33 ms·

Opposition to High Density Development

60 points by gotmedium 5y ago

wiskinator 5y ago
I have a feeling that if we spread the theory into small and midsize towns that the urban density laws were a conspiracy by the urban elite to keep cities rich and relevant we'd see them get repealed.
Pet_Ant 5y ago
Generally the presence of other people devalues places. You want just enough of the right number of people and that’s it.
- cheriot 5y ago
  The most valuable residential land in the world is in the most densely populated places.
  - jcims 5y ago
    The most valuable residences in the world tend to be single tenant though.
    - cheriot 5y ago
      The residences that cost the most are the ones that require buying the most land in the most expensive area. That's not really contradicting my point.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    What is value? You can't really use dollar price as a measure of value unless everyone were given equal buying power, every house and apartment was listed on the market at the same time, and every job could be performed from any location.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - cheriot 5y ago
      Are you proposing an alternative measure? The market price is what affects people's budgets so that's the one I use.
- chollida1 5y ago
  Thought experiment. What is worth more? The average house in the country with a couple of acres of land or a 700square foot condo in Manhattan. Generally the presence of other people tend to push up property values as it brings in a lot more amenities.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    I and many others would take the house with the land, unless I'm being forced to live in the city for work. When remote work became a necessity, we saw tons of people (and speculative investors) buying up housing in cheaper states.
    - handrous 5y ago
      The real trouble with doing that, for families, is that rural & small-town schools are almost all bad, compared with suburban schools. Makes it an unrealistic (or, at least, pretty undesirable) option unless you're homeschooling, so rich you can afford boarding school (unlikely any decent private schools will be in commuting range), or simply don't have and don't plan to have kids. I'm not saying it's a majority, but I think a lot of suburb-dwellers would rather live in one or either of the country or the city, but are stuck in the 'burbs for the public schools.
  - progman32 5y ago
    Economic value and desirability are related but different concepts, though. You'd have to pay me big bucks for me to even consider living in that 700 square foot condo. Just because other people are also willing to make a similar compromise (driving up the price) doesn't mean any of us necessarily prefer that condo over other forms of living.
    - Negitivefrags 5y ago
      I find this kind of reasoning bizzare. Yes, the economic value and desirability are exactly the same. You just seem to discount the location of the condo as not being part of the value the condo is providing. But it is in fact the most important part of the value.
- joomooru 5y ago
  Totally, that's why rent in Manhattan is extremely affordable :)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  > Generally the presence of other people devalues places. That's not it. If you have a hundred acres of land and a hundred families and you require every house to be built on an acre of land, housing will be pretty expensive, because even the poor will have to pay the price for a full acre, when you might otherwise have mix of half acre lots, two acre lots, etc. If you have a hundred acres of land and two hundred families and you require every house to be built on an acre of land, housing will be really expensive, because building enough for everyone is prohibited by law. And relaxing the zoning to allow higher density will lower housing prices because the supply of housing increases. That's not because people don't want to live there anymore, it's just because you don't have to outbid your neighbors in a fight over the artificially scarce housing anymore because if you get more people you can build more housing. And there's nothing about allowing higher densities that prohibits you from paying for the lower density housing -- it just doesn't prohibit someone else from doing otherwise. Which actually makes lower density housing more affordable, because you can buy it without having to outbid people who would choose higher density housing given the option.
- ahoy 5y ago
  > Generally the presence of other people devalues places this is why rent is so cheap in manhattan, san fransisco, london, etc
cheriot 5y ago
For those of us not affiliated with a University, is there a way to read the article without paying $37.50? Anecdotally, there's a lot of mythology in America about the supremacy of single family exclusive neighborhoods that's contradicted by actual numbers (mentioned in the abstract). There's also people's preference for the thing they know and at this point we have two generations that have grown up in single family exclusive neighborhoods. It's really difficult to soften this kind of opposition.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  Use Sci Hub.
  - sebmellen 5y ago
    Unfortunately Sci-Hub is not able to index all articles. See: http://sci-hub.se/10.1177/10780874211065776 http://sci-hub.se/10.1177/10780874211065776.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  Such loaded language! "mythology in America", "people's preference for the thing they know", "really difficult to soften this kind of opposition" Can you accept that your preferences are not shared by large numbers of people? And that they have free will and know what they want?
  - nemothekid 5y ago
    It's a very hard pill to swallow when those preferences are built on flawed data, and those preferences lead to choices that massively increase housing prices, exacerbate homelessness, destroy local businesses and indirectly contributes to climate change through increased vehicle usage
    - uberman 5y ago
tenebrisalietum 5y ago
Honestly: - I don't want to share my street with anyone, let alone a wall. - I don't want increased traffic. - Increased population density also tends to increase crime. - Increased population density has economic benefits that tend to go to companies and developers, not me. - It's too hard to get infrastructure built. Roads will never be enough and we'll never have good public transit. - Culture is too antagonistic. Public shared spaces with no charge or admission control always get overtaken by inconsiderate, loud people. The less of them, the better.
- cheriot 5y ago
  It's fine to prefer rural areas, but the problem is using the law to force suburbs on people that would be happier in urban areas. "Increased population density also tends to increase crime." This is a myth. Murder rates by county https://i.redd.it/xl23t365qub41.png https://i.redd.it/xl23t365qub41.png "Increased population density has economic benefits that tend to go to companies and developers, not me." This is a self fulfilling prophecy. The thing killing budgets of the middle and working class in cities is the cost of housing. The cost of housing is so high because we prohibit building more of it! "It's too hard to get infrastructure built. Roads will never be enough and we'll never have good public transit." We use to be good at this. America had great transit before WW2. Other rich countries are still good at building it. We should not accept the status quo here. "Culture is too antagonistic. Public shared spaces with no charge or admission control always get overtaken by inconsiderate, loud people. The less of them, the better." American's go on vacation and come back raving about the parks and plazas of Europe so there's plenty of American's that would enjoy the things we outlaw.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    The cost of housing is so high because we prohibit building more of it! I helped a friend run for city council years ago at a time when almost everyone else on the council and the mayor were connected to the property or construction industries. They wanted more development because they got paid -- the cost of housing is high, so let's build more so we can make more money. This is what people who currently live in smaller suburbs or rural areas see as driving the push for more housing -- more greed from their corrupt city council.
skybrian 5y ago
I wonder what opposition there will be to the new laws in California allowing duplexes everywhere?
- cheriot 5y ago
