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I can't speak for the US but in the UK you have the issue of deciding where to put the public housing. If you try to stuff it all into somewhere like London th

I can't speak for the US but in the UK you have the issue of deciding where to put the public housing. If you try to stuff it all into somewhere like London then you end up either with huge overcrowding (it's really hard to double the capacity of 150 year old infrastructure) or with people living so far out of the centre that commute costs really start to bite. If you build new towns then you have to be really careful to somehow distribute the wealth properly otherwise you just end up with slums. I actually think that for the most part what people aren't willing to accept is that the capitalist model actually does allocate housing fairly well according to need, it's just that if you're on the wrong side of that equation then it feels terribly unfair to be asked indirectly via the market to move to a cheaper area.

ericmay 2y ago
In the U.S. I don’t think this is a concern, thankfully. Most of our cities have infill opportunities. In Columbus, Ohio where I live there’s hundreds of acres of surface parking lots. Buy them up and build housing blocks like in NYC. This solves lots of problems. [1] > I actually think that for the most part what people aren't willing to accept is that the capitalist model actually does allocate housing fairly well according to need I generally agree as well, but it seems like we are no longer satisfying lower ends of the market and developers would prefer to not build rather than build homes that don’t hit their IRR numbers. The federal government in the US could build housing and auction it off to individuals or families or run a sort of lottery system. Could add a few rules to prevent bad actors from renting the places out or something along those lines. [1] As an aside everyone working for the housing agency or federal transportation admin should have to read The Death and Life of Great American Cities and be treated in that knowledge before taking a job there.
- naming_the_user 2y ago
  Is there a reason that private developers aren't doing this already? Zoning?
  - CalRobert 2y ago
    Zoning and parking minimums. When it’s illegal to build a bowling alley without 128 parking spaces you end up bulldozing your city for parking.
    - naming_the_user 2y ago
      In the UK we have a lot of stuff like that too, not necessarily codified, just that the default position is that you can't build somewhere unless you have permission and the local council will probably block it (as a result undeveloped land is <10% of the cost of developed/developable land). Feels like that's a far easier target to attack first.
      - CalRobert 2y ago
        The Uk has a hideously restrictive planning process designed to ensure no building is too interesting
    - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
      This is the problem that a lot of people are overlooking; it's not just a lack of property developers, NIMBYism, etc but a major part is policy and zoning laws, which aren't being challenged / changed enough.
      - CalRobert 2y ago
        Every boomer trying to preserve their home values and easy parking is doing it on the backs of younger generations.
    - skeeter2020 2y ago
      Everybody's solution is relax zoning and parking requirements, until it gets done and then a predatory developer applies to build one of these monstrosities beside your house.
      - 2y ago
- bluGill 2y ago
  You cannot have any infill opportunities of parking lots unless there is great public transit. If people need to drive they need to store the car someplace. Not only are parking lots cheap, they also spread out all the traffic which is a big problem car oriented cities face. Parking lots are a solution to the problems of density, if you don't need it you need to solve traffic first, otherwise cities need to get less dense to support the limits of cars.
  - ericmay 2y ago
    There's a lot to unpack here... We don't need to replace surface parking lots all in one go. We can do that over time while we introduce good transit options and make our cities a lot better. We can also construct stacked parking garages instead of having surface parking lots. There are a lot of options here. As we replace inefficient and economically draining parking lots we can introduce housing and areas for business. As we introduce these we increase the viability of transit. It's a bad idea to focus on supporting or building parking lots which are not used that often. It's not good for anyone except those who are extracting economic rent. > If people need to drive they need to store the car someplace. People need housing too. We also need more small businesses and economic opportunity. Car storage is not a priority. We have an overabundance of it anyway. > Not only are parking lots cheap, they also spread out all the traffic which is a big problem car oriented cities face. Parking lots are cheap for the owners to build and operate, but they're incredibly expensive for cities. I don't follow the logic here about spreading out traffic. Typically traffic