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Looks like this housing is built outside of town, so it might actually work! One things cities do wrong is trying to house homeless people near downtown. It's d

Looks like this housing is built outside of town, so it might actually work! One things cities do wrong is trying to house homeless people near downtown. It's dramatically more expensive to do it there, so there will never be enough housing or will to pay for it. The housing that was built for "low income artists to be able to live here" was even more of a joke. A bunch of condos downtown that were priced uncomfortably high for entry level tech workers. Nothing say artists have to live downtown! City planners just can't think outside the downtown box.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
This is a funny thing. I recently looked into living in a central location downtown, and all the rents are far beyond my means as a Section 8 participant. But if you put "affordable housing" way out in the boonies, then how do residents access any services at a reasonable price? If we need to run all over town for stuff, why live in a God-forsaken location like that? Downtown in my metro area is not only a transit hub, but a central location for goods and services. I could easily walk around, catch a bus or an eScooter, and have everything I want within mere blocks. Instead, these "affordable housing" developments are in suburbs where you've got one bus line and a Starbucks 3 blocks away, and your grocery stores are nowhere to be found, and your place of employment is way across town. Just not making sense.
- PBnFlash 3y ago
  One upside of minimum wage is lots of places have competitive salaries
- thriftwy 3y ago
  I'm just not sure how you get these problems unironically. What's so hard about having a grocery store and reliable transit to downtown? The notorious St. Petersburg's Murino district is located outside city's boundary but it has a metro station, several grocery stores, bakeries, bars and other shops. It's not like US poor have no disposable income at all. Kudrovo has worse transit options but features an absolutely huge mall you can walk to. Of course, if having choice everybody would prefer living in walkable distance to downtown, this is why normally it is so expensive, and you can only make it affordable by making it a miserable experience.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    I don't know, but many cities do not have reliable transit. Hourly busses that stop after 9pm doesn't help at all. And thars the case for a lot of the western part of the US. Also, thst grocery store may not exactly be profitable and be worth keeping up. Especially if Walmart or something use to station there and then left.
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      I believe this is an unique US situation where you are unable to scale down Walmart. Just make a Walmart Lite with no jeans or TVs but only food. Then these can be built practically everywhere, offering the same competitive prices. There are half dozen of chains like this in Russia and they often open on the other sides of same street.
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        Sounds good to me, but that's the issue with relying on corporate autocracies for societal need. Wal-Mart's goals aren't necessarily aligned with society, so unless some government contract is made there's no incentive for a Walmart-Lite
      - porkbeer 3y ago
        They have these, they are Dollar General and they are gutting rural and low income area mom and pops. They are not a better solution.
        wolverine876 3y ago
        Also, they have poor selection, especially of healthy foods.
      - lotsoweiners 3y ago
        Those have already existed in the US for a decade or two. They are called Walmart Neighborhood Market and they are basically just a regular grocery store.
mulmen 3y ago
Hmm, when I hear “artist housing” I always assumed they meant “interesting people who make music and maybe paint”. But “interesting” is too subjective to be real. Freestyle watercolor is no foundation of an economy. We should not judge other humans by their ability to make rent. Some of my best friends struggle to do that. But for a city making rent is all that really matters. They don’t care if you literally create art. They care if you buy coffee and pay sales tax. So, do city planners look at “artists” as a revenue stream? This is the same demographic that stereotypically spends the better part of a million bucks on an undergraduate education with no expectation of return. Does “artist” mean “liberal artist”? As in “willing and able to buy in to and comply with a middle class lifestyle?”
- roughly 3y ago
  There's always a funny tension on the city trying to draw in artists to make a downtown area more palatable, too, in that good artists and good art is often intended as a challenge to the status quo - the goal is to make people uncomfortable. I say this as a Berkeley-living lefty: the left often seems to espouse policies whose practical outcomes far exceed their actual appetite for discomfort or willingness to engage with real diversity. (Standard HN disclaimer: if the above doesn't apply to you, it doesn't apply to you - but look me in the eye and tell me you don't know what I'm talking about.)
  - noirbot 3y ago
    This does strike me as an innate tension to all of this. I grew up in a really diverse neighborhood, and at this point, as a decently successful person, if I moved back into that neighborhood, folks at the orgs I used to volunteer with would probably decry me as gentrifying the area. I've seen this with my own family, who have lived in the neighborhood for decades, but because it's now a majority minority neighborhood, they're seen with skepticism, even by people who moved there recently and are often more well-off than them. I'm unsure at this point if I'm supposed to want to live in a diverse area, or if doing so would mean I'm ruining the area and driving out the diversity. What is the amount I'm supposed to want to engage in another culture without imposing on an "authentic" space for that community or appropriating it. It's a really tight line to walk. Is it reasonable to try to have a community of people who make 100k+, and people who think it's generally unhealthy for anyone to make that much money?
charlie0 3y ago
What, building outside the expensive areas of a city? That would just make too much sense. The politicians give tax breaks and in many times, outright pays $$$$$ for these private services to those in need. The owners of those services in turn donate part of the profits back to the politicians. It's just a hidden way for the politicians to transfer wealth from the tax-payer base back to themselves in a clever cloak of woke-ness. I mean, who hasn't heard of the 700K+ single bedroom houses for the needy in Los Angeles. I'm sure this happens everywhere. It's really unfortunate, and brazen tbh, that such fleecing occurs in plain site. Meanwhile, those who really need the help don't get it because it was never really about them. It was just about the optics. https://ktla.com/news/los-angeles-is-spending-up-to-837000-to-house-a-single-homeless-person/ https://ktla.com/news/los-angeles-is-spending-up-to-837000-t...
wolverine876 3y ago
People, including unhoused ones and artistic ones, need to live near downtown because that's where jobs and services are, including needed social services, and transportation to the rest of the city, as well as community. In typical cities, the art galleries, museums, schools, etc. are downtown. If you have a family and spend your time with them and at work, a home away from the city center makes sense. If you need to do a lot with people outside your home, then you want to be where the people are.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  Then let's build something that's appropriate for the location with the highest land price and not tiny shoeboxes.
- cyberax 3y ago
  Well, provide jobs outside of misery centrals (downtowns). This is coincidentally the ONLY way that will actually help housing affordability.
  - yreg 3y ago
    And public transport.
    - cyberax 3y ago
      Nope. Building transit decreases affordability. Sad but true.
      - yreg 3y ago
        Maybe that affordability can be increased again by not building plumbing?
        cyberax 3y ago
        You jest, but the article is proposing exactly that.
JeffSnazz 3y ago
> One things cities do wrong is trying to house homeless people near downtown. It's pretty critical to build housing where there's actually need, or it won't do much.
- cyberax 3y ago
  BS. New housing in dense centers only increase the overall amount of human misery. It sucks jobs away, and it drives up the housing cost.
  - JeffSnazz 3y ago
    Well if you build them elsewhere you're not going to do much about the unhoused population downtown. That just leads to using police violence to forcibly segregate by class.... Anyway, housing is kind of fucked so long as americans consider it a private investment rather than a common good. How do you think we got in this mess to begin with?
    - mulmen 3y ago
      > Anyway, housing is kind of fucked so long as americans consider it a private investment rather than a common good. JeffSnazz for president 2024.
    - cyberax 3y ago
      > Well if you build them elsewhere you're not going to do much about the unhoused population downtown. Newsflash: neither would tiny houses. On the West Coast, the downtown homeless population is almost 100% drug addicts these days. No amount of housing can fix that. And for the sane population (i.e. not fentanyl addicts), being AWAY from downtowns is a blessing. > Anyway, housing is kind of fucked so long as americans consider it a private investment rather than a common good. How do you think we got in this mess to begin with? We stopped building highways, and switched from Moses' model of building enough roads to the "urbanist" model. Where we put in transit that makes it easy to go to the downtown ONLY.
      - deleted 3y ago

