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Yes, affordable housing today often luxury housing from the past. That works well enough for areas dealing with slow growth. In Dallas, for example, the apartme

Yes, affordable housing today often luxury housing from the past. That works well enough for areas dealing with slow growth. In Dallas, for example, the apartment I rented in 1996 was top of the line, and is now mid-range. When a government interrupts that process for years on end by disallowing any new construction, you end up with a backlog, and can't afford to wait the decades it would take for affordable housing to be available. In the future, given sane zoning, the process will work. For now, though, there's a dire need to fill in the gap with affordable housing today.

km3r 4y ago
If you can build 2 market rate units for every affordable unit, why would you build affordable? Why can't the millions of homes that exist today be the mid-range to affordable and just flood the market with market rate homes/
- thereisnospork 4y ago
  Because demanding subsidized housing be built (sorry 'affordable') is a useful tool to stop people from building housing.
  - km3r 4y ago
    > subsidized Subsidizes are fine, requirements are not.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  I feel like there are so many things wrong with these questions that I must be misunderstanding you. Like, every assumption seems counter-factual.
  - km3r 4y ago
    Affordable housing requirements lead to less overall units being built. That only makes the problem worse. Affordable housing subsidies help, because they enable both to be built. So often in the bay area we see large market rate developments blocked for the potential of an affordable project that never comes. Let them build, because until we make up the MASSIVE shortage of housing, there is no getting around needing to build more.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Why can’t the millions of homes that exist today be the mid-range to affordable and just flood the market with market rate homes? Because you can’t get there from here. The only way to “flood the market” with any kind of homes is to build at higher density. But building market rate units at higher density won’t, itself, make lower-density units in the same area more affordable, as lower density is itself a thing people will pay a premium for; it will just allow more rich people to move in to an area and drive gentrification o the lower-density areas. (If preferentially done in urban cores to an extent that overwhelms other, particularly transportation, infrastructure, it may make lower density homes in peripheral areas less valuable simply by making jobs less accessible, but that also doesn’t solve the problem of housing affordability.)
  - km3r 4y ago
    So who gets to decide who gets to live here then? Or just a lottery it out and hope people get lucky? If you flood the market with enough high density homes, some of those will be affordable. The ONLY true affordable housing is to make market rate affordable. Don't get me wrong, I think BMR housing has a place, but morally, number of units is the most important metric. If we can build both, do so, but when you block market rate housing for the potential of affordable housing (that may never come), we just make the situation overall MUCH worse. > If preferentially done in urban cores to an extent that overwhelms other, particularly transportation High density in urban cores makes commutes shorter and lowers the stress on transportation infrastructure per person.

km3r 4y ago

If you can build 2 market rate units for every affordable unit, why would you build affordable? Why can't the millions of homes that exist today be the mid-range to affordable and just flood the market with market rate homes/

thereisnospork 4y ago
Because demanding subsidized housing be built (sorry 'affordable') is a useful tool to stop people from building housing.
- km3r 4y ago
  > subsidized Subsidizes are fine, requirements are not.
pwinnski 4y ago
I feel like there are so many things wrong with these questions that I must be misunderstanding you. Like, every assumption seems counter-factual.
- km3r 4y ago
  Affordable housing requirements lead to less overall units being built. That only makes the problem worse. Affordable housing subsidies help, because they enable both to be built. So often in the bay area we see large market rate developments blocked for the potential of an affordable project that never comes. Let them build, because until we make up the MASSIVE shortage of housing, there is no getting around needing to build more.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Why can’t the millions of homes that exist today be the mid-range to affordable and just flood the market with market rate homes? Because you can’t get there from here. The only way to “flood the market” with any kind of homes is to build at higher density. But building market rate units at higher density won’t, itself, make lower-density units in the same area more affordable, as lower density is itself a thing people will pay a premium for; it will just allow more rich people to move in to an area and drive gentrification o the lower-density areas. (If preferentially done in urban cores to an extent that overwhelms other, particularly transportation, infrastructure, it may make lower density homes in peripheral areas less valuable simply by making jobs less accessible, but that also doesn’t solve the problem of housing affordability.)
- km3r 4y ago
  So who gets to decide who gets to live here then? Or just a lottery it out and hope people get lucky? If you flood the market with enough high density homes, some of those will be affordable. The ONLY true affordable housing is to make market rate affordable. Don't get me wrong, I think BMR housing has a place, but morally, number of units is the most important metric. If we can build both, do so, but when you block market rate housing for the potential of affordable housing (that may never come), we just make the situation overall MUCH worse. > If preferentially done in urban cores to an extent that overwhelms other, particularly transportation High density in urban cores makes commutes shorter and lowers the stress on transportation infrastructure per person.