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Then those people and their cities are screwed. They can make lots of noise about banning Airbnb or foreign real estate investment or whatever, but none of tha

by kelnos 2y ago

Then those people and their cities are screwed. They can make lots of noise about banning Airbnb or foreign real estate investment or whatever, but none of that won't solve their problems. There are only two possible solutions: 1. Build lots and lots of new housing, and then supply will meet demand. 2. Find ways to make your city crappier and less appealing, and then demand will drop, making the existing supply sufficient. And that's it. There are no other solutions that will work. San Francisco, for example, seems to be opting for #2, though even that isn't working too well to drop prices. (And I say that as a homeowner here.)

shiroiushi 2y ago
SanFran is definitely choosing #2, but the problem for people wanting affordable housing is that there's a ton of inertia that affects real estate prices, so it could take decades to make housing more affordable, unless some kind of collapse event happens. The bay area is still a huge employer in the tech sector, and companies can't just pick up and move on a whim. There's been some action to move away from that area (and California in general) over the last decade but most of it hasn't gone very far for various reasons. So people are still earning huge salaries, and paying enormous sums for rent in the area while having to put up with feces on the sidewalks and boarded-up stores, and this could go on for a long time. But there's probably a lot of other not-so-well-known mid-tier US cities where they don't have the huge inertia provided by the tech sector, and are going to turn into relative ghost towns much faster, as people look for more affordable places to live where there's also good jobs in their sector and a lifestyle or local culture they favor.
kelnos 2y ago
> but none of that won't solve their problems But none of that will solve their problems, I mean, of course. (I'm well outside the edit window, sigh.)

by kelnos 2y ago

shiroiushi 2y ago

SanFran is definitely choosing #2, but the problem for people wanting affordable housing is that there's a ton of inertia that affects real estate prices, so it could take decades to make housing more affordable, unless some kind of collapse event happens. The bay area is still a huge employer in the tech sector, and companies can't just pick up and move on a whim. There's been some action to move away from that area (and California in general) over the last decade but most of it hasn't gone very far for various reasons. So people are still earning huge salaries, and paying enormous sums for rent in the area while having to put up with feces on the sidewalks and boarded-up stores, and this could go on for a long time. But there's probably a lot of other not-so-well-known mid-tier US cities where they don't have the huge inertia provided by the tech sector, and are going to turn into relative ghost towns much faster, as people look for more affordable places to live where there's also good jobs in their sector and a lifestyle or local culture they favor.

kelnos 2y ago

> but none of that won't solve their problems But none of that will solve their problems, I mean, of course. (I'm well outside the edit window, sigh.)