5 ms·

What I do not understand is the mechanism people are referring to here. What political action was taken, which party voted? The entire western world shares the

What I do not understand is the mechanism people are referring to here. What political action was taken, which party voted? The entire western world shares the same problem, you'd think there would be exceptions if it was just politics.

mdorazio 3y ago
It's all parties acting in basically the same way. Examples from the US: 1) The mortgage interest tax deduction directly incentivizes people to buy rather than rent. 2) Property tax instead of land value tax removes incentives to build higher-density housing on valuable land. 3) Most importantly, local zoning regulations outright prohibit dense development of land in desirable areas. 4) Regional acts like California's absolutely insane Proposition 13 (enacted by the people themselves) massively distort markets and act as giant ladder pulling mechanisms against future generations. 5) Additional tax incentives exist for capital gains on the sale of houses, again incentivizing "house prices must go up" thinking. When your core voter base is Boomers who enjoy the benefits of all of these actions and no one cares about future generations because staying in office means campaigning for the next term, it creates a feedback loop between the voters who "got theirs" and the politicians who help them do it. It takes radical action, like Gov. Newsom unilaterally ending single-family zoning, to make any change.
- jjav 3y ago
  > Regional acts like California's absolutely insane Proposition 13 (enacted by the people themselves) massively distort markets and act as giant ladder pulling mechanisms against future generations. This is too simplistic, in order to criticize Prop 13 it is important to understand why it came to be. Not everyone can live in the same house, so there's always going to be winners (who get to live there) and losers (who want to but can't). Who should laws favor? Who should the law kick to the curb (methaphorically, or sometimes literally)? One argument is that the richest person should always win and whoever can't keep up on the wealth race, is out. But that argument doesn't sit well with a lot of society, turns out. If there's a big IPO in town and we suddenly have a few hundred new gazillionaires around, should they be able to kick out all the middle class people that called that neighborhood home for decades? If you call Prop 13 a "giant ladder pulling mechanisms against future generations" (and you're not entirely wrong), it is important to realize that the lack of something like Prop 13 is equally a giant ladder pulling mechanisms against current residents. Should the richest newcomer always win? Maybe? But it's not clear cut, so it's a complex issue.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    > giant ladder pulling mechanisms against current residents. Wouldn’t metaphorically they’d be already on top of wherever they were climbing using ladder? Also even with readjusted taxes they’d still be in a significantly better position because instead being “kicked to the curb” (which is nonsense) they be able to buy a house somewhere else with the significant payout they’d get after selling to those gazzilionaries. At the end of the day in situations you’re describing you’d want more/higher density housing which prop 13 (amongst other things) directly discourages. If real estate values in a given area increase significantly while it wouldn’t be fair from the perspective of the individual for the society as the whole it would be optimal for the inhabitants to sell their low-density homes and later rebuy apartments/etc. built on top of the same land.
    - jjav 3y ago
      > they be able to buy a house somewhere else Yes, after being forced out by the increased taxes they can move somewhere else and buy there. That's the debate right there. Should we as a society favor the rich newcomer and push out the long-term resident who now has to move somewhere else? Maybe they didn't want to move. Or should we favor the long-term resident to stay even that means the rich newcomer maybe can't find a place? Who is more important? It is disingenuous to simply rant against Prop 13 without acknowledging that there will be winners and losers both with and without Prop 13. It's just different people who get favored.
      - ffgjgf1 3y ago
        > Yes, after being forced out by the increased taxes they can move somewhere else and buy there I’d focus on the high vs low density part of the argument which you entirely ignored. > rant I’m not
  - scoofy 3y ago
    >This is too simplistic, in order to criticize Prop 13 it is important to understand why it came to be. It's that a bunch of middle class people in the post-war auto-boom bought up extremely valuable property adjacent to the ocean, and then when everyone could afford a car, they didn't want to redevelop their own land. There's no reason that justifies Prop 13 beyond NIMBYism. America decided it wanted suburbia instead of incremental development, so it banned multifamily housing. Then California realized that doing that would (obviously) force people out of their homes when property taxes started skyrocketing... so they just voted in a fucking seniority system. It was selfish, bad policy then, and it's selfish, bad policy today.
slyall 3y ago
Various Exceptions. Usually places where it is very easy to built or demand is low. Most US locations outside of the Big cities. Even some big cities like Houston.

