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I am not against building more. I am simply saying that if you look at the data, there is no evidence what so ever that building more decreases the price of hou

I am not against building more. I am simply saying that if you look at the data, there is no evidence what so ever that building more decreases the price of housing. What it does is slow the price increases, but the very demand that is driving price increases was generated by the density, that is exacerbated by building more. We need a better metric. If you have some number to describe the quality of a city, perhaps let's call it fun, then the fun/$ is probably much higher than in a cheap suburb, for sure.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
Density doesn't drive price. Nobody pays more for "density". Density and price are both simply measures that track other desirable factors like jobs. It is correlation, not causation.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  agreed that it's correlation. however that's all you're going to get. no one is going to run a city wide experiment in this way. however if you look at the trend it's clear that cities have seen higher median price increases than suburbs. you can search yourself.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    Cities have a long list of attractive qualities that drive prices up. Being in a tiny box with high density is not one of them. Nobody is going to choose the 500 ft apartment downtown when they could have price. Every city has already run this natural experiment. You have units that are high density and low density that are completely paid off. People will pay more for a larger space in an urban center. If people wanted density for its own sake, rent would be higher for a tiny apartment in a large house in the same location. It is not the density that they want, it is the short commute and high paid job. This is what I mean by causality.
- maxsilver 4y ago
  > Nobody pays more for "density". You do, actually, pay more for "density". Moving things closer together, incurs extra costs (Even ignoring all other factors). Building codes have to be stricter (for equivalent safety levels), when buildings are closer together. Walls and insulation need more expensive materials (for equivalent sound dampening levels), when buildings are closer together. Insurance rates get higher (for equivalent coverage), when units are closer together. Labor costs are higher and labor time needed is higher (for equivalent results), and so on. A few costs go down (less length of pipe material, or less length of wire, etc). But those minor material costs are usually far out-shadowed by the increases in labor to accomplish them (it costs less money to replace all shared water pipe in my 20 house suburban street, than it costs to replace all shared water pipe in a NYC mid-level with 20 units, even though the literal length of pipe material might be cheaper). It costs more to remodel a bathroom in Manhattan than in (say) Louisville, KY., even for identical bathrooms with identical fixtures and identical sqft. Denser usually means more complexity or more labour, both things that cost extra money. --- Density advocates generally acknowledge this, density fundamentally costs more. Their argument usually rests on cities having hyper-overvalued properties -- the argument is that the extra cost of density is cheaper than the extra cost of land, and that's how they manage to make density look like a cost savings. Which kind-of works in major cities downtowns, but doesn't really pencil out elsewhere.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    What I mean is that basically nobody looks at two options and desires the more dense one simply because they find density attractive. If offered to rent a large home on a 1/4 acre in downtown Manhattan, or a dense condo for the same price, almost everyone would choose the less dense option. People want space, and put up with density because they have limited money and like the location.
    - lukas099 4y ago
      They don't like the density, but they like the location? Usually, liking the location means you like that it's close to other things, right? In other words, you like the density.
zip1234 4y ago
There is very much evidence that building more housing decreases the price of housing. I'm not sure why you think there isn't. https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-makes-homes-more-affordable-even-those-who-cant-afford-new-units https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-...
- endisneigh 4y ago
  then why are the places with the most units the most expensive? the research seems bad - they use a simulation, not actual data.
  - Swizec 4y ago
    > then why are the places with the most units the most expensive? Because the most people want to live there and population is growing? There are plenty of high density old towns all over Italy that are dirt cheap because nobody wants to live there anymore. You can buy a whole house for $10 in a town built for such high population densities that streets are a meter wide.
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      indeed! which is my point. density does not make it cheaper.
      - Swizec 4y ago
        Dense housing also doesn’t make it more expensive either.
  - dukeyukey 4y ago
    You've got it the wrong way around - expensive areas (usually because of lucrative local jobs) densify because it's how you can still turn a profit despite expensive land. Cheap, poor areas don't densify because the land is cheap, and the way to turn a profit is to build big houses that can still attract some people.
imgabe 4y ago
In order for it to decrease prices, the rate of building would have to outpace the rate of demand. If you build 100 houses, but 1000 people move there, you can say "Oh look building more houses didn't help, prices still went up". It's not that building more didn't help, it's that you didn't do it enough. The obvious answer is to do it more, not to ... stop building houses as if that is going to bring prices down.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

