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> People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. In my experience, people "intuitively" jump to basically every co

> People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. In my experience, people "intuitively" jump to basically every conclusion besides this one. "Greedy landlords" or "[favorite scapegoat] collusion" are intuitive conclusions which are far more common than supply and demand. > Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? Yes they do, to varying degrees. The Anglo land use regime is a disaster.

NegativeLatency 2y ago
I only have firsthand experience in the US but it makes a lot of sense to me that the influence of colonization by Britain would cause all of the listed countries to have similar issues related to land use.
- downrightmike 2y ago
  Every state west of the Mississippi has at least 50% of all land owned by the Fed Gov and isn't used at all. We have plenty of land, that isn't a real problem.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Much of that are involves forests far away from where people would want to live anyway. Often without roads. When people say the issue is land, that usually implies a very particular smaller subset of land which is in proximity other populations, economic centers, and with certain features and infrastructure.
    - Qwertious 2y ago
      There are also plenty of houses in recently a abandoned ghost towns. The catch is that they were mostly abandoned due to lack of jobs nearby, meaning nobody could afford to live there.
  - sach1 2y ago
    I don't know that that is what they were claiming. Land use policy != Land availability. If it was, Russia would have ended homelessness 500 years ago.
  - supertimor 2y ago
    This is not actually true. There are only 5 states with federally owned land over 50% (Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Alaska and Oregon). Other states west of the Mississippi don’t necessarily have a large percentage of federal land. For instance, Texas only has 1.78% that is federally owned, Arkansas at 9.38%, Oklahoma at 1.59%, Kansas at 0.52%, and the Dakotas at 3.91% and 5.41%. In fact, there are only ten states with over 30% of federally owned land in the Union, granted they are all in the Western part of the States. 2024 https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/federal-land-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/federal-lan... These have a cleaner interface but are from 2018 https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/federal-land-by-state/ https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/federal-land-by-state/ https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state
alexpetralia 2y ago
Asian countries have a lot more people and build a lot more housing.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  And yet housing prices in much of Asia is still insane. The only market that is sane is sort of Japan with a falling population and an aversion to property speculation due to getting burned on their last property bubble. Chinese housing market is completely messed up, with turn over almost halted since the government won’t let prices fall no matter what, while they have overbuilt like crazy.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > And yet housing prices in much of Asia is still insane. They're generally lower than the US, despite having a higher population density. > Chinese housing market is completely messed up, with turn over almost halted since the government won’t let prices fall no matter what, while they have overbuilt like crazy. A place with the government policy objective of not allowing housing prices to decrease isn't much of an argument that supply and demand doesn't work in general. China is just its own kind of broken. Whereas prices are significantly lower in e.g. India, not just Japan.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      They are only lower in the sense that incomes are lower, and often not even that much lower than American cities even if incomes are ten times less. India, for example, if you take median home prices and median incomes, they don’t match at all. Yes, an American moving to India who retains an American salary somehow will find it affordable. The locals are struggling, much more than Americans could ever imagine. Japan housing wins by being smaller, and having less requirements like central heating, that would never fly in the west. We really should have that lower end housing, I agree, but then we are comparing apples to Orenjis. China is simply repeating what Japan went through in the 80s/90s. Maybe market sanity comes only after a period of crazy insanity.
Wytwwww 2y ago
> Yes they do, to varying degrees. The Anglo land use regime is a disaster. Population growth (which is mainly concentrated in relatively small number of areas) is not helping either. e.g. in European countries which have comparable population growth to Ireland/UK like Norway, Sweden, Belgium real estate prices have been increasing at a similar pace.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
jimbokun 2y ago
> "Greedy landlords" It's always amusing that this implies back when housing was cheap, landlords weren't greedy.
- ambicapter 2y ago
  Not really? It could also imply that they were greedy then, but less capable of acting on their greed.
  - jimbokun 2y ago
    Um, yes. That's what I was getting at.

NegativeLatency 2y ago

I only have firsthand experience in the US but it makes a lot of sense to me that the influence of colonization by Britain would cause all of the listed countries to have similar issues related to land use.

downrightmike 2y ago
Every state west of the Mississippi has at least 50% of all land owned by the Fed Gov and isn't used at all. We have plenty of land, that isn't a real problem.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  Much of that are involves forests far away from where people would want to live anyway. Often without roads. When people say the issue is land, that usually implies a very particular smaller subset of land which is in proximity other populations, economic centers, and with certain features and infrastructure.
  - Qwertious 2y ago
    There are also plenty of houses in recently a abandoned ghost towns. The catch is that they were mostly abandoned due to lack of jobs nearby, meaning nobody could afford to live there.
- sach1 2y ago
  I don't know that that is what they were claiming. Land use policy != Land availability. If it was, Russia would have ended homelessness 500 years ago.
- supertimor 2y ago
  This is not actually true. There are only 5 states with federally owned land over 50% (Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Alaska and Oregon). Other states west of the Mississippi don’t necessarily have a large percentage of federal land. For instance, Texas only has 1.78% that is federally owned, Arkansas at 9.38%, Oklahoma at 1.59%, Kansas at 0.52%, and the Dakotas at 3.91% and 5.41%. In fact, there are only ten states with over 30% of federally owned land in the Union, granted they are all in the Western part of the States. 2024 https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/federal-land-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/federal-lan... These have a cleaner interface but are from 2018 https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/federal-land-by-state/ https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/federal-land-by-state/ https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state

alexpetralia 2y ago

Asian countries have a lot more people and build a lot more housing.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
And yet housing prices in much of Asia is still insane. The only market that is sane is sort of Japan with a falling population and an aversion to property speculation due to getting burned on their last property bubble. Chinese housing market is completely messed up, with turn over almost halted since the government won’t let prices fall no matter what, while they have overbuilt like crazy.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > And yet housing prices in much of Asia is still insane. They're generally lower than the US, despite having a higher population density. > Chinese housing market is completely messed up, with turn over almost halted since the government won’t let prices fall no matter what, while they have overbuilt like crazy. A place with the government policy objective of not allowing housing prices to decrease isn't much of an argument that supply and demand doesn't work in general. China is just its own kind of broken. Whereas prices are significantly lower in e.g. India, not just Japan.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    They are only lower in the sense that incomes are lower, and often not even that much lower than American cities even if incomes are ten times less. India, for example, if you take median home prices and median incomes, they don’t match at all. Yes, an American moving to India who retains an American salary somehow will find it affordable. The locals are struggling, much more than Americans could ever imagine. Japan housing wins by being smaller, and having less requirements like central heating, that would never fly in the west. We really should have that lower end housing, I agree, but then we are comparing apples to Orenjis. China is simply repeating what Japan went through in the 80s/90s. Maybe market sanity comes only after a period of crazy insanity.

Wytwwww 2y ago

> Yes they do, to varying degrees. The Anglo land use regime is a disaster. Population growth (which is mainly concentrated in relatively small number of areas) is not helping either. e.g. in European countries which have comparable population growth to Ireland/UK like Norway, Sweden, Belgium real estate prices have been increasing at a similar pace.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

jimbokun 2y ago

> "Greedy landlords" It's always amusing that this implies back when housing was cheap, landlords weren't greedy.

ambicapter 2y ago
Not really? It could also imply that they were greedy then, but less capable of acting on their greed.
- jimbokun 2y ago
  Um, yes. That's what I was getting at.