mdorazio 3y ago

It's all parties acting in basically the same way. Examples from the US: 1) The mortgage interest tax deduction directly incentivizes people to buy rather than rent. 2) Property tax instead of land value tax removes incentives to build higher-density housing on valuable land. 3) Most importantly, local zoning regulations outright prohibit dense development of land in desirable areas. 4) Regional acts like California's absolutely insane Proposition 13 (enacted by the people themselves) massively distort markets and act as giant ladder pulling mechanisms against future generations. 5) Additional tax incentives exist for capital gains on the sale of houses, again incentivizing "house prices must go up" thinking. When your core voter base is Boomers who enjoy the benefits of all of these actions and no one cares about future generations because staying in office means campaigning for the next term, it creates a feedback loop between the voters who "got theirs" and the politicians who help them do it. It takes radical action, like Gov. Newsom unilaterally ending single-family zoning, to make any change.

jjav 3y ago
> Regional acts like California's absolutely insane Proposition 13 (enacted by the people themselves) massively distort markets and act as giant ladder pulling mechanisms against future generations. This is too simplistic, in order to criticize Prop 13 it is important to understand why it came to be. Not everyone can live in the same house, so there's always going to be winners (who get to live there) and losers (who want to but can't). Who should laws favor? Who should the law kick to the curb (methaphorically, or sometimes literally)? One argument is that the richest person should always win and whoever can't keep up on the wealth race, is out. But that argument doesn't sit well with a lot of society, turns out. If there's a big IPO in town and we suddenly have a few hundred new gazillionaires around, should they be able to kick out all the middle class people that called that neighborhood home for decades? If you call Prop 13 a "giant ladder pulling mechanisms against future generations" (and you're not entirely wrong), it is important to realize that the lack of something like Prop 13 is equally a giant ladder pulling mechanisms against current residents. Should the richest newcomer always win? Maybe? But it's not clear cut, so it's a complex issue.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  > giant ladder pulling mechanisms against current residents. Wouldn’t metaphorically they’d be already on top of wherever they were climbing using ladder? Also even with readjusted taxes they’d still be in a significantly better position because instead being “kicked to the curb” (which is nonsense) they be able to buy a house somewhere else with the significant payout they’d get after selling to those gazzilionaries. At the end of the day in situations you’re describing you’d want more/higher density housing which prop 13 (amongst other things) directly discourages. If real estate values in a given area increase significantly while it wouldn’t be fair from the perspective of the individual for the society as the whole it would be optimal for the inhabitants to sell their low-density homes and later rebuy apartments/etc. built on top of the same land.
  - jjav 3y ago
    > they be able to buy a house somewhere else Yes, after being forced out by the increased taxes they can move somewhere else and buy there. That's the debate right there. Should we as a society favor the rich newcomer and push out the long-term resident who now has to move somewhere else? Maybe they didn't want to move. Or should we favor the long-term resident to stay even that means the rich newcomer maybe can't find a place? Who is more important? It is disingenuous to simply rant against Prop 13 without acknowledging that there will be winners and losers both with and without Prop 13. It's just different people who get favored.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      > Yes, after being forced out by the increased taxes they can move somewhere else and buy there I’d focus on the high vs low density part of the argument which you entirely ignored. > rant I’m not
- scoofy 3y ago
  >This is too simplistic, in order to criticize Prop 13 it is important to understand why it came to be. It's that a bunch of middle class people in the post-war auto-boom bought up extremely valuable property adjacent to the ocean, and then when everyone could afford a car, they didn't want to redevelop their own land. There's no reason that justifies Prop 13 beyond NIMBYism. America decided it wanted suburbia instead of incremental development, so it banned multifamily housing. Then California realized that doing that would (obviously) force people out of their homes when property taxes started skyrocketing... so they just voted in a fucking seniority system. It was selfish, bad policy then, and it's selfish, bad policy today.

slyall 3y ago

Various Exceptions. Usually places where it is very easy to built or demand is low. Most US locations outside of the Big cities. Even some big cities like Houston.