Density doesn't drive price. Nobody pays more for "density". Density and price are both simply measures that track other desirable factors like jobs. It is correlation, not causation.

endisneigh 4y ago
agreed that it's correlation. however that's all you're going to get. no one is going to run a city wide experiment in this way. however if you look at the trend it's clear that cities have seen higher median price increases than suburbs. you can search yourself.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Cities have a long list of attractive qualities that drive prices up. Being in a tiny box with high density is not one of them. Nobody is going to choose the 500 ft apartment downtown when they could have price. Every city has already run this natural experiment. You have units that are high density and low density that are completely paid off. People will pay more for a larger space in an urban center. If people wanted density for its own sake, rent would be higher for a tiny apartment in a large house in the same location. It is not the density that they want, it is the short commute and high paid job. This is what I mean by causality.
maxsilver 4y ago
> Nobody pays more for "density". You do, actually, pay more for "density". Moving things closer together, incurs extra costs (Even ignoring all other factors). Building codes have to be stricter (for equivalent safety levels), when buildings are closer together. Walls and insulation need more expensive materials (for equivalent sound dampening levels), when buildings are closer together. Insurance rates get higher (for equivalent coverage), when units are closer together. Labor costs are higher and labor time needed is higher (for equivalent results), and so on. A few costs go down (less length of pipe material, or less length of wire, etc). But those minor material costs are usually far out-shadowed by the increases in labor to accomplish them (it costs less money to replace all shared water pipe in my 20 house suburban street, than it costs to replace all shared water pipe in a NYC mid-level with 20 units, even though the literal length of pipe material might be cheaper). It costs more to remodel a bathroom in Manhattan than in (say) Louisville, KY., even for identical bathrooms with identical fixtures and identical sqft. Denser usually means more complexity or more labour, both things that cost extra money. --- Density advocates generally acknowledge this, density fundamentally costs more. Their argument usually rests on cities having hyper-overvalued properties -- the argument is that the extra cost of density is cheaper than the extra cost of land, and that's how they manage to make density look like a cost savings. Which kind-of works in major cities downtowns, but doesn't really pencil out elsewhere.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  What I mean is that basically nobody looks at two options and desires the more dense one simply because they find density attractive. If offered to rent a large home on a 1/4 acre in downtown Manhattan, or a dense condo for the same price, almost everyone would choose the less dense option. People want space, and put up with density because they have limited money and like the location.
  - lukas099 4y ago
    They don't like the density, but they like the location? Usually, liking the location means you like that it's close to other things, right? In other words, you like the density.

zip1234 4y ago

There is very much evidence that building more housing decreases the price of housing. I'm not sure why you think there isn't. https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-makes-homes-more-affordable-even-those-who-cant-afford-new-units https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-...

endisneigh 4y ago
then why are the places with the most units the most expensive? the research seems bad - they use a simulation, not actual data.
- Swizec 4y ago
  > then why are the places with the most units the most expensive? Because the most people want to live there and population is growing? There are plenty of high density old towns all over Italy that are dirt cheap because nobody wants to live there anymore. You can buy a whole house for $10 in a town built for such high population densities that streets are a meter wide.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    indeed! which is my point. density does not make it cheaper.
    - Swizec 4y ago
      Dense housing also doesn’t make it more expensive either.
- dukeyukey 4y ago
  You've got it the wrong way around - expensive areas (usually because of lucrative local jobs) densify because it's how you can still turn a profit despite expensive land. Cheap, poor areas don't densify because the land is cheap, and the way to turn a profit is to build big houses that can still attract some people.

imgabe 4y ago

In order for it to decrease prices, the rate of building would have to outpace the rate of demand. If you build 100 houses, but 1000 people move there, you can say "Oh look building more houses didn't help, prices still went up". It's not that building more didn't help, it's that you didn't do it enough. The obvious answer is to do it more, not to ... stop building houses as if that is going to bring prices down.