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50 years ago housing was affordable in areas that are now expensive, like Silicon Valley and Vancouver. That outcome did not require land value taxes or targete

50 years ago housing was affordable in areas that are now expensive, like Silicon Valley and Vancouver. That outcome did not require land value taxes or targeted taxes on landlords or bans on foreign investment or other novel solutions like a lot of posters here are suggesting. It was just easier and cheaper and more profitable to build housing back then, and the market took care of the rest. What changed? It got harder to build because the government empowered NIMBYISM and nonsense “environmental impact” rules (hint: nobody actually cares about the endangered burrowing owls, they just don’t want affordable housing near their homes). The affordability crisis was caused by government. Any solution that piles even more government on top of the current government-caused problem is a no go — especially pie-in-the-sky solutions like land value taxes. The only solution is to make it easier to build. But that's politically painful so it’s not going to happen. We even see places like California making it more expensive to build by requiring solar panels on new homes, in order to virtue signal about climate change without actually solving anything. So, invest in expensive areas, they are only going to get more expensive!

parkingrift 4y ago
There are 130 million more people in the US today than there were 50 years. What changed? 130 million people is what changed.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  You had 50 years to build housing for those, that's a trivial problem if not for the NIMBYs
- theplumber 4y ago
  So there is not enough land for all? Have you considered building a new town and you couldn't find land?
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    You know what China has been doing. And then they were laughed for doing it and told that it was stupid. They might have overdone it, but still. They did exactly build entirely new cities.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Evidently, people would rather spend their efforts competing for Bay Area and other popular regions than risk going to a cheaper area.
    - theplumber 4y ago
      Exactly! And then complain there is an over-population issue because the average engineer can't buy a house within 20km radius of world's top billionares. If there is an issue it's that the wealth is concertrated in few "small" areas. What makes people think housing should be affordable in the "most wanted" locations? You can't physically fit unlimited people in a small area.
      - rowanajmarshall 4y ago
        > the average engineer can't buy a house within 20km radius of world's top billionaires Although before WFH (and maybe even afterwards), the world's top billionaires were insisting engineers live within 20km of them so they can work at their companies. Industries like tech (and finance, and defence) heavily cluster, leading to certain cities/regions getting horrendously expensive.
      - BirdieNZ 4y ago
        > You can't physically fit unlimited people in a small area. You can certainly fit a lot more people in most major Western cities, without even much difference in lifestyle. Simply allow people to build what they want on their land, within reason. We've seen this in New Zealand, where recent law changes have allowed townhouses (terraced housing, with shared walls but otherwise freehold) and many many townhouses are being built everywhere. Most houses are still standalone houses, no one is forcing you to develop your property, but if every 20th section is turned from a single house into 6 townhouses, a lot more people are able to fit into a smaller space while still having a comfortable, quiet home in a good location. Our intertenancy walls have good soundproofing, enforced by regulations, so you don't really hear your neighbours. You can pay more for a standalone house, or less for a house with shared walls.
        4y ago
- twblalock 4y ago
  The US is nowhere near the point where population density/pressure is an explanation for the affordability problem. Outside of NYC and Chicago there are very few parts of the country as dense as anything in Europe.
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    But it doesn't matter, the patterns are already set where it makes it incredibly difficult to change some existing "non dense housing" in the US. E.g. look at Austin TX, it's housing prices have skyrocketed in the past 5-10 years. It's not particularly dense, but the vast majority of the existing housing stock is typical single family homes - there are very few open tracks of land where you can just build dense housing. So to increase density, you have to change existing neighborhoods to be more dense, and I'm not sure I've ever seen folks that I previously thought of as rational, compassionate individuals fight tooth and nail over even modest increases in density.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  And virtually all of them live somewhere, but a huge number of them couldn't afford the place where they live.
theplumber 4y ago
It's not that expensive to build housing in the middle of nowhere. The issue is that people want to live where close to their job, close to good schools etc.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  People also want to compete with each other. Very high cost of living areas inevitable due to biology.
mistrial9 4y ago
> empowered NIMBYISM and nonsense “environmental impact” rules dangerously oversimplified source: professional urban planners we AMPLIFY the rhetoric because, yes, you (and I) want to be heard. UrbanPlanning is not new! as well as ugly and counter-productive tactics on all sides of this debate.
mihaic 4y ago
While you're right in part, I think you're missing how today everyone want to move in only a few cities and small town economies are dying in many countries. This doesn't address in this global ponzi scheme how banks are fueling the competition between home buyers by dumping toxic credit, and how wage stagnation makes it impossible to escape this trap. No solution is possible that doesn't wipe hundreds of billions of asset value from banks and homeowners, and we need to accept that.
- twblalock 4y ago
  > While you're right in part, I think you're missing how today everyone want to move in only a few cities and small town economies are dying in many countries. That's not really new. The big cities in the United States grew dramatically during the 20th century, at rates far higher than they are growing today: For example, a hundred years ago cities like Detroit, NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles etc. were growing far faster than they are today.
  - mihaic 4y ago
    Yes, the big difference is in the decay of small towns. There are far fewer middle class jobs than before, what can you really make in small towns that's competitive in the global economy?
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
I don't like this blaming of "the government" as if it's some external entity. Shadowy "government" is not the problem, existing home owners are the problem. And it's not hard to see why, if someone buys a house, they then have incentive to make their house as expensive as possible after they've bought it (within reason, and this is something land value taxes are meant to address). All this "government intervention" that makes it harder to build is nearly always done at the local level at the behest of the people who live there. If anything, this shows why, e.g., state governments can be a part of the solution, by restricting local governments from putting in tons of roadblocks that make it harder to add housing (which is exactly what California did, though obviously they still have a long way to go).
- twblalock 4y ago
  I’m happy about the California state government overruling local governments in certain zoning disputes, although it’s still a subpar solution to letting the market work. But that’s politics. On the other hand, that’s the same state government that is adding $25-30k to the cost of building even an ADU/in-law unit because now all new residential construction has to have solar panels!
nineplay 4y ago
50 years ago Silicon Valley was not Silicon Valley. We called it San Jose and it was one of the most boring places imaginable. The highlights were the Winchester mystery house and the 3 story Chuck E Cheese. I'm still mildly astonished at what it turned it to - go walk around it sometime and wonder how a grey foggy miles of concrete turned into the epicenter of the digital world. In retrospect the combo of Cal and Stanford may have made it inevitable, but it's still a dump.
sagarm 4y ago
The majority of CEQA lawsuits today are about shadows and impacts on vehicle traffic/parking; they have nothing to do with "the environment" as most people think of it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

