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It's not that it won't be near "trendy". It's that it won't be near jobs. Look at median salary and workforce participation in places where houses cost $200k. Y

by mlsu 3y ago

It's not that it won't be near "trendy". It's that it won't be near jobs. Look at median salary and workforce participation in places where houses cost $200k. Your affordability calculation will be re-calibrated. Density is not a problem, it is a solution. Denser means more developed, more environmentally friendly, more productive, higher earning, more efficient. Increasing density increases wealth (pay a little, gain a lot). It almost always increases wealth faster than costs. The issue right now is that we are not allowed to build dense cities. We are not allowed to build single bedroom apartments where young, single workers need them to live next to new, productive jobs. We can only build single family homes and even then only at the periphery of huge cities. Massive swathes of downtowns are parking, highways, and single family houses -- when those should have been demolished and replaced with transit and dense towers long ago. The market is screaming for the opportunity to build us dense housing. All we have to do is grant it.

cyberax 3y ago
> Density is not a problem, it is a solution. Quite simply, it's not. Densification leads to cost increases. And "more developed"? LOL. I have analyzed the database of all real estate sales in the US for the last 25 years, and I have not found a single example where densification of a city led to lower prices. Not a single one. Even so-called "urbanists" admit that: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/change-my-mind-density-increases https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/change-my-mind-density... > The issue right now is that we are not allowed to build dense cities > The market is screaming for the opportunity to build us dense housing. All we have to do is grant it. Sorry. But you're spewing a bunch of horseshit. Some forms of densification are allowed pretty much everywhere. It has not led to lower prices even once.
- mcphage 3y ago
  I'm confused by what's being measured in some of these graphs. Based on this one: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe9014867-de1c-476f-81ea-d90ef433e691_590x443.png https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr... it looks like LA is the most dense city it the US? And based on this one: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F81d1b94a-62f1-45de-a2d1-b38ff1ddc01c_595x557.jpeg https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr... it seems that LA and NYC are equally dense, with SF more dense than both? I don't quite follow that—I'm not an urban planner, but I thought LA was famous for being very spread out, at least compared to NYC.
- mlsu 3y ago
  Of course the cost goes up. Densification does not lead to lower prices, because it increases wealth. People in denser areas make more money, because businesses in denser areas are more productive, because density is efficient and causes people to be more productive. This is a good thing. Affordability is not cost. The problem that we have now is that supply of housing is artificially constrained by bad policy, which allows some groups to capture the surplus. It is broadly not a coincidence that the groups that capture the surplus are the very same that set policy. It seems to me that "some forms of densification are allowed pretty much everywhere" is doing a lot of work for you. Can you elaborate? How easy is it to build an apartment building "anywhere?" [1] is an example of what I mean, but you can google "housing supply shortage USA" if you want general statistics. The conclusion is pretty much unanimous: it is immensely difficult to build anything, anywhere, which has caused a massive shortage in the supply of housing. Again: density, solution. If we allow buildings to be built, a developer will gladly come in and build buildings. Someone building a house for someone else to live in is, in general, a very good thing. Everyone participating in this conversation lives in a house that someone else built for them and made a profit in so doing, and it's a good thing, because that allows us to work and create value. [1] https://twitter.com/cafedujord/status/1692713611683066073 https://twitter.com/cafedujord/status/1692713611683066073
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    If that were true, then people in big dense urban areas would be paying less share of their income than in other areas. But I don’t think that’s true at all, at least for those making at or below the median. Dense cities are more desirable to live in, but that induces more demand, so even though the cities generate more wealth, the equilibrium between supply and demand still skews to people wanting to pay more of their income to bid on a limited supply of housing (even if that supply is larger, more demand is simply induced). We should allow more building (and denser building) in popular cities, but we shouldn’t do that blindly thinking that it would somehow make housing more affordable. You can google housing supply shortage for basically any country with a good economy, not just the USA. The only way to get around it is somehow suppress demand (low paying jobs in Berlin 20 years ago, or a declining population in Japan).

by mlsu 3y ago

cyberax 3y ago

> Density is not a problem, it is a solution. Quite simply, it's not. Densification leads to cost increases. And "more developed"? LOL. I have analyzed the database of all real estate sales in the US for the last 25 years, and I have not found a single example where densification of a city led to lower prices. Not a single one. Even so-called "urbanists" admit that: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/change-my-mind-density-increases https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/change-my-mind-density... > The issue right now is that we are not allowed to build dense cities > The market is screaming for the opportunity to build us dense housing. All we have to do is grant it. Sorry. But you're spewing a bunch of horseshit. Some forms of densification are allowed pretty much everywhere. It has not led to lower prices even once.

mcphage 3y ago
I'm confused by what's being measured in some of these graphs. Based on this one: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe9014867-de1c-476f-81ea-d90ef433e691_590x443.png https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr... it looks like LA is the most dense city it the US? And based on this one: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F81d1b94a-62f1-45de-a2d1-b38ff1ddc01c_595x557.jpeg https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr... it seems that LA and NYC are equally dense, with SF more dense than both? I don't quite follow that—I'm not an urban planner, but I thought LA was famous for being very spread out, at least compared to NYC.
mlsu 3y ago
Of course the cost goes up. Densification does not lead to lower prices, because it increases wealth. People in denser areas make more money, because businesses in denser areas are more productive, because density is efficient and causes people to be more productive. This is a good thing. Affordability is not cost. The problem that we have now is that supply of housing is artificially constrained by bad policy, which allows some groups to capture the surplus. It is broadly not a coincidence that the groups that capture the surplus are the very same that set policy. It seems to me that "some forms of densification are allowed pretty much everywhere" is doing a lot of work for you. Can you elaborate? How easy is it to build an apartment building "anywhere?" [1] is an example of what I mean, but you can google "housing supply shortage USA" if you want general statistics. The conclusion is pretty much unanimous: it is immensely difficult to build anything, anywhere, which has caused a massive shortage in the supply of housing. Again: density, solution. If we allow buildings to be built, a developer will gladly come in and build buildings. Someone building a house for someone else to live in is, in general, a very good thing. Everyone participating in this conversation lives in a house that someone else built for them and made a profit in so doing, and it's a good thing, because that allows us to work and create value. [1] https://twitter.com/cafedujord/status/1692713611683066073 https://twitter.com/cafedujord/status/1692713611683066073
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  If that were true, then people in big dense urban areas would be paying less share of their income than in other areas. But I don’t think that’s true at all, at least for those making at or below the median. Dense cities are more desirable to live in, but that induces more demand, so even though the cities generate more wealth, the equilibrium between supply and demand still skews to people wanting to pay more of their income to bid on a limited supply of housing (even if that supply is larger, more demand is simply induced). We should allow more building (and denser building) in popular cities, but we shouldn’t do that blindly thinking that it would somehow make housing more affordable. You can google housing supply shortage for basically any country with a good economy, not just the USA. The only way to get around it is somehow suppress demand (low paying jobs in Berlin 20 years ago, or a declining population in Japan).