  There are signature gatherers out for a ballot proposition to make local land use laws override state law. The main supporters are small, rich municipalities.
- anamax 5y ago
  Pretty much everyone in a duplex would rather live in single-family. Pretty much everyone who has lived next to a duplex would rather live next to single-family. (I'm not saying that every instance of living next to single-family goes well.) Yes, duplexes are less expensive than single-family, so they're the best that some people can do, but that's no reason to make them the only option.
  - skybrian 5y ago
    Why would you say people prefer this?
    - anamax 5y ago
      Oh goody, you want to argue that other people want the wrong things because their preferences conflict with a mechanism that you want to use for your social goals. There are costs and benefits to every kind of living arrangement. Most people who have actual experience with duplexes think that they are a bad compromise between single-family and apartments. I was going to write that duplexes combine the worst aspects of single-family and apartments until I remembered that they also have some unique problems. There are rich people who live in single-family. There are rich people who live in apartment-like housing. No one who can afford better lives in a duplex. (I live in a duplex...)
      - skybrian 5y ago
        I was just asking. If you don't want to talk about what the problems are, you don't have to.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
endisneigh 5y ago
Why wouldn't you oppose density? The issue is a prisoner's dilemma. Only a top-down heavy handed resolution can actually, well, resolve this problem. More housing should certainly be built, but the YIMBY crowd ignores the inherent dis-incentives that one has towards more housing near them. People bring in the morality of more/cheap housing, which is fair enough, but isn't sufficient to get people to change their behavior.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  I don't know about that. More housing means more shops and restaurants within walking distance; it means it's more likely that bike lanes are created, and so on. If I want that kind of thing, then more housing helps me get it. > ... but isn't sufficient to get people to change their behavior. That may still be true, despite what I say here.
- zip1234 5y ago
  Yes, it the only fair way is to allow density everywhere. If it is spread out, it becomes much less.
  - oxymoran 5y ago
    That doesn’t even make sense…density is allowed in a lot of rural places, there just isn’t demand for more. People that live in high density areas, want to live there because it’s a city. They aren’t going to want to put up with both living in a high density building and rural area because that’s the worst possible combination. But people put up with living in a high density area because of the benefits of a city and people put up with the inconvenience of rural area because of the space. They are kind of mutually exclusive ideas.
    - zip1234 5y ago
      My point is not about rural vs urban. Most of American lives in urban areas (4/5). My point is that it is illegal in most of the populated places in America to increase density at all. The end result is getting high rises in central places in major urban areas but no change at all anywhere else. If you could have all towns slowly grow up rather than jumping straight to high rises then density is a lot less scary.
zajio1am 5y ago
> I use a conjoint survey experiment to provide evidence that preferences for single-family development are ubiquitous. Across every demographic subgroup analyzed, respondents preferred single-family home developments by a wide margin. One thing is verbal preference in questionnaire, a different thing is revealed preference in the market, where realistic economic constraints are applied (equi-affordable high density apartments would be in much more desirable locations than single-family homes, in the same location high-density apartments would be much cheaper).
- nitrogen 5y ago
  revealed preference in the market Revealed preference is just a polite way of describing either exploiting vice or taking advantage of someone in a weaker economic position. Works well enough for your average A/B test on a small website, but we can and should be more aspirational when dealing with housing, community, and society.
ravenstine 5y ago
I don't think either side of the argument is necessarily wrong. Both high and low density housing bring different pros and cons as well as different elements that the residents of either one may not appreciate of the other. The question of whether one form of housing development is better than the other is a red herring. What we must ask is why we've organized cities the way we have, whether we can change how they are organized, and if we even should. That's because, let's face it, there's a form of NIMBY for both. Create more high density housing and the people with McMansions complain. Build some McMansions and the high density people cry "gentrification!" None of these people are going away, and neither one necessarily needs to lose their way of life. The way I see it, there's too much a dichotomy between the city-life and the suburban or rural life. We might find ways to for them to better work together For instance, although high density housing can be a good thing for many, from a structural standpoint they mostly make sense in dense urban cities and the outskirts of said cities. But why have dense urban cities in the 2020's? Why can't suburbs actually live up to the urb part? Maybe we can actually use a lot of the vacant land we still have in America to create systems of small cities that can satisfy the needs of the many as well as the few? I don't think that there would be as much an opposition to high density development if it could be planned in such a way not to step on the toes of those who don't want to be around high density housing while still having a place for it. It would be better for policing and a sense of community. Better yet, create networks of paths for bikes and tiny vehicles between said small cities. I mean actual bike paths, not the fake ones we paint on existing roads designed for cars. Economic opportunities could be created along those paths and make it simpler for towns to have their own cultures yet be involved with each other and easy to travel between without the hell of vehicle traffic. I guess my thought is rather vague, but I still feel that we always end up asking the wrong questions.
- goda90 5y ago
  Not Just Bikes has a recent video[0] talking about the lack of middle ground for suburbs in North America. I think a big problem is that laws as they are prevent variety. Either everything must be single family homes with huge setbacks and wide roads, or it is doomed to be bought up by large apartment developers. Is it a threat to your ability to have a yard and two car garage if the house next door is a duplex and the end of the block has a corner store with a couple apartments above it? No, but the laws make it so that only your yard and two car garage can exist in your neighborhood regardless. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0
melling 5y ago
“Across every demographic subgroup analyzed, respondents preferred single-family home developments by a wide margin.” According to the article, this is a common desire. I have not studied the issue. Are there examples of where switching from low density to high density worked out well?
- resonantjacket5 5y ago
  > I have not studied the issue. Are there examples of where switching from low density to high density worked out well? That's the default for most cities around the around besides American cities where low density suburbs eventually start building 4/5 story buildings and then taller ones.
- zip1234 5y ago
  Even if that is the desire, it should not be mandated by law. Also, the framing of 'low' vs 'high' density is bad way to frame the issue. For most places where this is an issue the question is 'medium' density or 'more medium' density. Half of Seattle is zoned single family detached. Seattle is not low density.
a-dub 5y ago
some people like housing on land, other people like housing that is attached to busy public spaces. both options have their tradeoffs and what makes sense is both individual and subjective.
kashunstva 5y ago
