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Article starts off with "printing too much money" and doesn't address the quoted rant about housing prices. Housing prices are the key to cost of living and ha

by davidw 3y ago

Article starts off with "printing too much money" and doesn't address the quoted rant about housing prices. Housing prices are the key to cost of living and have gotten really bad in so many places. There's nothing that complicated about this: we should build more housing, and especially legalize denser, more environmentally friendly housing where there's a market fort it, rather than just do "cheap via sprawl". https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing-supply-shortage-crisis-2022/672240/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing... - "Supply skepticism and shortage denialism are pushing against the actual solution to the housing crisis: building enough homes."

SomewhatLikely 3y ago
Denser housing is more expensive than less dense housing. I personally believe we should work on making commuting from farther distances more reliably fast. In some cities this would mean building more highways, but that solution has been villified recently. In more densely built out cities perhaps dedicated bus lanes that can help flip the equation from car based travel to bus based travel being the faster option. I'm not opposed to loosening codes to encourage organic growth of denser housing, but in summary I suppose I'm asking that we also take a serious look at extending and densifying the transportation network as well.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > Denser housing is more expensive than less dense housing. I personally believe we should work on making commuting from farther distances more reliably fast. Is your housing cost comparison factoring that in? The cost of lengthy commutes and the infrastructure to support them? > In some cities this would mean building more highways, but that solution has been villified recently. For good reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
  - SomewhatLikely 3y ago
    Your first point is a good one, at some point the costs aren't worth it. Perhaps the solution there is toll roads instead of freeways because then a large portion of the costs are imposed on the users. Your second point relates to your first because induced demand doesn't say that increasing road capacity isn't useful. It tells us that now instead getting coffee one exit away, maybe you go to the better place two exits away. Was that extra capacity worth it? You'd have to tally a lot of intangibles to answer that. My premise is that the more rapidly people can get around the city the better demand can meet supply, reducing costs and improving quality. Maybe one way to answer the question would be to look at comparable cities where one has built their transportation routes out heavily and another where they haven't and compare various costs and quality of life measures.
- davidw 3y ago
  The cheapest housing in a lot of places is low-rise apartments because they're still cheap to build, and use land very efficiently. But they're illegal in huge swathes of most cities in the US. Having better transit systems would help a lot in the US, and frankly is pretty necessary in a lot of places. You just can't squeeze that many cars around. Transit is vastly more efficient in terms of the amount of people it can carry.

by davidw 3y ago

SomewhatLikely 3y ago

Denser housing is more expensive than less dense housing. I personally believe we should work on making commuting from farther distances more reliably fast. In some cities this would mean building more highways, but that solution has been villified recently. In more densely built out cities perhaps dedicated bus lanes that can help flip the equation from car based travel to bus based travel being the faster option. I'm not opposed to loosening codes to encourage organic growth of denser housing, but in summary I suppose I'm asking that we also take a serious look at extending and densifying the transportation network as well.

ceejayoz 3y ago
> Denser housing is more expensive than less dense housing. I personally believe we should work on making commuting from farther distances more reliably fast. Is your housing cost comparison factoring that in? The cost of lengthy commutes and the infrastructure to support them? > In some cities this would mean building more highways, but that solution has been villified recently. For good reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
- SomewhatLikely 3y ago
  Your first point is a good one, at some point the costs aren't worth it. Perhaps the solution there is toll roads instead of freeways because then a large portion of the costs are imposed on the users. Your second point relates to your first because induced demand doesn't say that increasing road capacity isn't useful. It tells us that now instead getting coffee one exit away, maybe you go to the better place two exits away. Was that extra capacity worth it? You'd have to tally a lot of intangibles to answer that. My premise is that the more rapidly people can get around the city the better demand can meet supply, reducing costs and improving quality. Maybe one way to answer the question would be to look at comparable cities where one has built their transportation routes out heavily and another where they haven't and compare various costs and quality of life measures.
davidw 3y ago
The cheapest housing in a lot of places is low-rise apartments because they're still cheap to build, and use land very efficiently. But they're illegal in huge swathes of most cities in the US. Having better transit systems would help a lot in the US, and frankly is pretty necessary in a lot of places. You just can't squeeze that many cars around. Transit is vastly more efficient in terms of the amount of people it can carry.