problems [1] are due to everyone using the same highways at the same times. That's not really solved or addressed by parking lots. If it were, we could just build parking lots instead of expanding highways, but in addition to that being economically stupid, it wouldn't solve the problem. > Parking lots are a solution to the problems of density, if you don't need it you need to solve traffic first, otherwise cities need to get less dense to support the limits of cars. It's kind of a chicken-egg problem, but the Overton window is shifted so far to the left that we need to shift it back to something sensible. So instead of even caring about cars and parking lots, we need to care only about housing, small and local businesses, and transit and just neglect cars/parking lots. Otherwise we'll just continue to build more parking lots and highways which drain the local economy and never actually do anything economically productive. Today society invests 99% of its effort toward car-only infrastructure which is brittle, expensive for taxpayers, and bad for citizens. We should flip that around for a few years. [1] We don't have traffic problems, and if we did they'd be solved by getting people out of cars. When people think about traffic problems they are thinking about the time they use the highways at the peak times. We shouldn't optimize society to cater toward "car traffic between the hours of 4PM and 6PM at the costs of all other development patterns".
Dalewyn 2y ago
It's people wanting to live in the city without paying the price, essentially wanting their cake and eating it too. Affordable homes can be had out in more rural areas (and I don't mean Bumfuckistan, I mean smaller cities and towns), the problem is everyone wants a flat in Manhattan or Tokyo without paying up. Metropolitan real estate has always been expensive, this in itself is nothing new.
- philipwhiuk 2y ago
  And people who (rightly or wrongly) believe they have a right to find a new house in the same place they grew up, regardless of their current earning power.
- TomK32 2y ago
  Houses in cities ought to be cheaper than in the countryside. The use of space is denser, utilities have much shorter lines and roads are just that small thing between all the houses not long stretches trough the landscape. What we have to discuss is the distribution of living space, just like here in Austria I guess in the UK there's a lot of older people still living in the same house as a couple (or even alone) as when they had their children still living with them. We need incentives for people to downsize when they are still able to do it on their own.
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    >The use of space is denser That is precisely why land in cities is more expensive. There are more people wanting land in a given area but the given area doesn't scale to the population, so people start paying more to have more of that limited space thereby driving out those who can't (or don't). It's like how some people will pay for first/business class or premium economy class on a jetliner so they have more of the limited space in a flight cabin than those who didn't pay up. The problem, which frankly isn't an actual problem, is that some people feel like bitching up instead of paying up for a good that is valued highly. We can discuss endlessly whether the valuation of city real estate is too high, but the conclusion is always going to be either paying up or getting out.
  - 2y ago
CalRobert 2y ago
The current model seems to give existing capital owners a strong veto on the creation of new supply while providing little representation for the beneficiaries of new housing
colechristensen 2y ago
Housing and jobs zoning needs to be better distributed. Why does all the work activity have to be concentrated in small city centers and housing spread out so much? City centers need a higher proportion of residential and other places need a higher concentration of commercial/industry. That isn’t a market issue because these things are controlled by local governments. There wouldn’t be a housing crisis if your zoning required 1:1 jobs to homes ratios, or even anything close. What I want to see is “there’s no more office space available here, we’ll have to move somewhere else” That and square footage limitations for worker density in office spaces. A whole lot of the housing crisis boils down to local governments allowing a whole lot of office space growth and not much residential growth.
canxerian 2y ago
This is an excellent take on the intracacies of where to build housing. The "capitalist model" does indeed address supply and demand issues. However I feel it breaks down when the market is globalised and housing is used as safety deposit boxes rather than actual places to live. London is a peculiar in that the communities are propped up by the renters. Having lived here all my life I have gotten used to communities changing hands every 5 years or so. It's beyond me why housing security isn't more of a thing here for those with jobs crucial to a thriving local community - e.g teachers, healthcare workers etc. It's apparent that what we have isn't a fully liberal capitalist market, but a game of monopoly.

