4 ms·

"Not enough is legal, and not enough is built as a result." It's a preferences and distribution problem. There are plenty of places with vacancies or where it

"Not enough is legal, and not enough is built as a result." It's a preferences and distribution problem. There are plenty of places with vacancies or where it is legal and practical to build. The problem is people don't want to live there or it has too few jobs. If the market works the way it should, then people should shift out of the tighter areas and into the looser areas, reaching something closer to an equilibrium. The problem is many of the companies that had easy money and extreme growth concentrated it one region and skewed the market. Most of the US does not have a housing issue as nationally housing units exceed "households". We could accommodate everyone, but it's largely a distribution and preferences issue. https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/are-there-more-homes-people-united-states https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/are-there-more-homes-people...

riku_iki 3y ago
> then people should shift out of the tighter areas and into the looser areas, reaching something closer to an equilibrium thats if infrastructure(roads, airports, hospitals, grid, etc) will appear there
- giantg2 3y ago
  There are plenty of places with infrastructure that also have available land within about an hour or so from an airport. Many of those places have decent hospitals with great hospitals (for specialists) a reasonable drive away. Those decent hospitals would likely get better if they had employed patients to reduce the percentage of their patients on Medicare and Medicaid (both low reimbursing).
bsder 3y ago
> If the market works the way it should, then people should shift out of the tighter areas and into the looser areas, reaching something closer to an equilibrium. The problem is that households require two wage earners. Consequently, it is very difficult for a family to move since both earners have to find better jobs simultaneously. One of the reasons to stay in the overpriced areas is that when one person loses a job, they can get another job without uprooting the whole family.
- giantg2 3y ago
  "Consequently, it is very difficult for a family to move since both earners have to find better jobs simultaneously." If cost of living is significantly lower, they don't have to be better. My whole comment was about job distribution. What are we doing to address it? Do the mega corp leaders not see the social and business value in opening offices in smaller cities?
  - bsder 3y ago
    The maximum cost of living differential is something like +25% (NYC) to -25% (Beaumont, TX). Most differentials are much smaller. "Cheap" places are no longer very much cheaper. Cost of living changes are no longer extreme enough to offset the loss of a wage earner. > Do the mega corp leaders not see the social and business value in opening offices in smaller cities? Um, no? The difference between opening an office in San Jose and one in Pittsburgh is quite large, for example. Your connectivity due to air travel is much worse. Your personal networking is much worse. etc. It was the former CTO of Modcloth who talked about how having the programmers in Pittsburgh was great but that they needed to park the executives in the Bay Area.
    - giantg2 3y ago
      Google actually has an office in Pittsburgh. That's the more or less the type of expansion I'm talking about - satellite offices for the large corps. It's still an international airport, even if the schedule isn't as robust. The emphasis on in-person personal networking, and personal networking in general, is atrocious. Personal networking and the requirement to so it in person is a huge factor in many biases and discrimination. It's only going to get worse as the group-think and physical concentration increases while the job market gets worse. Also, 25% is a big difference. I think we have to compare the commutable areas as well. Some places like NYC and SF do not have much cheaper areas in a reasonable commute. Other areas can have much cheaper areas in a reasonable commute. Many costs are largely the same due to the national brands - cars, electronics, appliances, etc. But things like housing can be massively different. An apartment in a commutable suburb can be close to 50% of what it is downtown in many cities. It's no secret that the salaries and property costs are extremely above average in the bay area.
jltsiren 3y ago
There are a lot of homes in every country that are essentially worthless. You can live in them, and they may even be in good condition. But if you try to sell them, you probably can't find anyone willing to pay real money for them. Because very few people have a reason to live in that area. And good luck if you need to borrow money to renovate the home. Then there are areas where many people have a reason to live in. Imagine a highly educated couple. At least one of them probably works in a field where fully remote work is not possible. When they choose where they want to live, they likely prioritize areas with many potential employers within an easy commute. If they take the risk and move to a small city with only 1-2 relevant employers and it doesn't work out, they're in trouble. And because educated people move to larger cities, businesses that need talent also concentrate there. Homes as such are not worth much. Almost all of the value is in the location. And most locations are not worth much.
- cdchn 3y ago
  Transformation to information economies really re-centered urban areas as well. People used to flee from urban areas (and for reasons like crime) now they're flowing in the opposite direction. In the US though I see a lot of attitude for "ugh who wants to live in a building with people, I want huge lawns where I don't have to see my neighbors on the end of a cul-de-sac with no traffic. I want to live in a town thats as far from 'walkable' as possible." So many people I come across especially when talking about how housing has a supply-side problem and needs to build more with better density and access to transit.
- giantg2 3y ago
  And why aren't we doing anything to address that distribution? If the employers are having to lay exorbitant salaries so people can afford housing, shouldn't they be looking at opting offices in other cities to reduce their cost? If not, the system is broken and the leaders are poor. In my opinion the leaders should be looking where they are creating jobs as part of their societal duties, maybe even put it under DEI (as worthless as the DEI programs tend to turn out in practice, maybe not).
  - jltsiren 3y ago
RangerScience 3y ago
One consideration is that, from a legal rights and social inclusion perspective, places aren’t fungible. The market can’t make a culturally inhospitable place welcoming.
- ben_w 3y ago
  It's not just culture. Not being American, I don't know what's really up with Detroit, but I categorise it as "like Blackpool" in that it was an economic powerhouse and then industry shifted and it became poor; there's now a lot of empty (or at least cheap) homes.
- giantg2 3y ago
  "One consideration is that, from a legal rights and social inclusion perspective, places aren’t fungible." You do understand that works both ways? If you reverse the areas you're thinking of, there are people who prefer the rights or social environment in the opposite direction. Shouldn't we be trying to bring similar opportunities to all social groups? If we want to look at how this turns out, take a look at Native American reservations.
  - RangerScience 3y ago
    Edit 3: Originally I'd replied about population demographics and migration; @giantg2 has a good reply to that, which you can see below. In reviewing the conversation, I got mentally stuck on the comparisions to reservations, because I think it's a severely fucked up comparison. But saying that alone isn't a helpful or effective conversation, so - > Shouldn't we be trying to bring similar opportunities to all social groups? If we want to look at how this turns out, take a look at Native American reservations. In terms of "should we be trying to bring..." - yeah, more or less, yeah, we should. The issue, for me, comes first from trying to say that the social group that is a reservation is the same kind of social group that is a disappearing small town; second, that "bring[ing] similar opportunities" to both would look similar (ye olde equality/equity conversation), and lastly that a meaningful comparison of outcomes can be made between the polities, due to, you know, all the ethnic cleansing (Trail of Tears, etc). But, that's a a hard conversation to have, or to continue, and it's based off of me making a lot of assumptions about what comparison actually is trying to be made. So, to be constructive about it: > If we want to look at how this turns out, take a look at Native American reservations. Can you walk me through this? What are you seeing as the outcome, and why do you think these polities are comparable?

