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I completely agree. The idea that X% of new housing has to be sold at under market rate makes no sense to me. It just artificially increases the cost of the mar

I completely agree. The idea that X% of new housing has to be sold at under market rate makes no sense to me. It just artificially increases the cost of the market rate units. You would build more housing if it were all sold at market rate (since it’s more profitable to build, and then more will get built/developers will be more incentivized to build) and have lower market rate prices. It seems fairer for the “below market rate” housing to just be the not-new housing at the actual market rates. For some reason California is obsessed with the idea that housing is too expensive, so we need to force new construction to subsidize middle-middle class housing via a lottery system, which keeps housing expensive

bckr 5y ago
> California This comment made me realize that maybe powerful people actually want to push lower income people out of the state, or metros at least.
- opportune 5y ago
  I don't think it's that insidious. They probably just don't want the value of market rate housing to go down because that's popular with voters
  - bckr 5y ago
    I wouldn't even describe the situation I'm describing as insidious, but I see what you're saying. Yours is also a more likely answer.
  - MichaelBurge 5y ago
    Why don't they rezone everyone's land as commercial then? Not sure about California, but in most places that would double or triple the value of the land. If you did everyone all at once, it probably wouldn't be so extreme but would still be an increase.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      Zoning in the USA isn’t expansive (zones get more lenient, including what could have been put in more restrictive zones), rather they are exclusive. If all land was zoned as commercial, it wouldn’t give anyone a place to live.
- ajmurmann 5y ago
  Or at least don't want them in their neighborhood where they lower home values. This is where less local democracy would benefit the good for everyone. Especially, considering that out had been down in studies that folks who show up to community meetings are not representative. They tend to be older, wealthier and whiter and more male.
  - aperson_hello 5y ago
    This exactly. So instead of having poorer people living in the apartment building next to you like you do in much of the midwest or south, you have them living in the van parked in front of your house like you do on the west coast. They still exist in your neighborhood, but in a way that's worse for everyone involved!
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      And then of course they’ll suggest that “something” must be done about the homelessness crisis, and things get worse still.
  - mikem170 5y ago
    Perhaps this is where democracy meets principals... The principal is that someone should be free to build on their land as long as they don't create safety issues or significantly impose on someone else. Democracy at worst can be mob rule. Principals are important. Japan does a good with federal zoning regulations. It's not impossible.
    - sempron64 5y ago
      Define “significantly impose”. That’s the basic problem, existing near someone can have effects that are easy to justify in court unless you legislate that e.g. decreasing or limiting increase on future land values cannot be considered to be civil damages.
      - mikem170 5y ago
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  The only alternative is subsidizing people moving to California. Why bother doing that? If you leave it alone the property values will equilibrate to what you can reasonably support.
  - aperson_hello 5y ago
    Subsidizing people moving to CA by changing zoning to allow building market rate dense housing without going through years of zoning and environmental review? You don't actually need to even pay anything - it's just allowing developers to build what they want where they want.
- smegger001 5y ago
  then who do they expect to do everything for them? the only way you can have the lifestyle of the ultrarich is paying people. who makes their food who sotckes the shelves at their stores who waits their table mixes their drinks drives them around and the million other jobs that their lifestyle depends on. we aren't building better mass transit so you cant bus them in or take the train/subway in to work, they don't want to pay them enough to live near by how do they expect to have a functional economy? slave labor living in coffin the basement?
- sjmm1989 5y ago
  What those kinds of people never realize though, is you'll never get rid of the 'poors'. The label just changes places on the totem pole. What was once 'well off' is now 'poverty'.
  - pandaman 5y ago
