10 ms·

Supply is artificially controlled by voters who don't want density to increase, masked behind preservations, environmental concerns or just plain corruption

by pxue 4y ago

plantain 4y ago
What changed? Governments used to aggressively intervene in the housing market.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  My hypothesis has been that renters stopped voting. They tend to be transient, younger, non-voters while landowners tend to be older, rooted and vote fervently. Density hurts landowners by decreasing property values and landowners vote.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > renters stopped voting Renters also got co-opted into being NIMBYs out of fear of gentrification.
    - stoppingin 4y ago
      This idea is pure fantasy. This condition of classifying people as NIMBYs if they disagree with you on this topic is incredibly toxic. There are a plethora of totally valid reasons why people would be opposed to endless urban sprawl, consolidation, and population growth.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > plethora of totally valid reasons why people would be opposed to endless urban sprawl, consolidation, and population growth Totally agree. But the counterpart of that is rising housing costs. If you accept that tradeoff, you aren't a NIMBY. This covers many homeowners. But renters opposed to development while complaining about housing costs are trying to suppress their housing costs by increasing others'. That externalization is textbook NIMBY.
        stoppingin 4y ago
        Thank you for taking the time to make a nice reply, and for not taking my criticism of your post personally. I really appreciate that. I feel like you have a very arbitrary definition of NIMBY. I'm writing this post right now from the 14th floor of a highrise building in Sydney's inner city, in the apartment I rent from a landlord who lives in mainland China. There are still rows of historic terrace houses in the nearby suburbs that have been heritage listed. I'm sure property developers would love to turn these into more highrise apartments. Even though I'm renting, I don't want these to be replaced with endless new apartments. I could list a dozen reasons too. For one, I don't think this would help create a city that people would actually enjoy living in. I've been told by people who would know that one of Sydney's big problems is that property developers are able to artificially inflate property value by staggering the release of newly developed property onto the market. So more development isn't necessarily going to solve any of this country's problems with property value. It hasn't so far.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > a very arbitrary definition of NIMBY NIMBY means not in my backyard. As in, I want the benefits of a thing but not its cost. Wanting affordable housing while denying development is NIMBY. Saying no development because you want higher property prices is not NIMBY, it's prohibitionism. (Depending on the environment, it could be reasonable and/or heartless.) > been told by people who would know that one of Sydney's big problems is that property developers are able to artificially inflate property value by staggering the release of newly developed property onto the market This is prudent pipeline management. Why would you bid up the cost of materials and labor only to dump the finished product at a loss? On supply and demand: American house prices are elastic, but over long timelines [1]. In Sydney, dense housing is more elastic than detached housing [2]. The abundance of those historic terrace houses, together with long development approval times, cause the high prices and relative price inelasticity. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119003001207 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00941... [2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8462.2012.00679.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8462....
      - CPLX 4y ago
        How does someone oppose population growth? That’s a literal question. What public policy do you endorse that has the ability to significantly reduce the number of people being born? If you don’t have one you’re just opposed to building enough houses for the people we have.
        kasey_junk 4y ago
        Increasing the level of education for women. Increasing the access to pre-natal care for women. Decreasing the poverty level generally and specifically for young families. Moving more people out of agricultural work. Those things are highly correlated with lowered birth rates, though I suspect the last one is probably not applicable to the US.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > I suspect the last one is probably not applicable to the US None of them are applicable to America [1]. [1] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p25-1144.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...
        arcticbull 4y ago
        The birth rate in the US is 1.64 children per woman. It’s already a significantly shrinking population, replacement rate is around 2.1 children per woman. The US only maintains its population through immigration. How much lower do you want it to be?
