3 ms·

Housing should also not be finite… and yet it is. You can only stuff so many people into a city. At some point, people must accept that they will have to live s

by xwdv 4y ago

Housing should also not be finite… and yet it is. You can only stuff so many people into a city. At some point, people must accept that they will have to live somewhere else, potentially less desirable but very affordable. The only way to fairly distribute the limited supply of housing is to the highest bidders.

SirSourdough 4y ago
“Sell to the highest bidder” and “fair” rarely belong in the same thought.
- wincy 4y ago
  The places where there are housing shortages don’t even have “sell to the highest bidder” they have miles of red tape that make the land have absurd prices because 20 story condominiums should be being built there instead of a two bedroom bungalow with granite countertops and a pool.
borroka 4y ago
It depends on what the constraints are. It seems that the construction of most new housing is blocked by people who have a clear interest in maintaining the status quo for mainly monetary reasons, as well as not wanting new people to come in. Here it seems that current residents have every right and reason to maintain the form and substance of their current housing situation until they, their children, their grandchildren, and who knows how many generations after them, decide it is time for a change. The "people must accept" can also be used to keep supply limited ("you want to be a lawyer, but we, current lawyers, don't want you"), wages low ("you don't want to make two dollars an hour? Get another job") or anything else that is currently regulated or unregulated, depending on what the people in power currently want or don't want. There is no Bible, nothing is written in stone. It's an ongoing struggle—-and I'm not speaking from a Marxist perspective, please, just a human one--between people who have power now and other people who would like to have a say and currently don't have one, and who, after they get some power, will probably block other would-be newcomers to the party. There is no perfect "market-dynamics". Where I currently live, there is no reason to have entire neighborhoods scarcely populated, or areas that could receive hundreds if not thousands of new units not developed. They are not because there are people who fight tooth and nails to keep housing limited for the reasons I explained above, and the city is either kept hostage or is in cahoots with those who do not want new housing.
wincy 4y ago
I mean sure, but we’re nowhere near capacity in most places. Say I could ignore zoning laws and had a billion dollars to blow, I could just buy up a bunch of the $1.2 million 1200 square foot single family homes in San Francisco, bulldoze them and roll out a bunch of 10 story apartment buildings and I’d make an astonishing amount of money.
piva00 4y ago
> The only way to fairly distribute the limited supply of housing is to the highest bidders. How is it fair to distribute the supply of housing of a city, a place that people have roots in, generations sometimes who actually have a history there, just to the luckiest and greediest? Instead of, let's say, the people who have actually built that city which those rich folks seems so desirable to move in? I really don't understand how you can use fair to call a system like that.
- xwdv 4y ago
  How fair is it for generations of people to indefinitely hold onto desirable pieces of property they inherited for cheap until the day they die simply because they were born there? Not very. And someone buying a property could easily be the beginning of new generations of people who will have long history there. Do they not deserve a chance too? Paying for things is a fair exchange.
  - piva00 4y ago
    > Paying for things is a fair exchange. Only if you have money. No, it's not fair that someone with more money can take over land, it's the market and the way the world is but it's not fair. The only way this would be fair is if everyone started from the exact same spot in regards to resources: money, education, intelligence, etc. which isn't realistic at all.

by xwdv 4y ago

SirSourdough 4y ago

“Sell to the highest bidder” and “fair” rarely belong in the same thought.

wincy 4y ago
The places where there are housing shortages don’t even have “sell to the highest bidder” they have miles of red tape that make the land have absurd prices because 20 story condominiums should be being built there instead of a two bedroom bungalow with granite countertops and a pool.

borroka 4y ago

It depends on what the constraints are. It seems that the construction of most new housing is blocked by people who have a clear interest in maintaining the status quo for mainly monetary reasons, as well as not wanting new people to come in. Here it seems that current residents have every right and reason to maintain the form and substance of their current housing situation until they, their children, their grandchildren, and who knows how many generations after them, decide it is time for a change. The "people must accept" can also be used to keep supply limited ("you want to be a lawyer, but we, current lawyers, don't want you"), wages low ("you don't want to make two dollars an hour? Get another job") or anything else that is currently regulated or unregulated, depending on what the people in power currently want or don't want. There is no Bible, nothing is written in stone. It's an ongoing struggle—-and I'm not speaking from a Marxist perspective, please, just a human one--between people who have power now and other people who would like to have a say and currently don't have one, and who, after they get some power, will probably block other would-be newcomers to the party. There is no perfect "market-dynamics". Where I currently live, there is no reason to have entire neighborhoods scarcely populated, or areas that could receive hundreds if not thousands of new units not developed. They are not because there are people who fight tooth and nails to keep housing limited for the reasons I explained above, and the city is either kept hostage or is in cahoots with those who do not want new housing.

wincy 4y ago

I mean sure, but we’re nowhere near capacity in most places. Say I could ignore zoning laws and had a billion dollars to blow, I could just buy up a bunch of the $1.2 million 1200 square foot single family homes in San Francisco, bulldoze them and roll out a bunch of 10 story apartment buildings and I’d make an astonishing amount of money.

piva00 4y ago

> The only way to fairly distribute the limited supply of housing is to the highest bidders. How is it fair to distribute the supply of housing of a city, a place that people have roots in, generations sometimes who actually have a history there, just to the luckiest and greediest? Instead of, let's say, the people who have actually built that city which those rich folks seems so desirable to move in? I really don't understand how you can use fair to call a system like that.

xwdv 4y ago
How fair is it for generations of people to indefinitely hold onto desirable pieces of property they inherited for cheap until the day they die simply because they were born there? Not very. And someone buying a property could easily be the beginning of new generations of people who will have long history there. Do they not deserve a chance too? Paying for things is a fair exchange.
- piva00 4y ago
  > Paying for things is a fair exchange. Only if you have money. No, it's not fair that someone with more money can take over land, it's the market and the way the world is but it's not fair. The only way this would be fair is if everyone started from the exact same spot in regards to resources: money, education, intelligence, etc. which isn't realistic at all.