Since only the abstract is available to the general public, I can only speculate on what the article actually says. That said, I've long thought that the opposition to high density development is partly driven by the complete asynchrony between private development and public infrastructure. I live in a rural area adjacent to a medium-size metropolitan area (pop ~400K). With alarming frequency, private entities put up high-rise residential structures; but beyond cursory project review and maybe an access lane or two our municipal governments do nothing with foresight. There is no consideration given to the system-wide impact of these dense developments.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Opposition to high density development is because everyone likes space. But everyone cannot afford for everyone else to have space. The sweet spot is when you have space, and others do not have space. As for infrastructure, I am convinced there is no in between possibility. Either you optimize for dense living, or non dense living. There is no world where we can have our cake and eat it too.
- Eextra953 5y ago
  I live in a similar setting and this has been my experience as well. New HD housing is approved, the developer pays the impact fees, but the city doesn't build the improvements for years and years.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    "I can spend the money on what I want today and let the next guy who holds office deal with the problem"
betwixthewires 5y ago
I'm opposed to high density housing as well, for myself, personally. That's why I don't live in a city. But being opposed to it generally, in a city no less, is a bit ridiculous. Either you want/need to live in a place with a ton of people or you don't. If you don't like traffic and neighbors upstairs don't live in a city. If you don't like long drives to the grocery store and needing to rely on a car to get around and on interpersonal business instead of professional employment, live in a city. But this middle of the road, cake and eat it too, cities designed for cars, urban sprawl by ordinance just makes things suck for everyone involved, it's the worst of both worlds.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Many people are forced out of rural areas due to the availability of work. I would prefer a rural area with some land, but it's difficult to find a good job in those areas.
  - cheriot 5y ago
    Those people get screwed the most by high rent and long commutes... that are the direct result of prohibiting dense housing.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      How so? My comment is that many people who prefer living in lower density areas are forced out due to lack of jobs in those areas.
      - kaibee 5y ago
        If you had a smooth transition between high and low density, the total area covered by housing would be smaller. So oddly enough, even the lowest density housing would now be closer to jobs in the city. Furthermore, since public transport makes more sense for those in the 'middle'-density area, there would be less for those who choose to drive in from the low-density area. https://missingmiddlehousing.com/ https://missingmiddlehousing.com/
Eextra953 5y ago
I can't access the article. There is a lot of opposition to high density that is racist and selfish. However, in my experience, a lot of people who are not ignorant or racist are opposed to high density housing because it is built in places that lack infrastructure to support high density housing. I think there would be a lot less opposition if cities were more proactive in improving infrastructure (more parks, mass transit, wider roads, etc.) before high density housing was developed.
- thenewwazoo 5y ago
  That's an impossible conundrum. Who's going to pay for increased mass transit if there's nobody to ride it? Who's going to pay for more parks if there aren't enough people to use them? (Wider roads are counter-intuitive: dense development needs fewer, narrower roads, not wider). One thing or the other has to happen, and there is demand for more development now. Let the development happen and the demand for infrastructure will follow.
- zip1234 5y ago
  The infrastructure is not the problem. Cities can build this easily with increased tax base. Most roads are way overbuilt anyways.
- jltsiren 5y ago
  In my experience, the same people who oppose new housing due to the lack of infrastructure often also oppose building that infrastructure. They don't really oppose the housing itself but changes in their neighborhood.
- kaibee 5y ago
  > are opposed to high density housing because it is built in places that lack infrastructure to support high density housing. I've seen this objection a few times now but never actually seen it sourced. Do you have a source? I feel like there's some kind of conflict between that being true and the fact that suburbs can't afford to maintain the infrastructure that they _do_ have. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/4/8/weve-built-cities-we-cant-afford https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/4/8/weve-built-citi...
giantg2 5y ago
Is this some new phenomenon? The abstract doesn't really provide any shocking or new info. I don't see any relation to tech either.
bentice 5y ago
Automobiles are the main factor. Cars made it possible for single family home culture -> cities were designed around cars -> now this culture is the ideal as it is what cities are explicitly designed for. Self driving will be an interesting addition to the mix. We will probably come up with new cultures around that technology.
tomlagier 5y ago
Morally, I'm very pro-high density housing. Just like I'm pro-public transit. But in reality, my expressed preference is a single-family house with a yard and the convenience a car brings. I'm not sure how to square these things.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  That's fine if it you prefer it. The question is whether you can use the force of law to prevent other people from realizing their preference on their own property.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
    The problem is that some of people's preferences include externalities. I prefer that my neighbor upstream not dam or pollute the creek that runs to my yard. I prefer that my neighbor behind me not put up a 100 foot concrete wall that blocks my view of nature. But it's their property, as you say. So people band together and decide that they want to live in a community that abides by certain rules and pass zoning laws, getting us where we are today. Externalities are a thing, and surely at least some zoning makes sense.
  - oxymoran 5y ago
    But the answer is obvious: if the force of law can be applied over home design preferences, there is no longer such a thing as private property.Yes, there is a clear need for building regulations related to safety, but that’s an entirely different argument.
    - Daishiman 5y ago
      There has never been freedom to build whatever you want on your own land. Private property doesn't mean "mine and mine alone"; it means you get to use it in a way accordingly granted by the state's monopoly of force.
- kiba 5y ago
  Cars are only convenient when there's infrastructure everywhere for cars, including parking spots.
6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
Because I know half the people won't read it if it takes the extra click, here's the abstract: > Virtually every city in the United States bans multifamily homes in at least some neighborhoods, and in many cities most residential land is restricted to single family homes. This is the case even though many metropolitan areas are facing skyrocketing housing costs and increased environmental degradation that could be alleviated by denser housing supply. Some scholars have argued that an unrepresentative set of vocal development opponents are the culprits behind this collective action failure. Yet, recent work suggests that opposition to density may be widespread. In this research note, I use a conjoint survey experiment to provide evidence that preferences for single-family development are ubiquitous. Across every demographic subgroup analyzed, respondents preferred single-family home developments by a wide margin. Relative to single family homes, apartments are viewed as decreasing property values, increasing crime rates, lowering school quality, increasing traffic, and decreasing desirability. My personal values make "decreasing desirability" is the biggest factor, but I can't read the article to see if I'm representative.
hdesh 5y ago
Here's the free version of the article from the author's webpage - (hopefully the same as sagepub) https://faculty.ucmerced.edu/jtrounstine/Skittles_UAR_ALL.pdf https://faculty.ucmerced.edu/jtrounstine/Skittles_UAR_ALL.pd...
