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1. Where are you going to build these? The neighbours will vote against you. Or you can build them in the middle of nowhere, meaning that they’re nowhere near a

1. Where are you going to build these? The neighbours will vote against you. Or you can build them in the middle of nowhere, meaning that they’re nowhere near any jobs. 2. This is appalling accommodation: no mains electricity, no heating, no running water, no sewerage. It is cheap, yes. People will assume that it’s part of a plan to _replace_ existing social housing, punish the working poor and generate tax cuts for the rich. (This is not your aim. But people are used to being misled by politicians and special interest groups. So many people assume the worst these days.) 3. If the state can get planning permission for this, why can’t the private sector get planning permission for higher quality housing?

dave4420 3y ago
The political economy seems not set up to tackle this problem. (There not being enough housing.) We need to incentivise people to support actions that will reduce the monetary value of their home. Solve that and we’re golden.
rich_sasha 3y ago
I'd add, as soon as you start doing it at some scale, it becomes harder. Because, sad but true, among homeless people you will find an over representation of people using drugs, with mental health problems, aggressive. I'm not painting everyone with the same brush! But as soon as you build a few 10s of those, you will have these issues. They will then affect other people in the area, both home owners and temporary tenants. Cambridge, UK is doing an experiment, where they put up little shelters, not totally dissimilar to this, but in homeopathic quantities: 3-4 at a time. It seems to be going well, but (a) that's still tiny number, and (b) I get the impression neighbours still don't like it.
autoexec 3y ago
> This is appalling accommodation: no mains electricity, no heating, no running water, no sewerage. It is cheap, Exactly. You can save a lot of money upfront by demanding cities allow shanty towns and slums but they'll only bring heavy costs and problems down the road that are far reaching and hard to clean up. The richest nations on Earth can more than afford to do better. Real, safe, sanitary housing is not impossible, it just requires investment. We should also be giving consideration to where we build that housing so that we're not hurting the local environment by pushing biocapacity too far. We need to quit hurting ourselves with stupid shortsighted cheap temporary workarounds that just cause more problems and focus on long term sustainable solutions.
- nihonthrowaway 3y ago
  It also requires decent morality Living in close quarters is impossible if someone insists on smoking fentanyl and using their Bluetooth speaker at 11.
RetroTechie 3y ago
Just "adequate" by modern but still simple standard would do. Think tiny home, 1-bedroom apartment, or Japan style capsule hotel with some shared amenities. But you know what? Even that isn't built. In the NL, around ~1960, many families had like 4, 5 children. Yet managed to live in 1- or 2-bedroom apartments. Fast forward to today: Many people live single, pairs, or 1-child families. And population has grown. Building on average more compact housing would seem appropiate. But what happens? In small town where I lived before, there were 5 recent home construction sites. Only one of those is modest sized social housing. How many? Around 30 apartments, in a ~80k municipality. The other 4 sites (several dozen homes each) are all large, freestanding or 2-under-1-roof homes with like 4 or 5 bedroom, large yard, garage/carport etc. You can be very sure that if you'd check a random house, chances are you'd find a single well-earning person, or a couple living there. Not rarely elderly & retired. Perhaps a 1-child family if lucky. Not big families with 4, 5 kids that you'd think is a logical match for homes like that. It's like that almost everywhere. What's built is not what's needed to house a growing population of singles or small families. Instead, what's built is built to serve the well-off, use home (or 2nd, or 3rd) as investment part of the population. Never mind professional landlords & real estate investment funds that drive up the price of housing for everyone. This is a political problem first & foremost. Solutions exist if the political will were there. But political establishment won't fix it until things get untennable for a large enough % of the population that it threatens their re-election.

dave4420 3y ago

The political economy seems not set up to tackle this problem. (There not being enough housing.) We need to incentivise people to support actions that will reduce the monetary value of their home. Solve that and we’re golden.

rich_sasha 3y ago

I'd add, as soon as you start doing it at some scale, it becomes harder. Because, sad but true, among homeless people you will find an over representation of people using drugs, with mental health problems, aggressive. I'm not painting everyone with the same brush! But as soon as you build a few 10s of those, you will have these issues. They will then affect other people in the area, both home owners and temporary tenants. Cambridge, UK is doing an experiment, where they put up little shelters, not totally dissimilar to this, but in homeopathic quantities: 3-4 at a time. It seems to be going well, but (a) that's still tiny number, and (b) I get the impression neighbours still don't like it.

autoexec 3y ago

> This is appalling accommodation: no mains electricity, no heating, no running water, no sewerage. It is cheap, Exactly. You can save a lot of money upfront by demanding cities allow shanty towns and slums but they'll only bring heavy costs and problems down the road that are far reaching and hard to clean up. The richest nations on Earth can more than afford to do better. Real, safe, sanitary housing is not impossible, it just requires investment. We should also be giving consideration to where we build that housing so that we're not hurting the local environment by pushing biocapacity too far. We need to quit hurting ourselves with stupid shortsighted cheap temporary workarounds that just cause more problems and focus on long term sustainable solutions.

nihonthrowaway 3y ago
It also requires decent morality Living in close quarters is impossible if someone insists on smoking fentanyl and using their Bluetooth speaker at 11.

RetroTechie 3y ago

Just "adequate" by modern but still simple standard would do. Think tiny home, 1-bedroom apartment, or Japan style capsule hotel with some shared amenities. But you know what? Even that isn't built. In the NL, around ~1960, many families had like 4, 5 children. Yet managed to live in 1- or 2-bedroom apartments. Fast forward to today: Many people live single, pairs, or 1-child families. And population has grown. Building on average more compact housing would seem appropiate. But what happens? In small town where I lived before, there were 5 recent home construction sites. Only one of those is modest sized social housing. How many? Around 30 apartments, in a ~80k municipality. The other 4 sites (several dozen homes each) are all large, freestanding or 2-under-1-roof homes with like 4 or 5 bedroom, large yard, garage/carport etc. You can be very sure that if you'd check a random house, chances are you'd find a single well-earning person, or a couple living there. Not rarely elderly & retired. Perhaps a 1-child family if lucky. Not big families with 4, 5 kids that you'd think is a logical match for homes like that. It's like that almost everywhere. What's built is not what's needed to house a growing population of singles or small families. Instead, what's built is built to serve the well-off, use home (or 2nd, or 3rd) as investment part of the population. Never mind professional landlords & real estate investment funds that drive up the price of housing for everyone. This is a political problem first & foremost. Solutions exist if the political will were there. But political establishment won't fix it until things get untennable for a large enough % of the population that it threatens their re-election.