        jefftk 4y ago
        > What public policy do you endorse that has the ability to significantly reduce the number of people being born? I'd endorse free contraception. Options I'd oppose but others might favor include not requiring insurance to cover fertility treatments, prohibiting IVF entirely, mandatory birth control until marriage, sterilization as punishment for crime, and removing the child tax credit. Plus restricting immigration and increasing deportations which have a similar effect on the people/housing ratio. (But I'm in favor of more people being born, and building lots more housing)
      - dionidium 4y ago
        > There are a plethora of totally valid reasons why people would be opposed to endless urban sprawl, consolidation, and population growth. There really aren't, though, in the sense that the costs (both societal and individual) drastically outweigh the benefits. Of course prohibitions on new construction are narrowly beneficial to specific individuals. Who wants some guys starting up new construction at 7AM next door? If you like your quiet little block, then why on Earth would you want it to densify? Somebody else's construction project is little more than an annoyance, after all. If you can ban it, then great! The problem is that these individual preferences come with enormous costs, both economic and with respect to individual freedom. When weighed against the downsides, those banal individual preferences about densification are no longer compelling. In short, yes, people do have rational, coherent reasons to oppose growth, but, no, those complaints are not in the end valid.
        stoppingin 4y ago
        Everything in your post is just your own personal opinion. > The problem is that these individual preferences come with enormous costs, both economic and with respect to individual freedom... What if I don't agree with increasing the population? If I don't want to increase the number of people in the city I'm living in, then why on earth would I want urban consolidation? Does anyone actually enjoy living in a tiny apartment, as opposed to being able to afford a house with a yard? The need for endless population increase is not just some foregone conclusion. Not everyone here is an SWE living in SF, with SF problems, and SF opinions. > In short, yes, people do have rational, coherent reasons to oppose growth, but, no, those complaints are not in the end valid. I don't agree with your opinion. Should I just classify all of it as 'invalid'?
        dionidium 4y ago
        > Does anyone actually enjoy living in a tiny apartment, as opposed to being able to afford a house with a yard? In order to answer this question for yourself you need to first accept an iron law of economics: because decisions are not made in a vacuum, there is no such thing as an abstract preference, only constraints and tradeoffs. My preference is that I have a 10,000 square foot single-family home located on an otherwise empty block of land just south of Central Park. That way I get everything great about single-family living and access to the economic and cultural superpower that is Manhattan. But, and I mean this technically and in the kindest way possible: literally who gives a shit? Everything in life is tradeoffs. The NIMBY position is that tradeoffs can be wished away by legislation. But they cannot. It only deranges the situation.
      - QIYGT 4y ago
        > There are a plethora of totally valid reasons why people would be opposed to endless urban sprawl Density is literally the opposite of sprawl.
  - bravo22 4y ago
    The younger owners tend to also vote based on social "wedge" issues which means they don't need to be catered to on this issue whereas asset owners tend to vote based on their interests and have to be catered to otherwise they'll vote for the other party. I believe this also explains the rise of progressive political factions that propose a lot of policies that seem to favour the disenfranchised but in reality benefit the rich and the asset owners. Their policies let the rich and the well off virtue signal without any consequence to their income or wealth. Voting patterns in large cities in Canada, for example in Toronto, supports this.
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      > I believe this also explains the rise of progressive political factions that propose a lot of policies that seem to favour the disenfranchised but in reality benefit the rich and the asset owners. This, so much. Segregation has once again become overt Democrat Party policy, only now it's disguised as "fighting against gentrification".
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - stoppingin 4y ago
    > My hypothesis has been that renters stopped voting. Who are these renters who stopped voting? I can only speak for Australia, however the average age of renters has been rising for decades. Most of Gen Y have come to terms with the fact they will likely never own property in a major city. These people keep voting, but their vote isn't accomplishing anything. > Density hurts landowners by decreasing property values and landowners vote. How does density actually hurt landowners? If you own a house in a heavily consolidated urban area your property value will hardly have decreased. Look at the value of houses in Ultimo, Chippendale, Pyrmont, for instance. Also consider that maybe people just don't want to live in a highrise legoland, or think that endless urban consolidation is a good thing for our cities.