riku_iki 3y ago

> then people should shift out of the tighter areas and into the looser areas, reaching something closer to an equilibrium thats if infrastructure(roads, airports, hospitals, grid, etc) will appear there

giantg2 3y ago
There are plenty of places with infrastructure that also have available land within about an hour or so from an airport. Many of those places have decent hospitals with great hospitals (for specialists) a reasonable drive away. Those decent hospitals would likely get better if they had employed patients to reduce the percentage of their patients on Medicare and Medicaid (both low reimbursing).

bsder 3y ago

> If the market works the way it should, then people should shift out of the tighter areas and into the looser areas, reaching something closer to an equilibrium. The problem is that households require two wage earners. Consequently, it is very difficult for a family to move since both earners have to find better jobs simultaneously. One of the reasons to stay in the overpriced areas is that when one person loses a job, they can get another job without uprooting the whole family.

giantg2 3y ago
"Consequently, it is very difficult for a family to move since both earners have to find better jobs simultaneously." If cost of living is significantly lower, they don't have to be better. My whole comment was about job distribution. What are we doing to address it? Do the mega corp leaders not see the social and business value in opening offices in smaller cities?
- bsder 3y ago
  The maximum cost of living differential is something like +25% (NYC) to -25% (Beaumont, TX). Most differentials are much smaller. "Cheap" places are no longer very much cheaper. Cost of living changes are no longer extreme enough to offset the loss of a wage earner. > Do the mega corp leaders not see the social and business value in opening offices in smaller cities? Um, no? The difference between opening an office in San Jose and one in Pittsburgh is quite large, for example. Your connectivity due to air travel is much worse. Your personal networking is much worse. etc. It was the former CTO of Modcloth who talked about how having the programmers in Pittsburgh was great but that they needed to park the executives in the Bay Area.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    Google actually has an office in Pittsburgh. That's the more or less the type of expansion I'm talking about - satellite offices for the large corps. It's still an international airport, even if the schedule isn't as robust. The emphasis on in-person personal networking, and personal networking in general, is atrocious. Personal networking and the requirement to so it in person is a huge factor in many biases and discrimination. It's only going to get worse as the group-think and physical concentration increases while the job market gets worse. Also, 25% is a big difference. I think we have to compare the commutable areas as well. Some places like NYC and SF do not have much cheaper areas in a reasonable commute. Other areas can have much cheaper areas in a reasonable commute. Many costs are largely the same due to the national brands - cars, electronics, appliances, etc. But things like housing can be massively different. An apartment in a commutable suburb can be close to 50% of what it is downtown in many cities. It's no secret that the salaries and property costs are extremely above average in the bay area.

