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I can’t speak for other countries, but the main problem it always loops back to here is housing. People wouldn’t be nearly as angry at asylum seekers, internati

by jorvi 3y ago

I can’t speak for other countries, but the main problem it always loops back to here is housing. People wouldn’t be nearly as angry at asylum seekers, international students and wealthy tech workers if housing demand wasn’t so severely underaddressed at the moment. Just to give two examples: - a friend of mine is looking for single-person housing. Subsidized housing appartement have 500-700 people responding to them on each ad - ASML has started to underwrite a housing project for subsidized housing. Homes created: 130, of which 40 in the subsidized category. Unaddressed demand for subsidized housing in Veldhoven? 25 000. Even with 20 of those projects a year it would take 31 years to address the need.. I have less knowledge of the student housing market, but I assume it is a similar bloodbath. As far as asylum seekers go, they are a small but significant (~7%) part of the subsidized housing market. When supply gets that constricted, and you, your elder parents or your kids can’t get any housing, crab mentality takes over. You desperately try to find housing, and any other also-lookers become adversaries. None of this is the fault of those other people. The Dutch government basically tried to completely neo-liberate our housing market. Predictably, 15 years later it has ended up in absolute tatters, with special thanks to Stef Blok, a gaping asshole that glibly commented “I’m the only politician that can lay claim to having disbanded an entire ministry![1]” [1] Ministerie van Volkshuisvesting (Housing) Edit: there is a whole secondary shit sandwich of it having become virtually impossible to get a mortgage ever since the ECB raised interest. But the Dutch government has made having a mortgage financially much more attractive than renting. And our pension funds are deep into the real estate market, meaning the government can’t just decide to build massively to make housing prices implode.

StopHammoTime 3y ago
Yep, people don’t care about the economy if they’re living on the streets.
AlchemistCamp 3y ago
> The Dutch government basically tried to completely neo-liberate our housing market. So are the regulatory costs related to building new housing very low compared to someplace like Texas or Florida, then? If so, and if there’s clearly a lot of demand, why aren’t small Dutch businesses cashing in on the opportunity by building units at a rapid clip like their counterparts in Texas are? For example, look at what Austin has done in a decade: https://x.com/documentingatx/status/1764631328723460247 https://x.com/documentingatx/status/1764631328723460247
- jorvi 3y ago
  Austin has a population density of 1200/km2. Amsterdam sits at 5300/km2. We also have massively higher quality urban planning than basically anywhere in the world, especially the US. Check the YouTube channel NotJustBikes, who coincidentally actually moved here from Texas. I agree that build build build is the solution, but “just kill regulation and let the market fix it lol” doesn’t work. We tried that for the past 15 years and it has been an utter disaster. Even if we somehow stripped all but the barest safety regulations, all it would do is increase profit margin for speculators because there is a limited amount of constructions workers, and a bottleneck for training new workers. One thing in terms of Dutch zoning regulations I do have a seething hatred for is the stymying of high rises. It might preserve the quaint old European city atmosphere for tourists but it is making a terrible housing problem even worse.

by jorvi 3y ago

StopHammoTime 3y ago

Yep, people don’t care about the economy if they’re living on the streets.

AlchemistCamp 3y ago

> The Dutch government basically tried to completely neo-liberate our housing market. So are the regulatory costs related to building new housing very low compared to someplace like Texas or Florida, then? If so, and if there’s clearly a lot of demand, why aren’t small Dutch businesses cashing in on the opportunity by building units at a rapid clip like their counterparts in Texas are? For example, look at what Austin has done in a decade: https://x.com/documentingatx/status/1764631328723460247 https://x.com/documentingatx/status/1764631328723460247

jorvi 3y ago
Austin has a population density of 1200/km2. Amsterdam sits at 5300/km2. We also have massively higher quality urban planning than basically anywhere in the world, especially the US. Check the YouTube channel NotJustBikes, who coincidentally actually moved here from Texas. I agree that build build build is the solution, but “just kill regulation and let the market fix it lol” doesn’t work. We tried that for the past 15 years and it has been an utter disaster. Even if we somehow stripped all but the barest safety regulations, all it would do is increase profit margin for speculators because there is a limited amount of constructions workers, and a bottleneck for training new workers. One thing in terms of Dutch zoning regulations I do have a seething hatred for is the stymying of high rises. It might preserve the quaint old European city atmosphere for tourists but it is making a terrible housing problem even worse.