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      > How does density actually hurt landowners? If you own a house in a heavily consolidated urban area your property value will hardly have decreased. Correct because, and I can only speak for America, those big cities stopped building. San Francisco alone is short about a quarter million homes, like 33% of the existing population. There’s a whole Wikipedia article on it. That’s why it’s so unaffordable. > Also consider that maybe people just don't want to live in a highrise legoland, or think that endless urban consolidation is a good thing for our cities. This is a pretty funny position to take. Those cities didn’t get to high rises because nobody wanted to live in them. You know those buildings are full … right? If nobody wanted to live there prices would be way lower and they never would have built denser housing. Tokyo is a great example of a major metro where supply and demand are roughly equal and they haven’t seen houses increase in price since 1990. Their units cost a bit more than cost of construction. This is the power of federalizing zoning rules so city councils can’t get between you and building a house on your property.
      - robocat 4y ago
        > San Francisco alone is short about a quarter million homes If they added a quarter million homes, do you think they would still be short another quarter million homes? Not saying densification is bad. But in some cities the density can keep increasing and not have any drop in demand. Apartment prices in dense cities don’t drop?
  - Alex3917 4y ago
    > They tend to be transient, younger, non-voters while landowners tend to be older, rooted and vote fervently. Which is exactly why we have policies to encourage home ownership rather than rental.
  - dionidium 4y ago
    > Density hurts landowners by decreasing property values Tell that to these folks: https://twitter.com/curtlsmlchael/status/1606993882679590912 https://twitter.com/curtlsmlchael/status/1606993882679590912 Upzoning in high-demand areas would unlock billions of dollars in value for existing homeowners.
  - asdff 4y ago
    I don't think renters ever voted significantly. That being said, this is true. 60% of LA county rents, yet in local elections, 60% of voters are homeowners, and only half of eligible voters participated in the last election despite everyone being mailed a ballot by default and having almost a month to fill it out. Density also helps landowners, lots that are zoned for multifamily are worth more.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    Density greatly increases land property value. Land with a skyscraper on it is extremely valuable!
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      Land yes, square foot of housing no. The latter is IMO far more important.
  - SyzygistSix 4y ago
    I think non-participation has been the standard since primary elections were established. The 20% who do reliably vote in them tend to be home and business owners, whose concern over their housing investment has increased.
- monocasa 4y ago
  Monetary policy that made housing most people's largest investment, meaning a lot of votes that care.
- stoppingin 4y ago
  Why would the Australian government intervene in the housing market when they can just ride the wave of infinite foreign investment instead? If the goal was actually to ensure that Australian families could afford a reasonable quality of life they would have done something about the housing market 40 years ago.
- jackgolding 4y ago
  But about half of average Australian household assets are held in the value of the home, accounting for an average $A509,000 out of a total average household assets of $A1.1 million. ---- Source: https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/too-many-eggs-in-the-property-wealth-basket https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/too-many-eggs-in-the...
- seattle_spring 4y ago
  A full half of the voting base, or more, fervently vote against their own best interest. Seems like it’s happening in Europe and has taken deep roots in places like Brazil, too. People can’t really be surprised that bad things are happening when they explicitly vote for bad things to happen.
  - skfingngihg 4y ago
    I think a lot of it is other people voting against my interests. How many homes in Detroit have democrats demolished in anti-gentrification violence?
    - kevingadd 4y ago
      What part of demolishing a home is violence? It's property, not a person or a pet. It's important to properly understand and communicate what's going on and what you're upset about. Are you upset about the displacement of the people who lived in the homes, or just about houses being demolished? What was built in their place? If a single-family home was demolished to build multi-family housing, that's a good thing for the housing crisis!
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Surely you’re talking about all those wealthy HNers who vote for higher taxes on themselves. Why is it that when some people vote for their principles but against their wallet it’s a good thing but when others do it it’s a bad thing?