ericmay 2y ago

In the U.S. I don’t think this is a concern, thankfully. Most of our cities have infill opportunities. In Columbus, Ohio where I live there’s hundreds of acres of surface parking lots. Buy them up and build housing blocks like in NYC. This solves lots of problems. [1] > I actually think that for the most part what people aren't willing to accept is that the capitalist model actually does allocate housing fairly well according to need I generally agree as well, but it seems like we are no longer satisfying lower ends of the market and developers would prefer to not build rather than build homes that don’t hit their IRR numbers. The federal government in the US could build housing and auction it off to individuals or families or run a sort of lottery system. Could add a few rules to prevent bad actors from renting the places out or something along those lines. [1] As an aside everyone working for the housing agency or federal transportation admin should have to read The Death and Life of Great American Cities and be treated in that knowledge before taking a job there.

naming_the_user 2y ago
Is there a reason that private developers aren't doing this already? Zoning?
- CalRobert 2y ago
  Zoning and parking minimums. When it’s illegal to build a bowling alley without 128 parking spaces you end up bulldozing your city for parking.
  - naming_the_user 2y ago
    In the UK we have a lot of stuff like that too, not necessarily codified, just that the default position is that you can't build somewhere unless you have permission and the local council will probably block it (as a result undeveloped land is <10% of the cost of developed/developable land). Feels like that's a far easier target to attack first.
    - CalRobert 2y ago
      The Uk has a hideously restrictive planning process designed to ensure no building is too interesting
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    This is the problem that a lot of people are overlooking; it's not just a lack of property developers, NIMBYism, etc but a major part is policy and zoning laws, which aren't being challenged / changed enough.
    - CalRobert 2y ago
      Every boomer trying to preserve their home values and easy parking is doing it on the backs of younger generations.
  - skeeter2020 2y ago
    Everybody's solution is relax zoning and parking requirements, until it gets done and then a predatory developer applies to build one of these monstrosities beside your house.
    - 2y ago
bluGill 2y ago
You cannot have any infill opportunities of parking lots unless there is great public transit. If people need to drive they need to store the car someplace. Not only are parking lots cheap, they also spread out all the traffic which is a big problem car oriented cities face. Parking lots are a solution to the problems of density, if you don't need it you need to solve traffic first, otherwise cities need to get less dense to support the limits of cars.
- ericmay 2y ago
  There's a lot to unpack here... We don't need to replace surface parking lots all in one go. We can do that over time while we introduce good transit options and make our cities a lot better. We can also construct stacked parking garages instead of having surface parking lots. There are a lot of options here. As we replace inefficient and economically draining parking lots we can introduce housing and areas for business. As we introduce these we increase the viability of transit. It's a bad idea to focus on supporting or building parking lots which are not used that often. It's not good for anyone except those who are extracting economic rent. > If people need to drive they need to store the car someplace. People need housing too. We also need more small businesses and economic opportunity. Car storage is not a priority. We have an overabundance of it anyway. > Not only are parking lots cheap, they also spread out all the traffic which is a big problem car oriented cities face. Parking lots are cheap for the owners to build and operate, but they're incredibly expensive for cities. I don't follow the logic here about spreading out traffic. Typically traffic problems [1] are due to everyone using the same highways at the same times. That's not really solved or addressed by parking lots. If it were, we could just build parking lots instead of expanding highways, but in addition to that being economically stupid, it wouldn't solve the problem. > Parking lots are a solution to the problems of density, if you don't need it you need to solve traffic first, otherwise cities need to get less dense to support the limits of cars. It's kind of a chicken-egg problem, but the Overton window is shifted so far to the left that we need to shift it back to something sensible. So instead of even caring about cars and parking lots, we need to care only about housing, small and local businesses, and transit and just neglect cars/parking lots. Otherwise we'll just continue to build more parking lots and highways which drain the local economy and never actually do anything economically productive. Today society invests 99% of its effort toward car-only infrastructure which is brittle, expensive for taxpayers, and bad for citizens. We should flip that around for a few years. [1] We don't have traffic problems, and if we did they'd be solved by getting people out of cars. When people think about traffic problems they are thinking about the time they use the highways at the peak times. We shouldn't optimize society to cater toward "car traffic between the hours of 4PM and 6PM at the costs of all other development patterns".

Dalewyn 2y ago

It's people wanting to live in the city without paying the price, essentially wanting their cake and eating it too. Affordable homes can be had out in more rural areas (and I don't mean Bumfuckistan, I mean smaller cities and towns), the problem is everyone wants a flat in Manhattan or Tokyo without paying up. Metropolitan real estate has always been expensive, this in itself is nothing new.

philipwhiuk 2y ago
And people who (rightly or wrongly) believe they have a right to find a new house in the same place they grew up, regardless of their current earning power.
TomK32 2y ago
Houses in cities ought to be cheaper than in the countryside. The use of space is denser, utilities have much shorter lines and roads are just that small thing between all the houses not long stretches trough the landscape. What we have to discuss is the distribution of living space, just like here in Austria I guess in the UK there's a lot of older people still living in the same house as a couple (or even alone) as when they had their children still living with them. We need incentives for people to downsize when they are still able to do it on their own.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >The use of space is denser That is precisely why land in cities is more expensive. There are more people wanting land in a given area but the given area doesn't scale to the population, so people start paying more to have more of that limited space thereby driving out those who can't (or don't). It's like how some people will pay for first/business class or premium economy class on a jetliner so they have more of the limited space in a flight cabin than those who didn't pay up. The problem, which frankly isn't an actual problem, is that some people feel like bitching up instead of paying up for a good that is valued highly. We can discuss endlessly whether the valuation of city real estate is too high, but the conclusion is always going to be either paying up or getting out.
- 2y ago

CalRobert 2y ago

The current model seems to give existing capital owners a strong veto on the creation of new supply while providing little representation for the beneficiaries of new housing

colechristensen 2y ago

Housing and jobs zoning needs to be better distributed. Why does all the work activity have to be concentrated in small city centers and housing spread out so much? City centers need a higher proportion of residential and other places need a higher concentration of commercial/industry. That isn’t a market issue because these things are controlled by local governments. There wouldn’t be a housing crisis if your zoning required 1:1 jobs to homes ratios, or even anything close. What I want to see is “there’s no more office space available here, we’ll have to move somewhere else” That and square footage limitations for worker density in office spaces. A whole lot of the housing crisis boils down to local governments allowing a whole lot of office space growth and not much residential growth.

canxerian 2y ago

This is an excellent take on the intracacies of where to build housing. The "capitalist model" does indeed address supply and demand issues. However I feel it breaks down when the market is globalised and housing is used as safety deposit boxes rather than actual places to live. London is a peculiar in that the communities are propped up by the renters. Having lived here all my life I have gotten used to communities changing hands every 5 years or so. It's beyond me why housing security isn't more of a thing here for those with jobs crucial to a thriving local community - e.g teachers, healthcare workers etc. It's apparent that what we have isn't a fully liberal capitalist market, but a game of monopoly.