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> As much as people wish for this, people would hate living in apartments hastily carved from office towers. There are no bad products, only bad prices. Meanw

> As much as people wish for this, people would hate living in apartments hastily carved from office towers. There are no bad products, only bad prices. Meanwhile availability of mildly undesirable but still livable apartments would lower rents overall through supply and demand, which benefits everybody except landlords. > I’m actually not convinced though that there’s as much point in drastically expanding the amount of downtown housing stock, while simultaneously deprecating the idea of actually going to an office. The current problem is that building towers in the suburbs is prohibited by law and there isn't a lot of suitable empty land, so your options are to build housing in the city where it's allowed or not at all. Now, if you can get the suburbs rezoned for taller buildings, go right ahead, but in the meantime people are willing to take what they can get.

voisin 2y ago
> There are no bad products, only bad prices. This sounds nice as a bumper sticker but have you actually given this much thought and concluded it is true? It seems totally incorrect to me.
- digging 2y ago
  You say that, but could you really resist pallets of assorted styrofoam misprints at $0.05/ton??
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  Suppose you have a windowless room in the interior of an office tower next to the mechanical room which constantly makes a lot of noise. You're not going to get as much for this as a penthouse apartment, but somebody is still going to pay you for it as a storage room. Suppose you have some metal chairs. They're so poorly designed that if anyone were to actually sit in one it would immediately break in half and injure them. That doesn't mean they're worthless, it mean they're scrap metal, which is commercially valuable. Suppose you have some industrial waste. Literally no one wants it and in fact you would have to pay someone to dispose of it for you. Therefore, it has a negative price. Negative prices are prices. The disposal company likes them very much. Their whole business is to buy this product from people for a negative amount of money. There are no bad products, only bad prices.

voisin 2y ago

> There are no bad products, only bad prices. This sounds nice as a bumper sticker but have you actually given this much thought and concluded it is true? It seems totally incorrect to me.

digging 2y ago
You say that, but could you really resist pallets of assorted styrofoam misprints at $0.05/ton??
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
Suppose you have a windowless room in the interior of an office tower next to the mechanical room which constantly makes a lot of noise. You're not going to get as much for this as a penthouse apartment, but somebody is still going to pay you for it as a storage room. Suppose you have some metal chairs. They're so poorly designed that if anyone were to actually sit in one it would immediately break in half and injure them. That doesn't mean they're worthless, it mean they're scrap metal, which is commercially valuable. Suppose you have some industrial waste. Literally no one wants it and in fact you would have to pay someone to dispose of it for you. Therefore, it has a negative price. Negative prices are prices. The disposal company likes them very much. Their whole business is to buy this product from people for a negative amount of money. There are no bad products, only bad prices.