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  It's a shame that the question was about what effect density will have on different factors, rather than about what factors people care about. I'd rather know if people oppose density because it affects desirability than know if people just think density will make their place less desirable.
at_a_remove 5y ago
Here we have the eternal struggle between people who know what they do and do not want, and other people who want to know better for the first group. People who want to live in a single-family residence, they hate the noise from inconsiderate neighbors, and weird smells (cooking or otherwise). They hate fighting for parking. Technically, it is possible to construct multi-family buildings with good noise insulation and decent venting. In reality, people who have had a lot of miserable experiences in apartment buildings and dorms know that this will emphatically not happen. It could! It really could! But it won't. It would be great if we were angels, but we are not. The people who construct apartment buildings cut so many corners, and we have ongoing evidence of issues with maintaining those buildings, which sometimes do things like collapse. Some people are not a lot of fun to live near, and people who recognize this want to put them at arm's length.
- Daishiman 5y ago
  This would be great if it weren't for the fact that suburbanites that want to avoid all these problems were paying for the externalities of their massive road usage, massive land usage, and a host of other issues. Suburban life is far, far more expensive for it to be sustainable than it is currently priced in most American suburbs. This issue cannot be overlooked.
  - at_a_remove 5y ago
    That's not really what we are discussing here. What we are talking about are preferences, and people "talking over" those preferences, for the "good" of the other party. We can have a conversation about the costs, but we should really focus on the conversation on hand -- people have real preferences.
  - uberman 5y ago
    I pay taxes on my car and gas and licensing as well as tolls. If you believe I don't pay enough by all means propose how I should pay more in a way that both the affluent and less fortunate would support. I will be happy to entertain how I might "pay for the roads I use". In a similar light, I pay property taxes on the land I ranch. I'm a software developer but I raise beef cattle and horses. Please let me know how you propose I pay for my massive land use outside of the taxes I already pay. Just keep in mind, that it would probably be best if other small business owners also agreed with your tax proposals.
adlorger 5y ago
in the past, local voices did not have power to organize or constrict local development. its a form of social technology that has enabled this around the world over the past 80 years. when people look at urban sprawl they see the culprit as cars, which is maybe true, but the real cause is democracy.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Society didn't used to be rich enough to afford to waste resources entertaining arbitrary meddling into what people did on their private property. If you didn't like that the carriage shop next door made hammering noises all day tough luck, society was not going to impede that business owner's ability to feed his family for no reason other than the abutters' luxury. The problem is wealth. We've solved our other problems so now we have nothing better to do than complain about what nearby landowners do on their own damn private property.
  - adlorger 5y ago
    I dont think the concern for what our neighbors are doing has gone up so much as our ability to make noise about it. Dealing with conflicts between neighbors is ancient.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      >Dealing with conflicts between neighbors is ancient. But society previously couldn't afford to indulge in wasting resources (either directly on process or implicitly by preventing people from doing what's economically optimal) mediating these disputes to the same extent they do now. That's why I think it's a wealth thing.
999900000999 5y ago
Density is great if you can't afford a big house + a car. Back in my younger days I had a 600$ apartment in LA right next to the train. Moderately safe area, and I didn't need a car. 10$ an hour was livable. Hell it was downright nice. 3$ bottles of Soju and 4$ Tortas. LA used to be a great place. Now that same apartment is 1300$. In most of LA, really America, you need a car. With a car you're out like 500 to 800$ a month on the low end. Before you know it even making good money your very very poor. If I get fired I don't need to keep making my car payment, having a car loan puts you in a bad spot.
throwaway55421 5y ago
Sometimes people just want a medium density city. I like my medium density neighbourhood and I like being in a city that has them. If I wanted to live in a tower block I'd move more centrally or to another city. I also don't think that people who don't live somewhere, or are temporarily staying somewhere, should have a say in this over established families.
ZoomerCretin 5y ago
In these discussions, people always seem to keep the discussion limited to lifestyle preferences. I prefer to live in a suburb, so we should keep this suburb encased in amber! I prefer to live in an urban area, and obviously it's better to decrease rents and per-capita tax burden by increasing density and the supply of housing. There are many enormous negative externalities associated with suburban development: that this kind of forced restrictive zoning is responsible for GDP being _50% lower_ than it otherwise would be (https://www.theregreview.org/2018/06/14/somogyi-zoning-codes-gdp/ https://www.theregreview.org/2018/06/14/somogyi-zoning-codes...), that it vastly increases carbon emissions by necessitating that everyone drive everywhere for every trip, and that it is responsible for the vast majority of the housing affordability and homelessness crisis. The laws of supply and demand are simple, yet people seem to think it can't apply to housing. "South Korea says it will boost available housing nationwide with a positive supply “shock” as President Moon Jae-in struggles to tame soaring home prices that are weighing on his approval ratings." (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-04/south-korea-plans-shock-housing-supply-boost-to-tame-prices https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-04/south-kor...) In Tokyo, a huge megacity with a population of 37 million people, apartment rents can be incredibly cheap (https://twitter.com/IDoTheThinking/status/1391411804815847432 https://twitter.com/IDoTheThinking/status/139141180481584743...), $400/month in an area only a 20 minute train ride from the center of town. There is not one city in the United States where this is true, because every city makes affordable housing illegal to placate rich NIMBYs. Suburban NIMBY aesthetic and lifestyle preferences that are forced on everyone are causing middle-income and lower-income people to cut back on food, transportation, healthcare, and retirement savings. (https://twitter.com/aaronAcarr/status/1460393017639153673 https://twitter.com/aaronAcarr/status/1460393017639153673) If it is wrong to force someone who prefers a suburban area to live in a dense urban area, is it not also wrong to force people who prefer cheaper rents, walkability, and the amenities of urban life to pay 3-6x as much to live in a desolate, anti-social, car-centric suburb?
adameasterling 5y ago
> Relative to single family homes, apartments are viewed as decreasing property values, increasing crime rates, lowering school quality, increasing traffic, and decreasing desirability. The problem is most cities only allow two kinds of development: Low density or high density. We're missing the middle! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_middle_housing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_middle_housing I've really enjoyed these two YouTube channels on the subject. "Oh the Urbanity" has a great video on Montreal's "missing middle" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYCAVmKzX10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYCAVmKzX10 And "Not Just Bikes" discusses a "missing middle" neighborhood in Toronto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0
bradgranath 5y ago
Conservative political interests went nuts this elections season breathlessly exclaiming that we need to keep "Keep Mukilteo a Small Town!" as if it wasn't already next door to the Boeing Factory Buildings, and a Naval Complex that usually has a Nimitz-class carrier docked.