    - asdff 4y ago
      If you think being taxed is a bad thing then you don't really understand what taxes do
      - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
        If you think being taxed is a good thing you really don’t understand what taxes do. I’m very sympathetic to the argument that they are a necessary evil of a functioning society but to call taking peoples resources under threat of violence good implies a perverted moral compass to put it mildly. Regardless, that’s not the point. The point is that there’s a double standard.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kelnos 4y ago
  I doubt housing was such a hot-button issue in the past. I expect it's mostly financial: for most homeowners, their home is by far their highest-value asset, dwarfing any other savings they might have. As home prices have gone up, the effect of this has increased, and homeowners have become more and more fervent (politically) about protecting the value of their homes. Any government proposal to increase the housing supply directly threatens this. These days, government officials who talk about doing things that decrease existing homeowners' property value get voted out, immediately. It's incredibly short-sighted, but people vote against their long-term interests all the time. I just bought a condo three years ago, and while it wouldn't feel good if its value decreased below the purchase price, I would gladly "pay" in that way for a more livable city, and more housing is key to that. I expect in the long run, making the city a nicer place to live would be better for my home's value anyway. But people won't care about their higher home value in 15 years if it drops for the first 3-5.
- deelowe 4y ago
  The 30 year mortgage became standard. Homes are now a significant portion of retiree's net worth and there are a lot of retirees right now who plan on leveraging their paid off homes for retirement income by downsizing.
- BenFranklin100 4y ago
  It’s the other way around. Zoning changed dramatically and local governments began to aggressively intervene in the residential housing market. Before 1900, the governments more or less stayed out of the details of residential housing. There were restrictions on what could be done with a piece of land, but the government generally did not get too involved in whether a single family vs multi-family apartment could be built on a specific parcel. The 1926 SCOTUS case, Euclid vs. Ambler, changed all this. The SCOTUS ruled it was legal for cities to ban certain types of homes, such as cheaper, denser, apartments. By creating an artificial shortage of homes or by directly forbidding types of homes, the wrong type of poor minorities could be kept out of neighborhoods without officially banning them. Back then this was mainly blacks, but nowadays it’s broadened to include any type of poor minority in disfavor, such as college students.
  - subradios 4y ago
    College students are an excellent apolitical example - these are people who are guaranteed transient, hate the population who actually live there ("townies" amirite?) and on top, they're loud, party a lot, and do other forms of criminal activity. Houses form a large portion of someone's net worth, moving costs a lot of money and besides, the person you want to force to move may be unable to move. Why would they vote to let you build university housing next door to them? Every single aspect of that dorm negatively impacts their quality of life, and further reduces their ability to afford to live anywhere else. You can say this is "shortsighted" because of urbanist sympathies, but the reality is that voters are basically perpetually punished for allowing any kind of building. Over time, cabals of "absolutely not" form.
- notwokeno 4y ago
  If people can't choose who they socialize with they'd rather just not socialize. Most of what you're seeing in the US is the result of one group pushing another group on a third group and the third group deciding that it's just not worth bothering.
- Tiktaalik 4y ago
  The Federal Canadian government used to aid the construction of tons of housing, both market and non-market all through the 60s and 70s. It ended with the austerity budgets in 1993 of the Liberals under Jean Chretien, at which point the Federal government pretty much entirely got out of housing and left it to the provinces. Provinces didn't fill in the gaps the same way. Shrugged their shoulders and mostly downloaded the problem to municipalities. Municipalities didn't have any sort of revenue generating capacity to build social housing at all, nor did they have the ability to incentivize market housing, so only a limited amount of very profitable market housing gets built.
- rfwhyte 4y ago
  The rich used their money and power to get their cronies and puppets elected to governments the world over so they could rewrite rules to their benefit. Just look at the increase in corporate money and lobbying in politics to see a pretty shocking corollary with pretty much every major ill the world is suffering from these days.

