4 ms·

My feeling on this is similar, and I'd take it a step further. Somebody wants to build some houses in Nimbyville. They developer stands to make money, and incr

by Y_Y 5y ago

My feeling on this is similar, and I'd take it a step further. Somebody wants to build some houses in Nimbyville. They developer stands to make money, and increasing the supply of housing will benefit those who want to move there[0] by (presumably) lowering the cost of housing overall. This is fine, but there's a good chance the people in Nimbyville who own houses will see the value of those houses go down in the event these new ones are built. Or they may be hurt in some other less tangible way, the salient point is that they think it would be bad for them and are willing to expend some effort or forgo some utility in order to prevent the construction. Furthermore and importantly, they current residents have power over the new builds, via city councils and zoning and objections etc. Hence the free market solution is to buy this privilege from them. The developers can offer to pay the people who stand to lose property value, until the proposition is profitable for the Nimbys. If the price gets too high then it might be worth it to go down another route like legislative change from a higher power like state government, or a PR guilt campaign. This seems to be what's happening now. I wonder though if you couldn't just pay people off? [1] [0] Even if the housing isn't cheap, since it potentially frees up a cheaper house in the same area. [1] You may argue that this constitutes rent seeking on behalf of the Nimbyvillians.

michaelt 5y ago
> Hence the free market solution is to buy this privilege from them. Wouldn't the nimbys hold out for a higher price forever? That's what happens if you try to build something like a railway: Once you've brought up 95% of the land you need, the owners of the final 5% realise they can demand a huge sum.
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  Contingent contracts and subsequent graphing could fix that. Ask for everybody along proposed "grid-maps" of territory if they would be willing to sell for a railroad, and how much at an upfront price and make all pending a successful route negotiation. Then it becomes a graphing problem to find the cheapest path which fits the constraints.
pas 5y ago
Market based solutions are great for fungible things, where it's kind of easy to setup a healthy market, where competition between sellers actively contributes to having better products, that serve the buyers better. Housing has the big problem that it's a monopsony market. For that actual plot/lot of land there is only one seller. Yes, nearby plots are kind of fungible, but when the same incentives drive the price up everywhere you run into the problem of having a market in a pathological state. It's impossible to add new sellers, the barriers to entry is too high (eg. you can't create new land there). This doesn't mean that forcing communities to change is the best solution, but if they want to remain frozen in time they should pay for that privilege. (Eg. they should buy the land around themselves and/or the air rights so they can control new developments to exactly zero, ie. in their case by keeping everything static.) After all this kind of proscription on change depresses the value of individual plots, because if someone would like to sell their plot they only can sell it to folks who will keep the existing house (or at best build a very similar one there), which is a strictly smaller group of potential buyers, than were new developments allowed.
- dtgriscom 5y ago
  > monopsony... only one seller Monopsony is when there is only one buyer; monopoly is when there is only one seller.
  - pas 5y ago
    Ah right, thanks! I was worried not to accidentally misuse monopoly that I ended up not thinking about what I wrote instead :D
- Y_Y 5y ago
  You make a strong point. I would argue that alternatives do exist in the form of other cities, and certainly jobs and people are (sometimes) choosing to go to e.g. Texas instead of California on the basis of cost. The fact that the current inhabitants have such control over new construction is something I was taking as fixed, but I wouldn't argue it's healthy. Finally, as a compromise between paying Nimbys and forcing them to pay, I would be interested in seeing a trial of a kind of mutual auction. For example, a group of residents and a group of developers secretly bid what the project is worth to them (positive or negative) and then the higher bid pays the other party the value of the lower bid. There is probably a name for this, and a theory that shows how to do it properly, but I'd be interested to see if some economic games could reach a better solution (in terms of regret-minimization, for example).
jdasdf 5y ago
>The developers can offer to pay the people who stand to lose property value, until the proposition is profitable for the Nimbys. That sounds like the exact opposite of what you should be doing! The fact of the matter is the city has taken without compensation the right of people to build whatever the hell they want on their properties. And your solution to this theft of a private right onto public hands is to not just formalize said theft, but to re-distribute such right to those who never had it in the first place, and who stole it via laws and regulations? No. The free market approach is to not interfere in what people can build in their properties. And if a community feels they must interfere, they are welcome to offer the owner of the property payment to purchase that right, which the owner may freely accept of reject. That is what a free market solution looks like. Not theft and subsequent redistributing of the proceeds to the thieves.
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  >The free market approach is to not interfere in what people can build in their properties. Unless it affects other properties in real ways - not with abstract "property value decrease". If someone emits toxic fumes, that constitutes real damage.
  - jdasdf 5y ago
    Even that would generally not require removing the right of what people want to build in their land! You can surely charge people for polluting the air outside their land, or making too much noise in other peoples properties/public land, etc... Without imposing limitations on what people can build. In the same way you can fine people for littering or putting on loud music in public, you can fine them for doing the same when it's coming out of their property. No need to ban anything outside of the harmful act. And indeed, such a stance, if applied equally everywhere and across the board, would very much be able to replace the few positive effects of zoning. For example, instead of having dedicated "industrial districts", simply by enforcing pollution and noise levels on public rights of way you can ensure the harmful impacts of such pollution impact only those who agree to be impacted. Want to build a loud factory somewhere? All you need to do is buy enough land around it that by the time the noise leaves your property line it's in low enough that its within the same levels as it would be in any residential area. If you can't afford to buy that much land, you can simply get together with other industrialists and build up a private "industrial area" to make good on economies of scale. Best thing is, since that "industrial area" is entirely privately owned, the general public won't even have to pay for the road upkeep inside it! The same thing happens with pollution! Feel free to make as many smoke stacks as you want! You'll be charged for every CO2 coming out of your property line! This encourages industrialists to put in carbon capture right at the source!
KptMarchewa 5y ago
The solution is to not have a system where current civilians of some locality have legislative power over stuff like this.

