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You are right to a point. But one problem is that everyone is trying to cram into the same couple of places. Every country in the world tries to become effectiv
by ReptileMan 4y ago
You are right to a point. But one problem is that everyone is trying to cram into the same couple of places. Every country in the world tries to become effectively a city state. The housing shortage is secondary to this trend.
You may turn every block into kwaloon walled city and there will still be housing shortage.
I am not against density - I am fond of European 6 story buildings. But you have a fundamental demand problem. The big cities are bleeding dry the rest of the countries.
- dsr_ 4y agoThat's very, very incorrect. At the population density of Kowloon in 1987, 1,255,000 per square kilometer, and today's population of 8 billion people, it would only take 6375 square km to house everyone. That's less than five cities the size of Phoenix, Arizona. Reasonable urban population density -- the kind where there is still green space and buildings are mostly just a few stories high -- would be about 7500 per square km, about 1.1 million square km for the world population. That sounds like a lot, but it's only about one tenth the metro area of Paris. There is a clean water problem. There is a good sewage treatment problem. There are energy delivery problems. But people will happily live in much denser arrangements than they do on average, and cities make all of the other problems more efficient to deal with. These are policy problems.
- ReptileMan 4y agoIn Europe we also have housing crisis in the capitals and other desirable places and there thr density already what the YIMBY want. If you want to solve the housing crisis don't ask why the rent is so high in NY, SF or London. Ask why there are so few desirable pleaces for people to live.
- dsr_ 4y agoThe main thing that makes a place desirable to live in is good infrastructure: water, climate, education, healthcare, transportation. A place that has all of those attracts people; work arises where people want to live; good work pays for the infrastructure and makes it more likely that people want to live there. It's a chicken-and-egg problem, made worse by people who want to not pay for the infrastructure and maintenance.
- nine_k 4y agoThe rent is damn high in downtown / midtown Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn because there is enough business people, movie stars, stock traders, even software developers who are willing to pay as much. If you step back into southern Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, the prices go down to reasonable, while still being within < 1 hour commute by public transport from the downtown area.
- mike50 4y agoSignificant parts of eastern queens have no subway line at all. They might have LIRR service at twice the price.
- fangorn 4y agoFrance takes up 643801 km2, so are you sure Paris is in the 11mln km2 ballpark?
- dsr_ 4y agoThank you, I grabbed the wrong figure from Wikipedia -- population instead of area. 13,024,518 people, 18,940.7 km2