Supply is artificially controlled by voters who don't want density to increase, masked behind preservations, environmental concerns or just plain corruption

by pxue 4y ago

Supply is artificially controlled by voters who don't want density to increase, masked behind preservations, environmental concerns or just plain corruption

plantain 4y ago

What changed? Governments used to aggressively intervene in the housing market.

arcticbull 4y ago
My hypothesis has been that renters stopped voting. They tend to be transient, younger, non-voters while landowners tend to be older, rooted and vote fervently. Density hurts landowners by decreasing property values and landowners vote.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > renters stopped voting Renters also got co-opted into being NIMBYs out of fear of gentrification.
  - stoppingin 4y ago
    This idea is pure fantasy. This condition of classifying people as NIMBYs if they disagree with you on this topic is incredibly toxic. There are a plethora of totally valid reasons why people would be opposed to endless urban sprawl, consolidation, and population growth.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > plethora of totally valid reasons why people would be opposed to endless urban sprawl, consolidation, and population growth Totally agree. But the counterpart of that is rising housing costs. If you accept that tradeoff, you aren't a NIMBY. This covers many homeowners. But renters opposed to development while complaining about housing costs are trying to suppress their housing costs by increasing others'. That externalization is textbook NIMBY.
      - stoppingin 4y ago
        Thank you for taking the time to make a nice reply, and for not taking my criticism of your post personally. I really appreciate that. I feel like you have a very arbitrary definition of NIMBY. I'm writing this post right now from the 14th floor of a highrise building in Sydney's inner city, in the apartment I rent from a landlord who lives in mainland China. There are still rows of historic terrace houses in the nearby suburbs that have been heritage listed. I'm sure property developers would love to turn these into more highrise apartments. Even though I'm renting, I don't want these to be replaced with endless new apartments. I could list a dozen reasons too. For one, I don't think this would help create a city that people would actually enjoy living in. I've been told by people who would know that one of Sydney's big problems is that property developers are able to artificially inflate property value by staggering the release of newly developed property onto the market. So more development isn't necessarily going to solve any of this country's problems with property value. It hasn't so far.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > a very arbitrary definition of NIMBY NIMBY means not in my backyard. As in, I want the benefits of a thing but not its cost. Wanting affordable housing while denying development is NIMBY. Saying no development because you want higher property prices is not NIMBY, it's prohibitionism. (Depending on the environment, it could be reasonable and/or heartless.) > been told by people who would know that one of Sydney's big problems is that property developers are able to artificially inflate property value by staggering the release of newly developed property onto the market This is prudent pipeline management. Why would you bid up the cost of materials and labor only to dump the finished product at a loss? On supply and demand: American house prices are elastic, but over long timelines [1]. In Sydney, dense housing is more elastic than detached housing [2]. The abundance of those historic terrace houses, together with long development approval times, cause the high prices and relative price inelasticity. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119003001207 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00941... [2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8462.2012.00679.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8462....
    - CPLX 4y ago
      How does someone oppose population growth? That’s a literal question. What public policy do you endorse that has the ability to significantly reduce the number of people being born? If you don’t have one you’re just opposed to building enough houses for the people we have.
      - kasey_junk 4y ago
        Increasing the level of education for women. Increasing the access to pre-natal care for women. Decreasing the poverty level generally and specifically for young families. Moving more people out of agricultural work. Those things are highly correlated with lowered birth rates, though I suspect the last one is probably not applicable to the US.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > I suspect the last one is probably not applicable to the US None of them are applicable to America [1]. [1] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p25-1144.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...
        arcticbull 4y ago
        The birth rate in the US is 1.64 children per woman. It’s already a significantly shrinking population, replacement rate is around 2.1 children per woman. The US only maintains its population through immigration. How much lower do you want it to be?
