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>Why is there “no such thing as affordable housing”? Because affordability is not, and has never been, an intrinsic quality of a building. We draw bad conclusio
by HideousKojima 4y ago
>Why is there “no such thing as affordable housing”? Because affordability is not, and has never been, an intrinsic quality of a building. We draw bad conclusions when we talk about it as though it is.
Who, exactly, is talking about affordability as though it's an intrinsic part of housing?
- airza 4y agoCountless municipal governments are trying to mandate a certain of units or percent of units be affordable.
- HideousKojima 4y agoSure, but that's just variations on rent control, or tax incentives to builders to increase density, or whatever else they're using to try to increase the stock of housing. I still don't see how that suggests that the affordability is somehow intrinsic?
- klipt 4y ago"Affordable" is often used as marketing speak for "subsidized". In effect, the city is forcing the property owner to select some random poor people and give them monthly "cash" to help pay their rent. Except that "cash" can only be used for one particular unit, which locks them in, so it's economically much less efficient than real cash. It's basically just an inefficient tax on property owners that gets redistributed to a handful of lucky people.
- epicureanideal 4y agoMany politicians and news media talk about it as if it’s an intrinsic quality, and also there are even “affordable” housing programs where affordable takes on special meanings that imply subsidies and set asides and so on. So whereas previously it was a neutral description it’s becoming a very particular thing.
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y agoIt's the same trick as "access to healthcare" as if healthcare is just the ability to walk into a hospital. (Now, strictly speaking, one (less common) definition of access is "freedom or ability to obtain or make use of something" but the connotation intented is really "permission, liberty, or ability to enter, approach, or pass to and from a place or to approach or communicate with a person or thing"[0] because in the former "access" could be dropped entierly in sentences like "they don't have access to healthcare" to simply "they don't have healthcare." So it is clearly being used to create a certain (false) connotation) [0]https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/access https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/access
- omeid2 4y agoUnaffordable houses are not good for anyone; including investors. So just about everyone with skin in the game, developers, investors, municipalities, aspiring buyers, and economists almost always talk about affordability.
- kube-system 4y agoI have often heard the criticism that “developers only build luxury housing” and demand local government intervention to require “affordable” new construction.
- Hermitian909 4y agoI'm in the bay area. If you're at all involved in local housing you'll find there's a vocal group here opposed to any housing that isn't "affordable". While they may not actually believe it's intrinsic, the way they use rhetoric implies it is. This group and their rhetorical methods have successfully killed a lot of projects that could have housed hundreds of people (often with 30% of units being affordable).
- djur 4y agoAnyone who refers to new market-rate units as "luxury apartments", which is something you hear about new developments all the time.