jltsiren 3y ago

There are a lot of homes in every country that are essentially worthless. You can live in them, and they may even be in good condition. But if you try to sell them, you probably can't find anyone willing to pay real money for them. Because very few people have a reason to live in that area. And good luck if you need to borrow money to renovate the home. Then there are areas where many people have a reason to live in. Imagine a highly educated couple. At least one of them probably works in a field where fully remote work is not possible. When they choose where they want to live, they likely prioritize areas with many potential employers within an easy commute. If they take the risk and move to a small city with only 1-2 relevant employers and it doesn't work out, they're in trouble. And because educated people move to larger cities, businesses that need talent also concentrate there. Homes as such are not worth much. Almost all of the value is in the location. And most locations are not worth much.

cdchn 3y ago
Transformation to information economies really re-centered urban areas as well. People used to flee from urban areas (and for reasons like crime) now they're flowing in the opposite direction. In the US though I see a lot of attitude for "ugh who wants to live in a building with people, I want huge lawns where I don't have to see my neighbors on the end of a cul-de-sac with no traffic. I want to live in a town thats as far from 'walkable' as possible." So many people I come across especially when talking about how housing has a supply-side problem and needs to build more with better density and access to transit.
giantg2 3y ago
And why aren't we doing anything to address that distribution? If the employers are having to lay exorbitant salaries so people can afford housing, shouldn't they be looking at opting offices in other cities to reduce their cost? If not, the system is broken and the leaders are poor. In my opinion the leaders should be looking where they are creating jobs as part of their societal duties, maybe even put it under DEI (as worthless as the DEI programs tend to turn out in practice, maybe not).
- jltsiren 3y ago

RangerScience 3y ago

One consideration is that, from a legal rights and social inclusion perspective, places aren’t fungible. The market can’t make a culturally inhospitable place welcoming.

ben_w 3y ago
It's not just culture. Not being American, I don't know what's really up with Detroit, but I categorise it as "like Blackpool" in that it was an economic powerhouse and then industry shifted and it became poor; there's now a lot of empty (or at least cheap) homes.
giantg2 3y ago
"One consideration is that, from a legal rights and social inclusion perspective, places aren’t fungible." You do understand that works both ways? If you reverse the areas you're thinking of, there are people who prefer the rights or social environment in the opposite direction. Shouldn't we be trying to bring similar opportunities to all social groups? If we want to look at how this turns out, take a look at Native American reservations.
- RangerScience 3y ago
  Edit 3: Originally I'd replied about population demographics and migration; @giantg2 has a good reply to that, which you can see below. In reviewing the conversation, I got mentally stuck on the comparisions to reservations, because I think it's a severely fucked up comparison. But saying that alone isn't a helpful or effective conversation, so - > Shouldn't we be trying to bring similar opportunities to all social groups? If we want to look at how this turns out, take a look at Native American reservations. In terms of "should we be trying to bring..." - yeah, more or less, yeah, we should. The issue, for me, comes first from trying to say that the social group that is a reservation is the same kind of social group that is a disappearing small town; second, that "bring[ing] similar opportunities" to both would look similar (ye olde equality/equity conversation), and lastly that a meaningful comparison of outcomes can be made between the polities, due to, you know, all the ethnic cleansing (Trail of Tears, etc). But, that's a a hard conversation to have, or to continue, and it's based off of me making a lot of assumptions about what comparison actually is trying to be made. So, to be constructive about it: > If we want to look at how this turns out, take a look at Native American reservations. Can you walk me through this? What are you seeing as the outcome, and why do you think these polities are comparable?