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Everything causes induced demand. Expansion of bike lanes and public transit also causes induced demand for these, but at least in the end you end up with more

by pornel 4y ago

Everything causes induced demand. Expansion of bike lanes and public transit also causes induced demand for these, but at least in the end you end up with more efficient transport. The increased efficiency/throughput gives you a better chance of outpacing demand growth. With housing you also have a better chance of outpacing demand growth if you build densely enough. Even that's never enough to meet all the demand, at least you end up housing more people in a desirable area than you'd otherwise if the density was kept artificially low. I realise it's a personal preference and in the US culture dense cities have a poor reputation, but dense cities can offer walkability and public transport infrastructure that wouldn't be economical otherwise. In many places around the world this is valued as a goal in itself.

nullc 4y ago
I agree that there are many benefits, and reasons to desire building more for those benefits. And costs: I wouldn't want to live in any dense city I've ever visited, and I've seen ones all over the world, but that's my choice-- and I think it's totally reasonable for people to have other preferences. But I think its far less clear that affordability should be expected to be among those benefits. It's hard to be sure how much value causes density vs density causes value, otherwise one would say that as the post shows-- the existing examples show that increasing density will decrease affordability. But many people do accept the argument that more roads mean more traffic.
Tade0 4y ago
> With housing you also have a better chance of outpacing demand growth if you build densely enough. I feel like one important driver of demand is missing here: investment properties. It's no secret that at one moment AirBnB essentially took over tourist hotspots in the most attractive cities, jacking prices up to ridiculous levels. There's a building in my neighborhood that consists of so-called "microapartments" - 18-25m2 units, which on the lower end, from a legal standpoint, wouldn't even be considered housing today. Of course half of them are empty because they weren't really meant to be occupied in the first place. This sort of demand is essentially boundless because while even a billionaire can only drive one car at a time, they can easily own thousands of investment properties and not even bother to rent them out if the market is hot enough. Of course regulations follow, but shitty housing built with investors in mind doesn't just disappear overnight.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  The logical thing for any locality is then to build one million units and sell them for a million dollars each. Since the supply elasticity of price is zero in this model, the locality can amass a trillion dollars easily. At this point, armed with the resources of nations, it can do many things - perhaps buy out an entire island nation, perhaps end wars. If the money is insufficient, sell a billion homes, and now you have a quadrillion dollars. With that kind of money, this locality could simply acquire entire other nations and transform them into papercli- I mean investment properties. This Von Neumann probe city state will soon encompass the known galaxy.
  - Tade0 4y ago
    That's a nice vision, but still less absurd than some of the actual listings I've seen, like "Sale! 10 studio apartments!" - you have to buy the whole thing. I'm in the market for an apartment and some of the best spots are already taken by such housing, while families are pushed to the suburbs.

by pornel 4y ago

nullc 4y ago

I agree that there are many benefits, and reasons to desire building more for those benefits. And costs: I wouldn't want to live in any dense city I've ever visited, and I've seen ones all over the world, but that's my choice-- and I think it's totally reasonable for people to have other preferences. But I think its far less clear that affordability should be expected to be among those benefits. It's hard to be sure how much value causes density vs density causes value, otherwise one would say that as the post shows-- the existing examples show that increasing density will decrease affordability. But many people do accept the argument that more roads mean more traffic.

Tade0 4y ago

> With housing you also have a better chance of outpacing demand growth if you build densely enough. I feel like one important driver of demand is missing here: investment properties. It's no secret that at one moment AirBnB essentially took over tourist hotspots in the most attractive cities, jacking prices up to ridiculous levels. There's a building in my neighborhood that consists of so-called "microapartments" - 18-25m2 units, which on the lower end, from a legal standpoint, wouldn't even be considered housing today. Of course half of them are empty because they weren't really meant to be occupied in the first place. This sort of demand is essentially boundless because while even a billionaire can only drive one car at a time, they can easily own thousands of investment properties and not even bother to rent them out if the market is hot enough. Of course regulations follow, but shitty housing built with investors in mind doesn't just disappear overnight.

renewiltord 4y ago
The logical thing for any locality is then to build one million units and sell them for a million dollars each. Since the supply elasticity of price is zero in this model, the locality can amass a trillion dollars easily. At this point, armed with the resources of nations, it can do many things - perhaps buy out an entire island nation, perhaps end wars. If the money is insufficient, sell a billion homes, and now you have a quadrillion dollars. With that kind of money, this locality could simply acquire entire other nations and transform them into papercli- I mean investment properties. This Von Neumann probe city state will soon encompass the known galaxy.
- Tade0 4y ago
  That's a nice vision, but still less absurd than some of the actual listings I've seen, like "Sale! 10 studio apartments!" - you have to buy the whole thing. I'm in the market for an apartment and some of the best spots are already taken by such housing, while families are pushed to the suburbs.