      - jefftk 4y ago
        > What public policy do you endorse that has the ability to significantly reduce the number of people being born? I'd endorse free contraception. Options I'd oppose but others might favor include not requiring insurance to cover fertility treatments, prohibiting IVF entirely, mandatory birth control until marriage, sterilization as punishment for crime, and removing the child tax credit. Plus restricting immigration and increasing deportations which have a similar effect on the people/housing ratio. (But I'm in favor of more people being born, and building lots more housing)
    - dionidium 4y ago
      > There are a plethora of totally valid reasons why people would be opposed to endless urban sprawl, consolidation, and population growth. There really aren't, though, in the sense that the costs (both societal and individual) drastically outweigh the benefits. Of course prohibitions on new construction are narrowly beneficial to specific individuals. Who wants some guys starting up new construction at 7AM next door? If you like your quiet little block, then why on Earth would you want it to densify? Somebody else's construction project is little more than an annoyance, after all. If you can ban it, then great! The problem is that these individual preferences come with enormous costs, both economic and with respect to individual freedom. When weighed against the downsides, those banal individual preferences about densification are no longer compelling. In short, yes, people do have rational, coherent reasons to oppose growth, but, no, those complaints are not in the end valid.
      - stoppingin 4y ago
        Everything in your post is just your own personal opinion. > The problem is that these individual preferences come with enormous costs, both economic and with respect to individual freedom... What if I don't agree with increasing the population? If I don't want to increase the number of people in the city I'm living in, then why on earth would I want urban consolidation? Does anyone actually enjoy living in a tiny apartment, as opposed to being able to afford a house with a yard? The need for endless population increase is not just some foregone conclusion. Not everyone here is an SWE living in SF, with SF problems, and SF opinions. > In short, yes, people do have rational, coherent reasons to oppose growth, but, no, those complaints are not in the end valid. I don't agree with your opinion. Should I just classify all of it as 'invalid'?
        dionidium 4y ago
        > Does anyone actually enjoy living in a tiny apartment, as opposed to being able to afford a house with a yard? In order to answer this question for yourself you need to first accept an iron law of economics: because decisions are not made in a vacuum, there is no such thing as an abstract preference, only constraints and tradeoffs. My preference is that I have a 10,000 square foot single-family home located on an otherwise empty block of land just south of Central Park. That way I get everything great about single-family living and access to the economic and cultural superpower that is Manhattan. But, and I mean this technically and in the kindest way possible: literally who gives a shit? Everything in life is tradeoffs. The NIMBY position is that tradeoffs can be wished away by legislation. But they cannot. It only deranges the situation.
    - QIYGT 4y ago
      > There are a plethora of totally valid reasons why people would be opposed to endless urban sprawl Density is literally the opposite of sprawl.
- bravo22 4y ago
  The younger owners tend to also vote based on social "wedge" issues which means they don't need to be catered to on this issue whereas asset owners tend to vote based on their interests and have to be catered to otherwise they'll vote for the other party. I believe this also explains the rise of progressive political factions that propose a lot of policies that seem to favour the disenfranchised but in reality benefit the rich and the asset owners. Their policies let the rich and the well off virtue signal without any consequence to their income or wealth. Voting patterns in large cities in Canada, for example in Toronto, supports this.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    > I believe this also explains the rise of progressive political factions that propose a lot of policies that seem to favour the disenfranchised but in reality benefit the rich and the asset owners. This, so much. Segregation has once again become overt Democrat Party policy, only now it's disguised as "fighting against gentrification".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- stoppingin 4y ago
  > My hypothesis has been that renters stopped voting. Who are these renters who stopped voting? I can only speak for Australia, however the average age of renters has been rising for decades. Most of Gen Y have come to terms with the fact they will likely never own property in a major city. These people keep voting, but their vote isn't accomplishing anything. > Density hurts landowners by decreasing property values and landowners vote. How does density actually hurt landowners? If you own a house in a heavily consolidated urban area your property value will hardly have decreased. Look at the value of houses in Ultimo, Chippendale, Pyrmont, for instance. Also consider that maybe people just don't want to live in a highrise legoland, or think that endless urban consolidation is a good thing for our cities.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    > How does density actually hurt landowners? If you own a house in a heavily consolidated urban area your property value will hardly have decreased. Correct because, and I can only speak for America, those big cities stopped building. San Francisco alone is short about a quarter million homes, like 33% of the existing population. There’s a whole Wikipedia article on it. That’s why it’s so unaffordable. > Also consider that maybe people just don't want to live in a highrise legoland, or think that endless urban consolidation is a good thing for our cities. This is a pretty funny position to take. Those cities didn’t get to high rises because nobody wanted to live in them. You know those buildings are full … right? If nobody wanted to live there prices would be way lower and they never would have built denser housing. Tokyo is a great example of a major metro where supply and demand are roughly equal and they haven’t seen houses increase in price since 1990. Their units cost a bit more than cost of construction. This is the power of federalizing zoning rules so city councils can’t get between you and building a house on your property.
