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All we need is a few people in power to sacrifice short term political gains with regards to homeowners opposition. Building housing is expensive but we manage

All we need is a few people in power to sacrifice short term political gains with regards to homeowners opposition. Building housing is expensive but we manage to fund the military today. We were able to build a massive countrywide network of roads and highways and train tracks a 100 years ago. So fuck capital too. Of course they don't want to build it, and this is a _necessary_ consequence of making housing not be an investment. It will not be profitable to build. But it will be good for humanity anyways. So it has to be atleast partially funded by taxpayers. That might even mean we all collectively get screwed by high rents and high taxes for a decade while we do that. As long as it actually does benefit future generations, so be it. There's plenty of room for efficiency in building as well so that's not necessarily the only way. Subways cost 10-50x more to build today than they used to and there are hundreds of companies that live off leeching public funds.

itsoktocry 4y ago
>All we need is a few people in power to sacrifice short term political gains with regards to homeowners opposition. The wealth of most of our political class is also tied to their real estate holdings. 1/5 of our politicians are landlords in Canada; our housing minister has multiple properties. Make it make sense.
BeetleB 4y ago
Any solution that begins with "All we need is X people to ..." is an almost guaranteed failure. > We were able to build a massive countrywide network of roads and highways and train tracks a 100 years ago. Building the first road/train track connecting A to B pays for itself (probably many-fold) in increased revenue from taxes you can collect because such a connection significantly increases the economy.[1] It's not clear that more housing will have that impact. And for all the people complaining about zoning and NIMBYISM: That's a very local phenomenon in a few cities. Where I live we have neither of these problems, and housing is still a major issue. I'd wager that's true in most US cities that have housing problems. Preaching about zoning and NIMBYism is merely showing a disconnect with the rest of the country and is a red herring. Solve the incentive problem - at current building prices builders cannot afford to make housing for lower income folks. Either make the cost to build cheaper or, as the parent says, get the government to subsidize building it so they can make a profit. [1] Fixing up existing roads doesn't, which is why if budget isn't properly allocated for maintenance, you'll get poor infrastructure.

itsoktocry 4y ago

>All we need is a few people in power to sacrifice short term political gains with regards to homeowners opposition. The wealth of most of our political class is also tied to their real estate holdings. 1/5 of our politicians are landlords in Canada; our housing minister has multiple properties. Make it make sense.

BeetleB 4y ago

Any solution that begins with "All we need is X people to ..." is an almost guaranteed failure. > We were able to build a massive countrywide network of roads and highways and train tracks a 100 years ago. Building the first road/train track connecting A to B pays for itself (probably many-fold) in increased revenue from taxes you can collect because such a connection significantly increases the economy.[1] It's not clear that more housing will have that impact. And for all the people complaining about zoning and NIMBYISM: That's a very local phenomenon in a few cities. Where I live we have neither of these problems, and housing is still a major issue. I'd wager that's true in most US cities that have housing problems. Preaching about zoning and NIMBYism is merely showing a disconnect with the rest of the country and is a red herring. Solve the incentive problem - at current building prices builders cannot afford to make housing for lower income folks. Either make the cost to build cheaper or, as the parent says, get the government to subsidize building it so they can make a profit. [1] Fixing up existing roads doesn't, which is why if budget isn't properly allocated for maintenance, you'll get poor infrastructure.