60 points by gotmedium 5y ago

I have a feeling that if we spread the theory into small and midsize towns that the urban density laws were a conspiracy by the urban elite to keep cities rich and relevant we'd see them get repealed.

Pet_Ant 5y ago

Generally the presence of other people devalues places. You want just enough of the right number of people and that’s it.

cheriot 5y ago
The most valuable residential land in the world is in the most densely populated places.
- jcims 5y ago
  The most valuable residences in the world tend to be single tenant though.
  - cheriot 5y ago
    The residences that cost the most are the ones that require buying the most land in the most expensive area. That's not really contradicting my point.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  What is value? You can't really use dollar price as a measure of value unless everyone were given equal buying power, every house and apartment was listed on the market at the same time, and every job could be performed from any location.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - cheriot 5y ago
    Are you proposing an alternative measure? The market price is what affects people's budgets so that's the one I use.
chollida1 5y ago
Thought experiment. What is worth more? The average house in the country with a couple of acres of land or a 700square foot condo in Manhattan. Generally the presence of other people tend to push up property values as it brings in a lot more amenities.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  I and many others would take the house with the land, unless I'm being forced to live in the city for work. When remote work became a necessity, we saw tons of people (and speculative investors) buying up housing in cheaper states.
  - handrous 5y ago
    The real trouble with doing that, for families, is that rural & small-town schools are almost all bad, compared with suburban schools. Makes it an unrealistic (or, at least, pretty undesirable) option unless you're homeschooling, so rich you can afford boarding school (unlikely any decent private schools will be in commuting range), or simply don't have and don't plan to have kids. I'm not saying it's a majority, but I think a lot of suburb-dwellers would rather live in one or either of the country or the city, but are stuck in the 'burbs for the public schools.
- progman32 5y ago
  Economic value and desirability are related but different concepts, though. You'd have to pay me big bucks for me to even consider living in that 700 square foot condo. Just because other people are also willing to make a similar compromise (driving up the price) doesn't mean any of us necessarily prefer that condo over other forms of living.
  - Negitivefrags 5y ago
    I find this kind of reasoning bizzare. Yes, the economic value and desirability are exactly the same. You just seem to discount the location of the condo as not being part of the value the condo is providing. But it is in fact the most important part of the value.
joomooru 5y ago
Totally, that's why rent in Manhattan is extremely affordable :)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> Generally the presence of other people devalues places. That's not it. If you have a hundred acres of land and a hundred families and you require every house to be built on an acre of land, housing will be pretty expensive, because even the poor will have to pay the price for a full acre, when you might otherwise have mix of half acre lots, two acre lots, etc. If you have a hundred acres of land and two hundred families and you require every house to be built on an acre of land, housing will be really expensive, because building enough for everyone is prohibited by law. And relaxing the zoning to allow higher density will lower housing prices because the supply of housing increases. That's not because people don't want to live there anymore, it's just because you don't have to outbid your neighbors in a fight over the artificially scarce housing anymore because if you get more people you can build more housing. And there's nothing about allowing higher densities that prohibits you from paying for the lower density housing -- it just doesn't prohibit someone else from doing otherwise. Which actually makes lower density housing more affordable, because you can buy it without having to outbid people who would choose higher density housing given the option.
ahoy 5y ago
> Generally the presence of other people devalues places this is why rent is so cheap in manhattan, san fransisco, london, etc

cheriot 5y ago

For those of us not affiliated with a University, is there a way to read the article without paying $37.50? Anecdotally, there's a lot of mythology in America about the supremacy of single family exclusive neighborhoods that's contradicted by actual numbers (mentioned in the abstract). There's also people's preference for the thing they know and at this point we have two generations that have grown up in single family exclusive neighborhoods. It's really difficult to soften this kind of opposition.

xyzzyz 5y ago
Use Sci Hub.
- sebmellen 5y ago
  Unfortunately Sci-Hub is not able to index all articles. See: http://sci-hub.se/10.1177/10780874211065776 http://sci-hub.se/10.1177/10780874211065776.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
AlbertCory 5y ago
Such loaded language! "mythology in America", "people's preference for the thing they know", "really difficult to soften this kind of opposition" Can you accept that your preferences are not shared by large numbers of people? And that they have free will and know what they want?
- nemothekid 5y ago
  It's a very hard pill to swallow when those preferences are built on flawed data, and those preferences lead to choices that massively increase housing prices, exacerbate homelessness, destroy local businesses and indirectly contributes to climate change through increased vehicle usage
  - uberman 5y ago

tenebrisalietum 5y ago

Honestly: - I don't want to share my street with anyone, let alone a wall. - I don't want increased traffic. - Increased population density also tends to increase crime. - Increased population density has economic benefits that tend to go to companies and developers, not me. - It's too hard to get infrastructure built. Roads will never be enough and we'll never have good public transit. - Culture is too antagonistic. Public shared spaces with no charge or admission control always get overtaken by inconsiderate, loud people. The less of them, the better.

cheriot 5y ago
It's fine to prefer rural areas, but the problem is using the law to force suburbs on people that would be happier in urban areas. "Increased population density also tends to increase crime." This is a myth. Murder rates by county https://i.redd.it/xl23t365qub41.png https://i.redd.it/xl23t365qub41.png "Increased population density has economic benefits that tend to go to companies and developers, not me." This is a self fulfilling prophecy. The thing killing budgets of the middle and working class in cities is the cost of housing. The cost of housing is so high because we prohibit building more of it! "It's too hard to get infrastructure built. Roads will never be enough and we'll never have good public transit." We use to be good at this. America had great transit before WW2. Other rich countries are still good at building it. We should not accept the status quo here. "Culture is too antagonistic. Public shared spaces with no charge or admission control always get overtaken by inconsiderate, loud people. The less of them, the better." American's go on vacation and come back raving about the parks and plazas of Europe so there's plenty of American's that would enjoy the things we outlaw.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  The cost of housing is so high because we prohibit building more of it! I helped a friend run for city council years ago at a time when almost everyone else on the council and the mayor were connected to the property or construction industries. They wanted more development because they got paid -- the cost of housing is high, so let's build more so we can make more money. This is what people who currently live in smaller suburbs or rural areas see as driving the push for more housing -- more greed from their corrupt city council.

skybrian 5y ago

I wonder what opposition there will be to the new laws in California allowing duplexes everywhere?