    - robocat 4y ago
      > San Francisco alone is short about a quarter million homes If they added a quarter million homes, do you think they would still be short another quarter million homes? Not saying densification is bad. But in some cities the density can keep increasing and not have any drop in demand. Apartment prices in dense cities don’t drop?
- Alex3917 4y ago
  > They tend to be transient, younger, non-voters while landowners tend to be older, rooted and vote fervently. Which is exactly why we have policies to encourage home ownership rather than rental.
- dionidium 4y ago
  > Density hurts landowners by decreasing property values Tell that to these folks: https://twitter.com/curtlsmlchael/status/1606993882679590912 https://twitter.com/curtlsmlchael/status/1606993882679590912 Upzoning in high-demand areas would unlock billions of dollars in value for existing homeowners.
- asdff 4y ago
  I don't think renters ever voted significantly. That being said, this is true. 60% of LA county rents, yet in local elections, 60% of voters are homeowners, and only half of eligible voters participated in the last election despite everyone being mailed a ballot by default and having almost a month to fill it out. Density also helps landowners, lots that are zoned for multifamily are worth more.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  Density greatly increases land property value. Land with a skyscraper on it is extremely valuable!
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    Land yes, square foot of housing no. The latter is IMO far more important.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  I think non-participation has been the standard since primary elections were established. The 20% who do reliably vote in them tend to be home and business owners, whose concern over their housing investment has increased.
monocasa 4y ago
Monetary policy that made housing most people's largest investment, meaning a lot of votes that care.
stoppingin 4y ago
Why would the Australian government intervene in the housing market when they can just ride the wave of infinite foreign investment instead? If the goal was actually to ensure that Australian families could afford a reasonable quality of life they would have done something about the housing market 40 years ago.
jackgolding 4y ago
But about half of average Australian household assets are held in the value of the home, accounting for an average $A509,000 out of a total average household assets of $A1.1 million. ---- Source: https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/too-many-eggs-in-the-property-wealth-basket https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/too-many-eggs-in-the...
seattle_spring 4y ago
A full half of the voting base, or more, fervently vote against their own best interest. Seems like it’s happening in Europe and has taken deep roots in places like Brazil, too. People can’t really be surprised that bad things are happening when they explicitly vote for bad things to happen.
- skfingngihg 4y ago
  I think a lot of it is other people voting against my interests. How many homes in Detroit have democrats demolished in anti-gentrification violence?
  - kevingadd 4y ago
    What part of demolishing a home is violence? It's property, not a person or a pet. It's important to properly understand and communicate what's going on and what you're upset about. Are you upset about the displacement of the people who lived in the homes, or just about houses being demolished? What was built in their place? If a single-family home was demolished to build multi-family housing, that's a good thing for the housing crisis!
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  Surely you’re talking about all those wealthy HNers who vote for higher taxes on themselves. Why is it that when some people vote for their principles but against their wallet it’s a good thing but when others do it it’s a bad thing?