by Y_Y 5y ago

michaelt 5y ago

> Hence the free market solution is to buy this privilege from them. Wouldn't the nimbys hold out for a higher price forever? That's what happens if you try to build something like a railway: Once you've brought up 95% of the land you need, the owners of the final 5% realise they can demand a huge sum.

Nasrudith 5y ago
Contingent contracts and subsequent graphing could fix that. Ask for everybody along proposed "grid-maps" of territory if they would be willing to sell for a railroad, and how much at an upfront price and make all pending a successful route negotiation. Then it becomes a graphing problem to find the cheapest path which fits the constraints.

pas 5y ago

Market based solutions are great for fungible things, where it's kind of easy to setup a healthy market, where competition between sellers actively contributes to having better products, that serve the buyers better. Housing has the big problem that it's a monopsony market. For that actual plot/lot of land there is only one seller. Yes, nearby plots are kind of fungible, but when the same incentives drive the price up everywhere you run into the problem of having a market in a pathological state. It's impossible to add new sellers, the barriers to entry is too high (eg. you can't create new land there). This doesn't mean that forcing communities to change is the best solution, but if they want to remain frozen in time they should pay for that privilege. (Eg. they should buy the land around themselves and/or the air rights so they can control new developments to exactly zero, ie. in their case by keeping everything static.) After all this kind of proscription on change depresses the value of individual plots, because if someone would like to sell their plot they only can sell it to folks who will keep the existing house (or at best build a very similar one there), which is a strictly smaller group of potential buyers, than were new developments allowed.

dtgriscom 5y ago
> monopsony... only one seller Monopsony is when there is only one buyer; monopoly is when there is only one seller.
- pas 5y ago
  Ah right, thanks! I was worried not to accidentally misuse monopoly that I ended up not thinking about what I wrote instead :D
Y_Y 5y ago
You make a strong point. I would argue that alternatives do exist in the form of other cities, and certainly jobs and people are (sometimes) choosing to go to e.g. Texas instead of California on the basis of cost. The fact that the current inhabitants have such control over new construction is something I was taking as fixed, but I wouldn't argue it's healthy. Finally, as a compromise between paying Nimbys and forcing them to pay, I would be interested in seeing a trial of a kind of mutual auction. For example, a group of residents and a group of developers secretly bid what the project is worth to them (positive or negative) and then the higher bid pays the other party the value of the lower bid. There is probably a name for this, and a theory that shows how to do it properly, but I'd be interested to see if some economic games could reach a better solution (in terms of regret-minimization, for example).

jdasdf 5y ago

>The developers can offer to pay the people who stand to lose property value, until the proposition is profitable for the Nimbys. That sounds like the exact opposite of what you should be doing! The fact of the matter is the city has taken without compensation the right of people to build whatever the hell they want on their properties. And your solution to this theft of a private right onto public hands is to not just formalize said theft, but to re-distribute such right to those who never had it in the first place, and who stole it via laws and regulations? No. The free market approach is to not interfere in what people can build in their properties. And if a community feels they must interfere, they are welcome to offer the owner of the property payment to purchase that right, which the owner may freely accept of reject. That is what a free market solution looks like. Not theft and subsequent redistributing of the proceeds to the thieves.

KptMarchewa 5y ago
>The free market approach is to not interfere in what people can build in their properties. Unless it affects other properties in real ways - not with abstract "property value decrease". If someone emits toxic fumes, that constitutes real damage.
- jdasdf 5y ago
  Even that would generally not require removing the right of what people want to build in their land! You can surely charge people for polluting the air outside their land, or making too much noise in other peoples properties/public land, etc... Without imposing limitations on what people can build. In the same way you can fine people for littering or putting on loud music in public, you can fine them for doing the same when it's coming out of their property. No need to ban anything outside of the harmful act. And indeed, such a stance, if applied equally everywhere and across the board, would very much be able to replace the few positive effects of zoning. For example, instead of having dedicated "industrial districts", simply by enforcing pollution and noise levels on public rights of way you can ensure the harmful impacts of such pollution impact only those who agree to be impacted. Want to build a loud factory somewhere? All you need to do is buy enough land around it that by the time the noise leaves your property line it's in low enough that its within the same levels as it would be in any residential area. If you can't afford to buy that much land, you can simply get together with other industrialists and build up a private "industrial area" to make good on economies of scale. Best thing is, since that "industrial area" is entirely privately owned, the general public won't even have to pay for the road upkeep inside it! The same thing happens with pollution! Feel free to make as many smoke stacks as you want! You'll be charged for every CO2 coming out of your property line! This encourages industrialists to put in carbon capture right at the source!

KptMarchewa 5y ago

The solution is to not have a system where current civilians of some locality have legislative power over stuff like this.