we either give incentives or force development everywhere. The former just seems easier to do.
- joelbondurant 5y agoSuicide is the best thing Californians can do to better the world.
- adam_arthur 5y agoWhat I don't get about arguments re: single family home prices benefiting from nimbyism, is that it seems plainly untrue. I do agree that that's the perception however. Very simple example. Say I own a single family home in mountain view. Tomorrow, the zoning changes such that somebody can build a 10 story building on my plot. Obviously the value of the land goes up tremendously, and the incentive exists to sell to a developer to rebuild it. So zoning for higher density should only improve value of homes. Or put another way, say there were a SFH with a yard on a plot in the middle of Manhattan. How much is that home likely worth?
- yunesj 5y agoIncreasing land use rights on a property can only increase the value of that property. However, increasing land use rights on a neighboring property can decrease the value of the original property. For example, a neighbor might want to use their property to establish a brothel. Nimbys want to control property that they don’t own. Seems like theft to me!
- helen___keller 5y agoI think in isolation, allowing construction of a single apartment building in an other SFH neighborhood might push down nearby property values compared to a suburb without the apartment, particularly in places where apartments are stigmatized as being "too urban" You are quite correct that upzoning everywhere only boosts the value of land by allowing better utilization of it. One possible exception might be that by solving the housing crisis by building enough units to satisfy the regions need, it might push down the value of land, especially in the less desirable periphery where you might have previously had folks paying a lot of money just to get a house somewhere.
- korantu 5y agoThe way you keep your property price up is by not allowing others to build more property around you. When person days - i want to keep my property price up, what he really says is - i dont want more people to live near me. It is very different from other kinds of values - for example car is getting more expensive if it is fancier/more unique, but its price does not change with production of way cheaper cars , which all can go same places. This is why insisting on your house keeping same value is very harmful to other people - this can only be achieved by denying these people the place to stay in the same area.
- RickJWagner 5y agoCalifornia had advantages in resources and climate that made it 'The Golden State'. In turn, that brought in film and tech industries that drove premium salaries. California was the favored destination of nearly everyone. All that goodwill has been squandered, and then some. California is now a land of prohibitively high taxes, high crime, pollution, homelessness and government gone out of control. I suspect in the end California will again be one of the most desirable places to live. The natural beauty and favorable climate are just too much. But first, there is some sort of a large reckoning that must happen.