    The "poor", as same as "homeless", is an intentional misrepresentation of the issue. People oppose the "poor" moving to the neighborhood not because they have less money. They oppose the people who have vastly different views on what are the acceptable behaviors in day-to-day life and interactions between neighbors.
    - daniel-cussen 5y ago
      No, it's not the vastly different views per se. To be clear, Nordic immigrants have always been totally welcome in America but like totally, they are the model immigrant. Maybe Norwegians for some period of time weren't quite as welcome because they were poor, I mean I suppose this fact, I haven't encountered any evidence. Witness the lack of slurs for Nordics, I have no idea which they are. I'm sure they exist. I know more slurs for doctors than Nordics...wait I think I know one, "dumb blonde", and "rusio" is another one, in Chile..."gringo" in Chile..."borsch" I think is one for Germans though, it's really old, there's others, but not Nordic. "Honkey" comes from "Hungarian"...some Hungarians are very fair...I'd need like a slur dictionary to find a slur for Nordics. These slurs must all be said at some point, it's irrelevant if I say G-R-I-N-G-O or "gringo", because putting it in writing and spelling it out is literally the same thing, you can read either just as well. For these particular slurs nobody can figure out what the hell I'm writing about if I don't write them in full. Similarly, History professors in Chilean universities can't tell their students about the "n-word" without actually saying it out loud, for real, at some point. They otherwise will never know what the professor is talking about. Back to Nordic immigration. So yeah, if Swedes arrive next door and the women dress differently, and they recycle all kinds of things Americans don't recycle, like I guess if they yodeled that would piss people off...it would take some work. And white Americans surprise surprise are very tolerant of very different views if they like them. The big thing with the "poor" or "poors" (the worst slur in my whole comment) is the poverty is related to entropy. Same thing pretty much. So more entropy in their nervous system, more entropy in their bodies, more entropy in their housing, more entropy in how they communicate and their habits, more entropy in their relationships, more entropy in how they deal with neighbors ultimately. Reducing entropy in one thing means increasing it in another. On the other hand, if the poor who move in haven't always been poor, or have an excellent reason to be poor, or are rapidly moving up in society, or something else of that nature, they are not as entropic and are therefore welcome. And that's why there was such a huge social movement to make education free and obligatory, because then you reduce the entropy in the minds of the poor, and that order (meaning strictly absence of entropy) radiates from there into everything else.
- raverbashing 5y ago
  Yeah The easiest way to have actual affordable housing is to change the "single-family home" zone limitations (this might have changed recently IIRC but it might not)
  - erik_seaberg 5y ago
    Fewer restrictions on https://www.hcd.ca.gov/policy-research/accessorydwellingunits.shtml https://www.hcd.ca.gov/policy-research/accessorydwellingunit... was a recent change. I think quite a few garages are being converted.
WalterBright 5y ago
All the political "solutions" to the housing crisis are not only expensive, they make things worse, because they are in denial of the Law of Supply & Demand. No government has ever been successful at repealing that law, but they sure keep trying.
mdorazio 5y ago
I invite you to actually look at the housing market in CA and show me all the older construction that’s affordable. My friends in LA (not even nice parts of it) are buying houses that are literally 100 years old for over $1M. The “fix older stock” strategy really only works in areas where people aren’t all that keen to live. Ex. It’s easy to do in Pittsburgh or Detroit. Not so easy in SF or Austin.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  It is literally impossible to build a new house in LA, so obviously you're not going to see the parent's point illustrated there.
  - mdorazio 5y ago
    Exactly... so where would you see it?
- ido 5y ago
  I was under the impression Pittsburgh is one of the currently hip gentrifying cities (like Austin or Portland were 10 years ago)? At least I know several people who moved there from other, already expensive, cities.
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
    Pittsburgh lost half it's population from 1950 to 1990
    - ido 5y ago
      Right but I was talking about the last ~10 years, not 72 to 32 years ago. Berlin (where I now live) also lost a lot of population from the 40s till 1990 but has seen a lot of growth in the past decade, thus the current competitive housing market. People also used to occupy far fewer square meters/feet of housing per person in the past so even though Berlin (or Pittsburgh) had a higher population in 1940 than today it doesn't necessarily mean there's a surplus of housing.