  - asdff 4y ago
    If you think being taxed is a bad thing then you don't really understand what taxes do
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      If you think being taxed is a good thing you really don’t understand what taxes do. I’m very sympathetic to the argument that they are a necessary evil of a functioning society but to call taking peoples resources under threat of violence good implies a perverted moral compass to put it mildly. Regardless, that’s not the point. The point is that there’s a double standard.
deleted 4y ago
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kelnos 4y ago
I doubt housing was such a hot-button issue in the past. I expect it's mostly financial: for most homeowners, their home is by far their highest-value asset, dwarfing any other savings they might have. As home prices have gone up, the effect of this has increased, and homeowners have become more and more fervent (politically) about protecting the value of their homes. Any government proposal to increase the housing supply directly threatens this. These days, government officials who talk about doing things that decrease existing homeowners' property value get voted out, immediately. It's incredibly short-sighted, but people vote against their long-term interests all the time. I just bought a condo three years ago, and while it wouldn't feel good if its value decreased below the purchase price, I would gladly "pay" in that way for a more livable city, and more housing is key to that. I expect in the long run, making the city a nicer place to live would be better for my home's value anyway. But people won't care about their higher home value in 15 years if it drops for the first 3-5.
deelowe 4y ago
The 30 year mortgage became standard. Homes are now a significant portion of retiree's net worth and there are a lot of retirees right now who plan on leveraging their paid off homes for retirement income by downsizing.
BenFranklin100 4y ago
It’s the other way around. Zoning changed dramatically and local governments began to aggressively intervene in the residential housing market. Before 1900, the governments more or less stayed out of the details of residential housing. There were restrictions on what could be done with a piece of land, but the government generally did not get too involved in whether a single family vs multi-family apartment could be built on a specific parcel. The 1926 SCOTUS case, Euclid vs. Ambler, changed all this. The SCOTUS ruled it was legal for cities to ban certain types of homes, such as cheaper, denser, apartments. By creating an artificial shortage of homes or by directly forbidding types of homes, the wrong type of poor minorities could be kept out of neighborhoods without officially banning them. Back then this was mainly blacks, but nowadays it’s broadened to include any type of poor minority in disfavor, such as college students.
- subradios 4y ago
  College students are an excellent apolitical example - these are people who are guaranteed transient, hate the population who actually live there ("townies" amirite?) and on top, they're loud, party a lot, and do other forms of criminal activity. Houses form a large portion of someone's net worth, moving costs a lot of money and besides, the person you want to force to move may be unable to move. Why would they vote to let you build university housing next door to them? Every single aspect of that dorm negatively impacts their quality of life, and further reduces their ability to afford to live anywhere else. You can say this is "shortsighted" because of urbanist sympathies, but the reality is that voters are basically perpetually punished for allowing any kind of building. Over time, cabals of "absolutely not" form.
notwokeno 4y ago
If people can't choose who they socialize with they'd rather just not socialize. Most of what you're seeing in the US is the result of one group pushing another group on a third group and the third group deciding that it's just not worth bothering.
Tiktaalik 4y ago
The Federal Canadian government used to aid the construction of tons of housing, both market and non-market all through the 60s and 70s. It ended with the austerity budgets in 1993 of the Liberals under Jean Chretien, at which point the Federal government pretty much entirely got out of housing and left it to the provinces. Provinces didn't fill in the gaps the same way. Shrugged their shoulders and mostly downloaded the problem to municipalities. Municipalities didn't have any sort of revenue generating capacity to build social housing at all, nor did they have the ability to incentivize market housing, so only a limited amount of very profitable market housing gets built.
rfwhyte 4y ago
The rich used their money and power to get their cronies and puppets elected to governments the world over so they could rewrite rules to their benefit. Just look at the increase in corporate money and lobbying in politics to see a pretty shocking corollary with pretty much every major ill the world is suffering from these days.