4 ms·

If I'm reading your comment correctly, housing supply problem being an apparent symptom seems to be your way of saying "we could fix that easily if we wanted to

If I'm reading your comment correctly, housing supply problem being an apparent symptom seems to be your way of saying "we could fix that easily if we wanted to, but we aren't fixing it, therefore we don't want to fix it." And I don't exactly disagree, but surely you see how it's just slightly more complicated than that, and also how fixing the housing supply symptom (i.e., homing the homeless) would really help?

mjevans 3y ago
There should be enough housing for everyone that wants to live in a given area, and it should be housing people would want to live in. That includes the currently homeless, and also those who can't afford to live where the rest of their life says they should. Lack of social safety nets and lack of affordable housing both come from the same root cause, too much greed combined with too little empathy. 'I got mine, time to kick the ladder off the wall.'
- midasuni 3y ago
  Ok. 400 million people globally want to live in Manhattan. How do you solve that?
  - dathos 3y ago
    Do you think that's because Manhattan is such a great place to live or because people globally would love a life that's not a life of poverty?
  - black_13 3y ago
    [dead]
  - imtringued 3y ago
    Build more Manhattans.
    - gruez 3y ago
      1. That wasn't the original claim, which was "There should be enough housing for everyone that wants to live in a given area". People don't want to live in Manhattan 2, they want to live in Manhattan. 2. "Build more Manhattans" is easier said than done. Even petro-states with astronomical amount of money to splash around have a hard time building a "Manhattan". Dubai might be very shiny and the financial capital of the middle east, but it's no Manhattan.
      - mjevans 3y ago
        Also, "claim" is too strong. This is the __aspirational__ sort of should. "We SHOULD all be kind to each other."
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Is that a hypothetical or your actual belief?
  - mjevans 3y ago
    I don't know Manhattan very well, only what I've seen on TV and in Movies. Back of napkin answer: Build bigger buildings, lots of them. All of those 'quaint' places with 2-6 story buildings? 50-60+ story sky-scrapers. However that's probably also the answer you assumed. Yes that would change the 'character' of a place, because the only way of keeping that the same is to keep the number and type of people in a place the same. How could someone preserve an idea that directly contradicts a reality? No, there would need to be a new idea that supports the desired conditions. Hopefully a good idea that is well executed. As another commenter said, 'more ''Manhattans''' is another way, try to replicate the sort of feel / idea at existing scale or larger in other locations. My own comment was about the technical and physical goals a society should strive for, which are within reach, should we the people have the will to reach for them.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Where do I sign up for my 10k sq ft lot on the Southern California coast?
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    That's not at all what the parent post is suggesting.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      I know. The point was it is easy and useless to write: >There should be enough housing for everyone that wants to live in a given area, and it should be housing people would want to live in. The hard part comes in executing, where you have to define “housing people would want to live in (which people?)” and who is in the set of “everyone” whose opinion is gathered about wanting to live in a certain area.

mjevans 3y ago

There should be enough housing for everyone that wants to live in a given area, and it should be housing people would want to live in. That includes the currently homeless, and also those who can't afford to live where the rest of their life says they should. Lack of social safety nets and lack of affordable housing both come from the same root cause, too much greed combined with too little empathy. 'I got mine, time to kick the ladder off the wall.'

midasuni 3y ago
Ok. 400 million people globally want to live in Manhattan. How do you solve that?
- dathos 3y ago
  Do you think that's because Manhattan is such a great place to live or because people globally would love a life that's not a life of poverty?
- black_13 3y ago
  [dead]
- imtringued 3y ago
  Build more Manhattans.
  - gruez 3y ago
    1. That wasn't the original claim, which was "There should be enough housing for everyone that wants to live in a given area". People don't want to live in Manhattan 2, they want to live in Manhattan. 2. "Build more Manhattans" is easier said than done. Even petro-states with astronomical amount of money to splash around have a hard time building a "Manhattan". Dubai might be very shiny and the financial capital of the middle east, but it's no Manhattan.
    - mjevans 3y ago
      Also, "claim" is too strong. This is the __aspirational__ sort of should. "We SHOULD all be kind to each other."
- ben_w 3y ago
  Is that a hypothetical or your actual belief?
- mjevans 3y ago
  I don't know Manhattan very well, only what I've seen on TV and in Movies. Back of napkin answer: Build bigger buildings, lots of them. All of those 'quaint' places with 2-6 story buildings? 50-60+ story sky-scrapers. However that's probably also the answer you assumed. Yes that would change the 'character' of a place, because the only way of keeping that the same is to keep the number and type of people in a place the same. How could someone preserve an idea that directly contradicts a reality? No, there would need to be a new idea that supports the desired conditions. Hopefully a good idea that is well executed. As another commenter said, 'more ''Manhattans''' is another way, try to replicate the sort of feel / idea at existing scale or larger in other locations. My own comment was about the technical and physical goals a society should strive for, which are within reach, should we the people have the will to reach for them.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
Where do I sign up for my 10k sq ft lot on the Southern California coast?
- alistairSH 3y ago
  That's not at all what the parent post is suggesting.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    I know. The point was it is easy and useless to write: >There should be enough housing for everyone that wants to live in a given area, and it should be housing people would want to live in. The hard part comes in executing, where you have to define “housing people would want to live in (which people?)” and who is in the set of “everyone” whose opinion is gathered about wanting to live in a certain area.