bckr 5y ago

> California This comment made me realize that maybe powerful people actually want to push lower income people out of the state, or metros at least.

opportune 5y ago
I don't think it's that insidious. They probably just don't want the value of market rate housing to go down because that's popular with voters
- bckr 5y ago
  I wouldn't even describe the situation I'm describing as insidious, but I see what you're saying. Yours is also a more likely answer.
- MichaelBurge 5y ago
  Why don't they rezone everyone's land as commercial then? Not sure about California, but in most places that would double or triple the value of the land. If you did everyone all at once, it probably wouldn't be so extreme but would still be an increase.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Zoning in the USA isn’t expansive (zones get more lenient, including what could have been put in more restrictive zones), rather they are exclusive. If all land was zoned as commercial, it wouldn’t give anyone a place to live.
ajmurmann 5y ago
Or at least don't want them in their neighborhood where they lower home values. This is where less local democracy would benefit the good for everyone. Especially, considering that out had been down in studies that folks who show up to community meetings are not representative. They tend to be older, wealthier and whiter and more male.
- aperson_hello 5y ago
  This exactly. So instead of having poorer people living in the apartment building next to you like you do in much of the midwest or south, you have them living in the van parked in front of your house like you do on the west coast. They still exist in your neighborhood, but in a way that's worse for everyone involved!
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    And then of course they’ll suggest that “something” must be done about the homelessness crisis, and things get worse still.
- mikem170 5y ago
  Perhaps this is where democracy meets principals... The principal is that someone should be free to build on their land as long as they don't create safety issues or significantly impose on someone else. Democracy at worst can be mob rule. Principals are important. Japan does a good with federal zoning regulations. It's not impossible.
  - sempron64 5y ago
    Define “significantly impose”. That’s the basic problem, existing near someone can have effects that are easy to justify in court unless you legislate that e.g. decreasing or limiting increase on future land values cannot be considered to be civil damages.
    - mikem170 5y ago
R0b0t1 5y ago
The only alternative is subsidizing people moving to California. Why bother doing that? If you leave it alone the property values will equilibrate to what you can reasonably support.
- aperson_hello 5y ago
  Subsidizing people moving to CA by changing zoning to allow building market rate dense housing without going through years of zoning and environmental review? You don't actually need to even pay anything - it's just allowing developers to build what they want where they want.
smegger001 5y ago
then who do they expect to do everything for them? the only way you can have the lifestyle of the ultrarich is paying people. who makes their food who sotckes the shelves at their stores who waits their table mixes their drinks drives them around and the million other jobs that their lifestyle depends on. we aren't building better mass transit so you cant bus them in or take the train/subway in to work, they don't want to pay them enough to live near by how do they expect to have a functional economy? slave labor living in coffin the basement?
sjmm1989 5y ago
What those kinds of people never realize though, is you'll never get rid of the 'poors'. The label just changes places on the totem pole. What was once 'well off' is now 'poverty'.
- pandaman 5y ago
  The "poor", as same as "homeless", is an intentional misrepresentation of the issue. People oppose the "poor" moving to the neighborhood not because they have less money. They oppose the people who have vastly different views on what are the acceptable behaviors in day-to-day life and interactions between neighbors.
  - daniel-cussen 5y ago
    No, it's not the vastly different views per se. To be clear, Nordic immigrants have always been totally welcome in America but like totally, they are the model immigrant. Maybe Norwegians for some period of time weren't quite as welcome because they were poor, I mean I suppose this fact, I haven't encountered any evidence. Witness the lack of slurs for Nordics, I have no idea which they are. I'm sure they exist. I know more slurs for doctors than Nordics...wait I think I know one, "dumb blonde", and "rusio" is another one, in Chile..."gringo" in Chile..."borsch" I think is one for Germans though, it's really old, there's others, but not Nordic. "Honkey" comes from "Hungarian"...some Hungarians are very fair...I'd need like a slur dictionary to find a slur for Nordics. These slurs must all be said at some point, it's irrelevant if I say G-R-I-N-G-O or "gringo", because putting it in writing and spelling it out is literally the same thing, you can read either just as well. For these particular slurs nobody can figure out what the hell I'm writing about if I don't write them in full. Similarly, History professors in Chilean universities can't tell their students about the "n-word" without actually saying it out loud, for real, at some point. They otherwise will never know what the professor is talking about. Back to Nordic immigration. So yeah, if Swedes arrive next door and the women dress differently, and they recycle all kinds of things Americans don't recycle, like I guess if they yodeled that would piss people off...it would take some work. And white Americans surprise surprise are very tolerant of very different views if they like them. The big thing with the "poor" or "poors" (the worst slur in my whole comment) is the poverty is related to entropy. Same thing pretty much. So more entropy in their nervous system, more entropy in their bodies, more entropy in their housing, more entropy in how they communicate and their habits, more entropy in their relationships, more entropy in how they deal with neighbors ultimately. Reducing entropy in one thing means increasing it in another. On the other hand, if the poor who move in haven't always been poor, or have an excellent reason to be poor, or are rapidly moving up in society, or something else of that nature, they are not as entropic and are therefore welcome. And that's why there was such a huge social movement to make education free and obligatory, because then you reduce the entropy in the minds of the poor, and that order (meaning strictly absence of entropy) radiates from there into everything else.
raverbashing 5y ago
Yeah The easiest way to have actual affordable housing is to change the "single-family home" zone limitations (this might have changed recently IIRC but it might not)
- erik_seaberg 5y ago
  Fewer restrictions on https://www.hcd.ca.gov/policy-research/accessorydwellingunits.shtml https://www.hcd.ca.gov/policy-research/accessorydwellingunit... was a recent change. I think quite a few garages are being converted.

WalterBright 5y ago

All the political "solutions" to the housing crisis are not only expensive, they make things worse, because they are in denial of the Law of Supply & Demand. No government has ever been successful at repealing that law, but they sure keep trying.

mdorazio 5y ago

I invite you to actually look at the housing market in CA and show me all the older construction that’s affordable. My friends in LA (not even nice parts of it) are buying houses that are literally 100 years old for over $1M. The “fix older stock” strategy really only works in areas where people aren’t all that keen to live. Ex. It’s easy to do in Pittsburgh or Detroit. Not so easy in SF or Austin.

missedthecue 5y ago
It is literally impossible to build a new house in LA, so obviously you're not going to see the parent's point illustrated there.
- mdorazio 5y ago
  Exactly... so where would you see it?
ido 5y ago
I was under the impression Pittsburgh is one of the currently hip gentrifying cities (like Austin or Portland were 10 years ago)? At least I know several people who moved there from other, already expensive, cities.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
  Pittsburgh lost half it's population from 1950 to 1990
  - ido 5y ago
    Right but I was talking about the last ~10 years, not 72 to 32 years ago. Berlin (where I now live) also lost a lot of population from the 40s till 1990 but has seen a lot of growth in the past decade, thus the current competitive housing market. People also used to occupy far fewer square meters/feet of housing per person in the past so even though Berlin (or Pittsburgh) had a higher population in 1940 than today it doesn't necessarily mean there's a surplus of housing.