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> Real estate investors and developers ... fight affordable housing initiatives every step of the way I don't think affordable-housing is actually considered a

> Real estate investors and developers ... fight affordable housing initiatives every step of the way I don't think affordable-housing is actually considered a real "threat" to private developers in most of the nation, but suppose that it were. Imagine that you had a business. The government says they'd like to fund a competitor. It's not just any competitor! This new competitor will be empowered to use a ton of tax money to compete with you. This competitor will be headed by someone who is politically connected. The politically connected owner will be able to take a fat cut of this tax money, and donate it back to the political machine, to fortify their position. They can expect a cozy relationship with regulators and special approvals you can't get. If you're unlucky they will add legislation passed to support their business while hindering yours. And, of course, their allies will insult you as villainous, greedy, and unreasonable. (Which you may be! And yet...) Would you fight all of that, or would you embrace it? — And if you think government projects aren't lousy with a corrupt politically-connected fat cats skimming money off the top, well, I have a delightful bridge to sell you!

heavyset_go 5y ago
> I don't think affordable-housing is actually considered a real "threat" to private developers in most of the nation, but suppose that it were. My state has laws that say every new housing development must have affordable housing as a small percentage of the new housing that developers build. Developers choose to ignore those laws completely, partially because the affordable housing is protested against by the people who live by, or plan to live in, the new luxury housing. They instead just build all of the luxury housing they want to, with none of the affordable housing required by law. This has nothing to do with government projects, but stipulations for all new development.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  > My state has laws that say every new housing development must have affordable housing as a small percentage of the new housing that developers build. If your state is California, as I suspect it is, its housing policy is a miserable failure worthy only of derision and scorn. The price of housing is a bona fide humanitarian disaster, and the mandate you refer to is well known; it has solved almost nothing, what pathetically few solutions it has delivered are distributed by lottery (a key indicator of its abject failure), and — as your own description makes clear — it is just one more hurdle to make things more uncertain, drive up prices, and to drive away developers and the new construction they pay for.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    I am not in California.
  - rnk 5y ago
    You are attacking unicorns. My largish city also has similar requirements, I'm also not in California. We have a problem like a lot of large cities, there's not enough apartments or lower cost housing, thus we are losing our workforce step by step. We desperately need more lower cost housing here.

heavyset_go 5y ago

> I don't think affordable-housing is actually considered a real "threat" to private developers in most of the nation, but suppose that it were. My state has laws that say every new housing development must have affordable housing as a small percentage of the new housing that developers build. Developers choose to ignore those laws completely, partially because the affordable housing is protested against by the people who live by, or plan to live in, the new luxury housing. They instead just build all of the luxury housing they want to, with none of the affordable housing required by law. This has nothing to do with government projects, but stipulations for all new development.

fennecfoxen 5y ago
> My state has laws that say every new housing development must have affordable housing as a small percentage of the new housing that developers build. If your state is California, as I suspect it is, its housing policy is a miserable failure worthy only of derision and scorn. The price of housing is a bona fide humanitarian disaster, and the mandate you refer to is well known; it has solved almost nothing, what pathetically few solutions it has delivered are distributed by lottery (a key indicator of its abject failure), and — as your own description makes clear — it is just one more hurdle to make things more uncertain, drive up prices, and to drive away developers and the new construction they pay for.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  I am not in California.
- rnk 5y ago
  You are attacking unicorns. My largish city also has similar requirements, I'm also not in California. We have a problem like a lot of large cities, there's not enough apartments or lower cost housing, thus we are losing our workforce step by step. We desperately need more lower cost housing here.