cheriot 5y ago
There are signature gatherers out for a ballot proposition to make local land use laws override state law. The main supporters are small, rich municipalities.
anamax 5y ago
Pretty much everyone in a duplex would rather live in single-family. Pretty much everyone who has lived next to a duplex would rather live next to single-family. (I'm not saying that every instance of living next to single-family goes well.) Yes, duplexes are less expensive than single-family, so they're the best that some people can do, but that's no reason to make them the only option.
- skybrian 5y ago
  Why would you say people prefer this?
  - anamax 5y ago
    Oh goody, you want to argue that other people want the wrong things because their preferences conflict with a mechanism that you want to use for your social goals. There are costs and benefits to every kind of living arrangement. Most people who have actual experience with duplexes think that they are a bad compromise between single-family and apartments. I was going to write that duplexes combine the worst aspects of single-family and apartments until I remembered that they also have some unique problems. There are rich people who live in single-family. There are rich people who live in apartment-like housing. No one who can afford better lives in a duplex. (I live in a duplex...)
    - skybrian 5y ago
      I was just asking. If you don't want to talk about what the problems are, you don't have to.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

endisneigh 5y ago

Why wouldn't you oppose density? The issue is a prisoner's dilemma. Only a top-down heavy handed resolution can actually, well, resolve this problem. More housing should certainly be built, but the YIMBY crowd ignores the inherent dis-incentives that one has towards more housing near them. People bring in the morality of more/cheap housing, which is fair enough, but isn't sufficient to get people to change their behavior.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
I don't know about that. More housing means more shops and restaurants within walking distance; it means it's more likely that bike lanes are created, and so on. If I want that kind of thing, then more housing helps me get it. > ... but isn't sufficient to get people to change their behavior. That may still be true, despite what I say here.
zip1234 5y ago
Yes, it the only fair way is to allow density everywhere. If it is spread out, it becomes much less.
- oxymoran 5y ago
  That doesn’t even make sense…density is allowed in a lot of rural places, there just isn’t demand for more. People that live in high density areas, want to live there because it’s a city. They aren’t going to want to put up with both living in a high density building and rural area because that’s the worst possible combination. But people put up with living in a high density area because of the benefits of a city and people put up with the inconvenience of rural area because of the space. They are kind of mutually exclusive ideas.
  - zip1234 5y ago
    My point is not about rural vs urban. Most of American lives in urban areas (4/5). My point is that it is illegal in most of the populated places in America to increase density at all. The end result is getting high rises in central places in major urban areas but no change at all anywhere else. If you could have all towns slowly grow up rather than jumping straight to high rises then density is a lot less scary.

zajio1am 5y ago

> I use a conjoint survey experiment to provide evidence that preferences for single-family development are ubiquitous. Across every demographic subgroup analyzed, respondents preferred single-family home developments by a wide margin. One thing is verbal preference in questionnaire, a different thing is revealed preference in the market, where realistic economic constraints are applied (equi-affordable high density apartments would be in much more desirable locations than single-family homes, in the same location high-density apartments would be much cheaper).

nitrogen 5y ago
revealed preference in the market Revealed preference is just a polite way of describing either exploiting vice or taking advantage of someone in a weaker economic position. Works well enough for your average A/B test on a small website, but we can and should be more aspirational when dealing with housing, community, and society.

ravenstine 5y ago

I don't think either side of the argument is necessarily wrong. Both high and low density housing bring different pros and cons as well as different elements that the residents of either one may not appreciate of the other. The question of whether one form of housing development is better than the other is a red herring. What we must ask is why we've organized cities the way we have, whether we can change how they are organized, and if we even should. That's because, let's face it, there's a form of NIMBY for both. Create more high density housing and the people with McMansions complain. Build some McMansions and the high density people cry "gentrification!" None of these people are going away, and neither one necessarily needs to lose their way of life. The way I see it, there's too much a dichotomy between the city-life and the suburban or rural life. We might find ways to for them to better work together For instance, although high density housing can be a good thing for many, from a structural standpoint they mostly make sense in dense urban cities and the outskirts of said cities. But why have dense urban cities in the 2020's? Why can't suburbs actually live up to the urb part? Maybe we can actually use a lot of the vacant land we still have in America to create systems of small cities that can satisfy the needs of the many as well as the few? I don't think that there would be as much an opposition to high density development if it could be planned in such a way not to step on the toes of those who don't want to be around high density housing while still having a place for it. It would be better for policing and a sense of community. Better yet, create networks of paths for bikes and tiny vehicles between said small cities. I mean actual bike paths, not the fake ones we paint on existing roads designed for cars. Economic opportunities could be created along those paths and make it simpler for towns to have their own cultures yet be involved with each other and easy to travel between without the hell of vehicle traffic. I guess my thought is rather vague, but I still feel that we always end up asking the wrong questions.

goda90 5y ago
Not Just Bikes has a recent video[0] talking about the lack of middle ground for suburbs in North America. I think a big problem is that laws as they are prevent variety. Either everything must be single family homes with huge setbacks and wide roads, or it is doomed to be bought up by large apartment developers. Is it a threat to your ability to have a yard and two car garage if the house next door is a duplex and the end of the block has a corner store with a couple apartments above it? No, but the laws make it so that only your yard and two car garage can exist in your neighborhood regardless. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0

melling 5y ago

“Across every demographic subgroup analyzed, respondents preferred single-family home developments by a wide margin.” According to the article, this is a common desire. I have not studied the issue. Are there examples of where switching from low density to high density worked out well?

resonantjacket5 5y ago
> I have not studied the issue. Are there examples of where switching from low density to high density worked out well? That's the default for most cities around the around besides American cities where low density suburbs eventually start building 4/5 story buildings and then taller ones.
zip1234 5y ago
Even if that is the desire, it should not be mandated by law. Also, the framing of 'low' vs 'high' density is bad way to frame the issue. For most places where this is an issue the question is 'medium' density or 'more medium' density. Half of Seattle is zoned single family detached. Seattle is not low density.

a-dub 5y ago

some people like housing on land, other people like housing that is attached to busy public spaces. both options have their tradeoffs and what makes sense is both individual and subjective.