parkingrift 4y ago

There are 130 million more people in the US today than there were 50 years. What changed? 130 million people is what changed.

raverbashing 4y ago
You had 50 years to build housing for those, that's a trivial problem if not for the NIMBYs
theplumber 4y ago
So there is not enough land for all? Have you considered building a new town and you couldn't find land?
- Ekaros 4y ago
  You know what China has been doing. And then they were laughed for doing it and told that it was stupid. They might have overdone it, but still. They did exactly build entirely new cities.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Evidently, people would rather spend their efforts competing for Bay Area and other popular regions than risk going to a cheaper area.
  - theplumber 4y ago
    Exactly! And then complain there is an over-population issue because the average engineer can't buy a house within 20km radius of world's top billionares. If there is an issue it's that the wealth is concertrated in few "small" areas. What makes people think housing should be affordable in the "most wanted" locations? You can't physically fit unlimited people in a small area.
    - rowanajmarshall 4y ago
      > the average engineer can't buy a house within 20km radius of world's top billionaires Although before WFH (and maybe even afterwards), the world's top billionaires were insisting engineers live within 20km of them so they can work at their companies. Industries like tech (and finance, and defence) heavily cluster, leading to certain cities/regions getting horrendously expensive.
    - BirdieNZ 4y ago
      > You can't physically fit unlimited people in a small area. You can certainly fit a lot more people in most major Western cities, without even much difference in lifestyle. Simply allow people to build what they want on their land, within reason. We've seen this in New Zealand, where recent law changes have allowed townhouses (terraced housing, with shared walls but otherwise freehold) and many many townhouses are being built everywhere. Most houses are still standalone houses, no one is forcing you to develop your property, but if every 20th section is turned from a single house into 6 townhouses, a lot more people are able to fit into a smaller space while still having a comfortable, quiet home in a good location. Our intertenancy walls have good soundproofing, enforced by regulations, so you don't really hear your neighbours. You can pay more for a standalone house, or less for a house with shared walls.
      - 4y ago
twblalock 4y ago
The US is nowhere near the point where population density/pressure is an explanation for the affordability problem. Outside of NYC and Chicago there are very few parts of the country as dense as anything in Europe.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  But it doesn't matter, the patterns are already set where it makes it incredibly difficult to change some existing "non dense housing" in the US. E.g. look at Austin TX, it's housing prices have skyrocketed in the past 5-10 years. It's not particularly dense, but the vast majority of the existing housing stock is typical single family homes - there are very few open tracks of land where you can just build dense housing. So to increase density, you have to change existing neighborhoods to be more dense, and I'm not sure I've ever seen folks that I previously thought of as rational, compassionate individuals fight tooth and nail over even modest increases in density.
pessimizer 4y ago
And virtually all of them live somewhere, but a huge number of them couldn't afford the place where they live.

