3 ms·

we somehow managed to build houses for thousands of years, so it can't be that hard, can it? the scarcity is entirely artificial.

• nemo44x 4y ago
  Historically most people didn’t live in single family homes. They lived in very crowded, multi-generational and small dwellings connected to many neighbors. Shared public spaces were used for getting together, etc. Most dwellings did not have kitchens, etc. Our idea of a home for “regular people” is radically different than what people have lived in. People need to probably drastically limit what they think of when they think of affordable housing. Think multi-family homes where each dwelling supports 4 people and is < 800 sq-feet. 1 bathroom, 1 communal area (w/ small range + table) and 2 bedrooms. Look to the disposable homes of Japan I guess.
  • _dain_ 4y ago
    or you could just legalize building anything other than single family dwellings. there's a lot of room in between quarter acre lot suburbia, and a crowded favela! look up "missing middle housing". the problem is purely a matter of restrictive zoning.
    • nemo44x 4y ago
      The cost of materials and labor is really high for most people, not to mention land. And then there’s maintenance. It’s out of reach for most people. Populations are so much larger than they were 100 years ago and people want increasingly large dwellings. I think the tiny home concept makes sense as it’s trailers without the stigma. But yes, we probably need to think of a new type of town built around small properties that are pre-fab and disposable outside the connecting infrastructure. I don’t think dense towers are the answer though.
      • SyzygistSix 4y ago
        The same thing would happen with those that is happening with trailer parks; companies buy the land they are on and triple the rent because they can.
      • _dain_ 4y ago
        No, no, no, we don't need a "new type of town" built around some pre-fab gimmick. Literally you just need to lift zoning restrictions (and related bureaucratic crap like discretionary design review) and legalize building things that are slightly-to-moderately more dense than single family home suburban houses. That doesn't mean "dense towers". Suppose you see a man strangling himself, and he wants to know how to get out of his predicament. Does he need a VC-backed startup to sell him an anti-strangulation machine? No, he just needs to stop strangling himself! To hell with "innovation". Land prices in the US (or the UK, or any other place with a housing crisis) are not a limiting factor, if anything they're what would fuel the construction if it were allowed to happen. Property values within cities are so inflated precisely because of the zoning which makes it impossible to build the kind of housing needed to serve the immense demand.
        • nemo44x 4y ago
          Housing is only “affordable” if it’s subsidized. This is because construction and maintenance are out of reach for most people. New housing stock is expensive. Even if you use cheap materials, they need to be replaced in 10 years. So even if you build multi-family dwellings, the crisis isn’t resolved because the cost of construction, maintenance, and property taxes are out of reach. Unless it is subsidized. The UK is evidence of this. Almost all their housing is multi-family and dense and unit size is small even by European standards. But it’s expensive still. And they keep building. Japan is a good example of a place where there isn’t a housing crisis and it’s because homes are mainly disposable and very small.
          • _dain_ 4y ago
            No, Japan is a good example of a place where there isn't a housing crisis because you are actually allowed to build things. They don't have strict zoning there! You can mostly build what you want to, by right! >So even if you build multi-family dwellings, the crisis isn’t resolved because the cost of construction, maintenance, and property taxes are out of reach. Unless it is subsidized. The UK is evidence of this. Almost all their housing is multi-family and dense and unit size is small even by European standards. But it’s expensive still. And they keep building. No, this is totally, completely wrong, the housing crisis here is not because of materials or labour costs. It is a policy failure: a sluggish, capricious planning system, entrenched NIMBYism and politicians that cave to it, massive legal restrictions on supply, and subsidies to demand. We aren't building enough, there is a massive shortfall in housing supply. See this thread: https://nitter.net/AntBreach/status/1121362679367598080 https://nitter.net/AntBreach/status/1121362679367598080
• mr_toad 4y ago
  There weren’t many building restrictions prior to the 20th century. Earthquakes, fires and wars provided a sort of natural urban renewal.
  • _dain_ 4y ago
    Zoning restrictions != building codes