kashunstva 5y ago

Since only the abstract is available to the general public, I can only speculate on what the article actually says. That said, I've long thought that the opposition to high density development is partly driven by the complete asynchrony between private development and public infrastructure. I live in a rural area adjacent to a medium-size metropolitan area (pop ~400K). With alarming frequency, private entities put up high-rise residential structures; but beyond cursory project review and maybe an access lane or two our municipal governments do nothing with foresight. There is no consideration given to the system-wide impact of these dense developments.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
Opposition to high density development is because everyone likes space. But everyone cannot afford for everyone else to have space. The sweet spot is when you have space, and others do not have space. As for infrastructure, I am convinced there is no in between possibility. Either you optimize for dense living, or non dense living. There is no world where we can have our cake and eat it too.
Eextra953 5y ago
I live in a similar setting and this has been my experience as well. New HD housing is approved, the developer pays the impact fees, but the city doesn't build the improvements for years and years.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  "I can spend the money on what I want today and let the next guy who holds office deal with the problem"

betwixthewires 5y ago

I'm opposed to high density housing as well, for myself, personally. That's why I don't live in a city. But being opposed to it generally, in a city no less, is a bit ridiculous. Either you want/need to live in a place with a ton of people or you don't. If you don't like traffic and neighbors upstairs don't live in a city. If you don't like long drives to the grocery store and needing to rely on a car to get around and on interpersonal business instead of professional employment, live in a city. But this middle of the road, cake and eat it too, cities designed for cars, urban sprawl by ordinance just makes things suck for everyone involved, it's the worst of both worlds.

giantg2 5y ago
Many people are forced out of rural areas due to the availability of work. I would prefer a rural area with some land, but it's difficult to find a good job in those areas.
- cheriot 5y ago
  Those people get screwed the most by high rent and long commutes... that are the direct result of prohibiting dense housing.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    How so? My comment is that many people who prefer living in lower density areas are forced out due to lack of jobs in those areas.
    - kaibee 5y ago
      If you had a smooth transition between high and low density, the total area covered by housing would be smaller. So oddly enough, even the lowest density housing would now be closer to jobs in the city. Furthermore, since public transport makes more sense for those in the 'middle'-density area, there would be less for those who choose to drive in from the low-density area. https://missingmiddlehousing.com/ https://missingmiddlehousing.com/

Eextra953 5y ago

I can't access the article. There is a lot of opposition to high density that is racist and selfish. However, in my experience, a lot of people who are not ignorant or racist are opposed to high density housing because it is built in places that lack infrastructure to support high density housing. I think there would be a lot less opposition if cities were more proactive in improving infrastructure (more parks, mass transit, wider roads, etc.) before high density housing was developed.

thenewwazoo 5y ago
That's an impossible conundrum. Who's going to pay for increased mass transit if there's nobody to ride it? Who's going to pay for more parks if there aren't enough people to use them? (Wider roads are counter-intuitive: dense development needs fewer, narrower roads, not wider). One thing or the other has to happen, and there is demand for more development now. Let the development happen and the demand for infrastructure will follow.
zip1234 5y ago
The infrastructure is not the problem. Cities can build this easily with increased tax base. Most roads are way overbuilt anyways.
jltsiren 5y ago
In my experience, the same people who oppose new housing due to the lack of infrastructure often also oppose building that infrastructure. They don't really oppose the housing itself but changes in their neighborhood.
kaibee 5y ago
> are opposed to high density housing because it is built in places that lack infrastructure to support high density housing. I've seen this objection a few times now but never actually seen it sourced. Do you have a source? I feel like there's some kind of conflict between that being true and the fact that suburbs can't afford to maintain the infrastructure that they _do_ have. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/4/8/weve-built-cities-we-cant-afford https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/4/8/weve-built-citi...

giantg2 5y ago

Is this some new phenomenon? The abstract doesn't really provide any shocking or new info. I don't see any relation to tech either.

bentice 5y ago

Automobiles are the main factor. Cars made it possible for single family home culture -> cities were designed around cars -> now this culture is the ideal as it is what cities are explicitly designed for. Self driving will be an interesting addition to the mix. We will probably come up with new cultures around that technology.

tomlagier 5y ago

Morally, I'm very pro-high density housing. Just like I'm pro-public transit. But in reality, my expressed preference is a single-family house with a yard and the convenience a car brings. I'm not sure how to square these things.

jeffbee 5y ago
That's fine if it you prefer it. The question is whether you can use the force of law to prevent other people from realizing their preference on their own property.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  The problem is that some of people's preferences include externalities. I prefer that my neighbor upstream not dam or pollute the creek that runs to my yard. I prefer that my neighbor behind me not put up a 100 foot concrete wall that blocks my view of nature. But it's their property, as you say. So people band together and decide that they want to live in a community that abides by certain rules and pass zoning laws, getting us where we are today. Externalities are a thing, and surely at least some zoning makes sense.
- oxymoran 5y ago
  But the answer is obvious: if the force of law can be applied over home design preferences, there is no longer such a thing as private property.Yes, there is a clear need for building regulations related to safety, but that’s an entirely different argument.
  - Daishiman 5y ago
    There has never been freedom to build whatever you want on your own land. Private property doesn't mean "mine and mine alone"; it means you get to use it in a way accordingly granted by the state's monopoly of force.
kiba 5y ago
Cars are only convenient when there's infrastructure everywhere for cars, including parking spots.

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago

Because I know half the people won't read it if it takes the extra click, here's the abstract: > Virtually every city in the United States bans multifamily homes in at least some neighborhoods, and in many cities most residential land is restricted to single family homes. This is the case even though many metropolitan areas are facing skyrocketing housing costs and increased environmental degradation that could be alleviated by denser housing supply. Some scholars have argued that an unrepresentative set of vocal development opponents are the culprits behind this collective action failure. Yet, recent work suggests that opposition to density may be widespread. In this research note, I use a conjoint survey experiment to provide evidence that preferences for single-family development are ubiquitous. Across every demographic subgroup analyzed, respondents preferred single-family home developments by a wide margin. Relative to single family homes, apartments are viewed as decreasing property values, increasing crime rates, lowering school quality, increasing traffic, and decreasing desirability. My personal values make "decreasing desirability" is the biggest factor, but I can't read the article to see if I'm representative.

hdesh 5y ago

Here's the free version of the article from the author's webpage - (hopefully the same as sagepub) https://faculty.ucmerced.edu/jtrounstine/Skittles_UAR_ALL.pdf https://faculty.ucmerced.edu/jtrounstine/Skittles_UAR_ALL.pd...