theplumber 4y ago

It's not that expensive to build housing in the middle of nowhere. The issue is that people want to live where close to their job, close to good schools etc.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
People also want to compete with each other. Very high cost of living areas inevitable due to biology.

mistrial9 4y ago

> empowered NIMBYISM and nonsense “environmental impact” rules dangerously oversimplified source: professional urban planners we AMPLIFY the rhetoric because, yes, you (and I) want to be heard. UrbanPlanning is not new! as well as ugly and counter-productive tactics on all sides of this debate.

mihaic 4y ago

While you're right in part, I think you're missing how today everyone want to move in only a few cities and small town economies are dying in many countries. This doesn't address in this global ponzi scheme how banks are fueling the competition between home buyers by dumping toxic credit, and how wage stagnation makes it impossible to escape this trap. No solution is possible that doesn't wipe hundreds of billions of asset value from banks and homeowners, and we need to accept that.

twblalock 4y ago
> While you're right in part, I think you're missing how today everyone want to move in only a few cities and small town economies are dying in many countries. That's not really new. The big cities in the United States grew dramatically during the 20th century, at rates far higher than they are growing today: For example, a hundred years ago cities like Detroit, NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles etc. were growing far faster than they are today.
- mihaic 4y ago
  Yes, the big difference is in the decay of small towns. There are far fewer middle class jobs than before, what can you really make in small towns that's competitive in the global economy?

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

I don't like this blaming of "the government" as if it's some external entity. Shadowy "government" is not the problem, existing home owners are the problem. And it's not hard to see why, if someone buys a house, they then have incentive to make their house as expensive as possible after they've bought it (within reason, and this is something land value taxes are meant to address). All this "government intervention" that makes it harder to build is nearly always done at the local level at the behest of the people who live there. If anything, this shows why, e.g., state governments can be a part of the solution, by restricting local governments from putting in tons of roadblocks that make it harder to add housing (which is exactly what California did, though obviously they still have a long way to go).

twblalock 4y ago
I’m happy about the California state government overruling local governments in certain zoning disputes, although it’s still a subpar solution to letting the market work. But that’s politics. On the other hand, that’s the same state government that is adding $25-30k to the cost of building even an ADU/in-law unit because now all new residential construction has to have solar panels!

nineplay 4y ago

50 years ago Silicon Valley was not Silicon Valley. We called it San Jose and it was one of the most boring places imaginable. The highlights were the Winchester mystery house and the 3 story Chuck E Cheese. I'm still mildly astonished at what it turned it to - go walk around it sometime and wonder how a grey foggy miles of concrete turned into the epicenter of the digital world. In retrospect the combo of Cal and Stanford may have made it inevitable, but it's still a dump.

sagarm 4y ago

The majority of CEQA lawsuits today are about shadows and impacts on vehicle traffic/parking; they have nothing to do with "the environment" as most people think of it.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]