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago

This is a funny thing. I recently looked into living in a central location downtown, and all the rents are far beyond my means as a Section 8 participant. But if you put "affordable housing" way out in the boonies, then how do residents access any services at a reasonable price? If we need to run all over town for stuff, why live in a God-forsaken location like that? Downtown in my metro area is not only a transit hub, but a central location for goods and services. I could easily walk around, catch a bus or an eScooter, and have everything I want within mere blocks. Instead, these "affordable housing" developments are in suburbs where you've got one bus line and a Starbucks 3 blocks away, and your grocery stores are nowhere to be found, and your place of employment is way across town. Just not making sense.

PBnFlash 3y ago
One upside of minimum wage is lots of places have competitive salaries
thriftwy 3y ago
I'm just not sure how you get these problems unironically. What's so hard about having a grocery store and reliable transit to downtown? The notorious St. Petersburg's Murino district is located outside city's boundary but it has a metro station, several grocery stores, bakeries, bars and other shops. It's not like US poor have no disposable income at all. Kudrovo has worse transit options but features an absolutely huge mall you can walk to. Of course, if having choice everybody would prefer living in walkable distance to downtown, this is why normally it is so expensive, and you can only make it affordable by making it a miserable experience.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  I don't know, but many cities do not have reliable transit. Hourly busses that stop after 9pm doesn't help at all. And thars the case for a lot of the western part of the US. Also, thst grocery store may not exactly be profitable and be worth keeping up. Especially if Walmart or something use to station there and then left.
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    I believe this is an unique US situation where you are unable to scale down Walmart. Just make a Walmart Lite with no jeans or TVs but only food. Then these can be built practically everywhere, offering the same competitive prices. There are half dozen of chains like this in Russia and they often open on the other sides of same street.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      Sounds good to me, but that's the issue with relying on corporate autocracies for societal need. Wal-Mart's goals aren't necessarily aligned with society, so unless some government contract is made there's no incentive for a Walmart-Lite
    - porkbeer 3y ago
      They have these, they are Dollar General and they are gutting rural and low income area mom and pops. They are not a better solution.
      - wolverine876 3y ago
        Also, they have poor selection, especially of healthy foods.
    - lotsoweiners 3y ago
      Those have already existed in the US for a decade or two. They are called Walmart Neighborhood Market and they are basically just a regular grocery store.