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
It's a shame that the question was about what effect density will have on different factors, rather than about what factors people care about. I'd rather know if people oppose density because it affects desirability than know if people just think density will make their place less desirable.

at_a_remove 5y ago

Here we have the eternal struggle between people who know what they do and do not want, and other people who want to know better for the first group. People who want to live in a single-family residence, they hate the noise from inconsiderate neighbors, and weird smells (cooking or otherwise). They hate fighting for parking. Technically, it is possible to construct multi-family buildings with good noise insulation and decent venting. In reality, people who have had a lot of miserable experiences in apartment buildings and dorms know that this will emphatically not happen. It could! It really could! But it won't. It would be great if we were angels, but we are not. The people who construct apartment buildings cut so many corners, and we have ongoing evidence of issues with maintaining those buildings, which sometimes do things like collapse. Some people are not a lot of fun to live near, and people who recognize this want to put them at arm's length.

Daishiman 5y ago
This would be great if it weren't for the fact that suburbanites that want to avoid all these problems were paying for the externalities of their massive road usage, massive land usage, and a host of other issues. Suburban life is far, far more expensive for it to be sustainable than it is currently priced in most American suburbs. This issue cannot be overlooked.
- at_a_remove 5y ago
  That's not really what we are discussing here. What we are talking about are preferences, and people "talking over" those preferences, for the "good" of the other party. We can have a conversation about the costs, but we should really focus on the conversation on hand -- people have real preferences.
- uberman 5y ago
  I pay taxes on my car and gas and licensing as well as tolls. If you believe I don't pay enough by all means propose how I should pay more in a way that both the affluent and less fortunate would support. I will be happy to entertain how I might "pay for the roads I use". In a similar light, I pay property taxes on the land I ranch. I'm a software developer but I raise beef cattle and horses. Please let me know how you propose I pay for my massive land use outside of the taxes I already pay. Just keep in mind, that it would probably be best if other small business owners also agreed with your tax proposals.

adlorger 5y ago

in the past, local voices did not have power to organize or constrict local development. its a form of social technology that has enabled this around the world over the past 80 years. when people look at urban sprawl they see the culprit as cars, which is maybe true, but the real cause is democracy.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Society didn't used to be rich enough to afford to waste resources entertaining arbitrary meddling into what people did on their private property. If you didn't like that the carriage shop next door made hammering noises all day tough luck, society was not going to impede that business owner's ability to feed his family for no reason other than the abutters' luxury. The problem is wealth. We've solved our other problems so now we have nothing better to do than complain about what nearby landowners do on their own damn private property.
- adlorger 5y ago
  I dont think the concern for what our neighbors are doing has gone up so much as our ability to make noise about it. Dealing with conflicts between neighbors is ancient.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >Dealing with conflicts between neighbors is ancient. But society previously couldn't afford to indulge in wasting resources (either directly on process or implicitly by preventing people from doing what's economically optimal) mediating these disputes to the same extent they do now. That's why I think it's a wealth thing.

999900000999 5y ago

Density is great if you can't afford a big house + a car. Back in my younger days I had a 600$ apartment in LA right next to the train. Moderately safe area, and I didn't need a car. 10$ an hour was livable. Hell it was downright nice. 3$ bottles of Soju and 4$ Tortas. LA used to be a great place. Now that same apartment is 1300$. In most of LA, really America, you need a car. With a car you're out like 500 to 800$ a month on the low end. Before you know it even making good money your very very poor. If I get fired I don't need to keep making my car payment, having a car loan puts you in a bad spot.

throwaway55421 5y ago

Sometimes people just want a medium density city. I like my medium density neighbourhood and I like being in a city that has them. If I wanted to live in a tower block I'd move more centrally or to another city. I also don't think that people who don't live somewhere, or are temporarily staying somewhere, should have a say in this over established families.

ZoomerCretin 5y ago

In these discussions, people always seem to keep the discussion limited to lifestyle preferences. I prefer to live in a suburb, so we should keep this suburb encased in amber! I prefer to live in an urban area, and obviously it's better to decrease rents and per-capita tax burden by increasing density and the supply of housing. There are many enormous negative externalities associated with suburban development: that this kind of forced restrictive zoning is responsible for GDP being _50% lower_ than it otherwise would be (https://www.theregreview.org/2018/06/14/somogyi-zoning-codes-gdp/ https://www.theregreview.org/2018/06/14/somogyi-zoning-codes...), that it vastly increases carbon emissions by necessitating that everyone drive everywhere for every trip, and that it is responsible for the vast majority of the housing affordability and homelessness crisis. The laws of supply and demand are simple, yet people seem to think it can't apply to housing. "South Korea says it will boost available housing nationwide with a positive supply “shock” as President Moon Jae-in struggles to tame soaring home prices that are weighing on his approval ratings." (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-04/south-korea-plans-shock-housing-supply-boost-to-tame-prices https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-04/south-kor...) In Tokyo, a huge megacity with a population of 37 million people, apartment rents can be incredibly cheap (https://twitter.com/IDoTheThinking/status/1391411804815847432 https://twitter.com/IDoTheThinking/status/139141180481584743...), $400/month in an area only a 20 minute train ride from the center of town. There is not one city in the United States where this is true, because every city makes affordable housing illegal to placate rich NIMBYs. Suburban NIMBY aesthetic and lifestyle preferences that are forced on everyone are causing middle-income and lower-income people to cut back on food, transportation, healthcare, and retirement savings. (https://twitter.com/aaronAcarr/status/1460393017639153673 https://twitter.com/aaronAcarr/status/1460393017639153673) If it is wrong to force someone who prefers a suburban area to live in a dense urban area, is it not also wrong to force people who prefer cheaper rents, walkability, and the amenities of urban life to pay 3-6x as much to live in a desolate, anti-social, car-centric suburb?

adameasterling 5y ago

> Relative to single family homes, apartments are viewed as decreasing property values, increasing crime rates, lowering school quality, increasing traffic, and decreasing desirability. The problem is most cities only allow two kinds of development: Low density or high density. We're missing the middle! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_middle_housing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_middle_housing I've really enjoyed these two YouTube channels on the subject. "Oh the Urbanity" has a great video on Montreal's "missing middle" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYCAVmKzX10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYCAVmKzX10 And "Not Just Bikes" discusses a "missing middle" neighborhood in Toronto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0

bradgranath 5y ago

Conservative political interests went nuts this elections season breathlessly exclaiming that we need to keep "Keep Mukilteo a Small Town!" as if it wasn't already next door to the Boeing Factory Buildings, and a Naval Complex that usually has a Nimitz-class carrier docked.