mulmen 3y ago

Hmm, when I hear “artist housing” I always assumed they meant “interesting people who make music and maybe paint”. But “interesting” is too subjective to be real. Freestyle watercolor is no foundation of an economy. We should not judge other humans by their ability to make rent. Some of my best friends struggle to do that. But for a city making rent is all that really matters. They don’t care if you literally create art. They care if you buy coffee and pay sales tax. So, do city planners look at “artists” as a revenue stream? This is the same demographic that stereotypically spends the better part of a million bucks on an undergraduate education with no expectation of return. Does “artist” mean “liberal artist”? As in “willing and able to buy in to and comply with a middle class lifestyle?”

roughly 3y ago
There's always a funny tension on the city trying to draw in artists to make a downtown area more palatable, too, in that good artists and good art is often intended as a challenge to the status quo - the goal is to make people uncomfortable. I say this as a Berkeley-living lefty: the left often seems to espouse policies whose practical outcomes far exceed their actual appetite for discomfort or willingness to engage with real diversity. (Standard HN disclaimer: if the above doesn't apply to you, it doesn't apply to you - but look me in the eye and tell me you don't know what I'm talking about.)
- noirbot 3y ago
  This does strike me as an innate tension to all of this. I grew up in a really diverse neighborhood, and at this point, as a decently successful person, if I moved back into that neighborhood, folks at the orgs I used to volunteer with would probably decry me as gentrifying the area. I've seen this with my own family, who have lived in the neighborhood for decades, but because it's now a majority minority neighborhood, they're seen with skepticism, even by people who moved there recently and are often more well-off than them. I'm unsure at this point if I'm supposed to want to live in a diverse area, or if doing so would mean I'm ruining the area and driving out the diversity. What is the amount I'm supposed to want to engage in another culture without imposing on an "authentic" space for that community or appropriating it. It's a really tight line to walk. Is it reasonable to try to have a community of people who make 100k+, and people who think it's generally unhealthy for anyone to make that much money?

charlie0 3y ago

What, building outside the expensive areas of a city? That would just make too much sense. The politicians give tax breaks and in many times, outright pays $$$$$ for these private services to those in need. The owners of those services in turn donate part of the profits back to the politicians. It's just a hidden way for the politicians to transfer wealth from the tax-payer base back to themselves in a clever cloak of woke-ness. I mean, who hasn't heard of the 700K+ single bedroom houses for the needy in Los Angeles. I'm sure this happens everywhere. It's really unfortunate, and brazen tbh, that such fleecing occurs in plain site. Meanwhile, those who really need the help don't get it because it was never really about them. It was just about the optics. https://ktla.com/news/los-angeles-is-spending-up-to-837000-to-house-a-single-homeless-person/ https://ktla.com/news/los-angeles-is-spending-up-to-837000-t...

wolverine876 3y ago

People, including unhoused ones and artistic ones, need to live near downtown because that's where jobs and services are, including needed social services, and transportation to the rest of the city, as well as community. In typical cities, the art galleries, museums, schools, etc. are downtown. If you have a family and spend your time with them and at work, a home away from the city center makes sense. If you need to do a lot with people outside your home, then you want to be where the people are.

ajmurmann 3y ago
Then let's build something that's appropriate for the location with the highest land price and not tiny shoeboxes.
cyberax 3y ago
Well, provide jobs outside of misery centrals (downtowns). This is coincidentally the ONLY way that will actually help housing affordability.
- yreg 3y ago
  And public transport.
  - cyberax 3y ago
    Nope. Building transit decreases affordability. Sad but true.
    - yreg 3y ago
      Maybe that affordability can be increased again by not building plumbing?
      - cyberax 3y ago
        You jest, but the article is proposing exactly that.

JeffSnazz 3y ago

> One things cities do wrong is trying to house homeless people near downtown. It's pretty critical to build housing where there's actually need, or it won't do much.

cyberax 3y ago
BS. New housing in dense centers only increase the overall amount of human misery. It sucks jobs away, and it drives up the housing cost.
- JeffSnazz 3y ago
  Well if you build them elsewhere you're not going to do much about the unhoused population downtown. That just leads to using police violence to forcibly segregate by class.... Anyway, housing is kind of fucked so long as americans consider it a private investment rather than a common good. How do you think we got in this mess to begin with?
  - mulmen 3y ago
    > Anyway, housing is kind of fucked so long as americans consider it a private investment rather than a common good. JeffSnazz for president 2024.
  - cyberax 3y ago
    > Well if you build them elsewhere you're not going to do much about the unhoused population downtown. Newsflash: neither would tiny houses. On the West Coast, the downtown homeless population is almost 100% drug addicts these days. No amount of housing can fix that. And for the sane population (i.e. not fentanyl addicts), being AWAY from downtowns is a blessing. > Anyway, housing is kind of fucked so long as americans consider it a private investment rather than a common good. How do you think we got in this mess to begin with? We stopped building highways, and switched from Moses' model of building enough roads to the "urbanist" model. Where we put in transit that makes it easy to go to the downtown ONLY.
    - deleted 3y ago