4 ms·

It's a positional good, in effect there can never be "enough" supply. Short of a socialist/communist system, people will always compete for the best, using what

It's a positional good, in effect there can never be "enough" supply. Short of a socialist/communist system, people will always compete for the best, using whatever resources they can bring to bear.

mjevans 2y ago
For the Best? Yeah, that's still in competition now among places for the 1%... For the median and low end? There's enough when people have a _real_ choice of moving to a unit house or apartment a mile away and leaving a bad option UN-SOLD on the market. Sufficient means there's slack in the market, so the free market works.
no_wizard 2y ago
Land Value Tax creates what would otherwise be a market pressure dynamic to sell. Since real estate isn't a normal (nor decidedly functional) marketplace - because you can't simply make new land in any realistic quantity - it comes as close as it can to creating a situation that increases utilization and decreases inefficient use of land. The incentives under an LVT system run in the opposite direction of what they do now.
- Earw0rm 2y ago
  Yes, that's broadly a good thing which tilts the playing field in favour of locating productive people close to their work. Whether it's possible to set it at a level strong enough to produce the right "nudge" without creating a bunch of unintended consequences, harder to say. Probably worth trying in a few city-regions though to see what happens.
mitthrowaway2 2y ago
I don't know about this. If I were the median family and supply was sufficient that I had 4 bedrooms, a garden, storage, EV parking and a workshop space, biking distance from my workplace, I think I'd invest the rest of my resources into enjoying those things rather than spending them on bidding for an even bigger and better home.
- Earw0rm 2y ago
  Workplaces tend to agglomerate, for all sorts of reasons. Biking distance is, what, five miles? Ten? Economics & geometry mean it's challenging to provide enough of this that the median family can afford it. It's quite practical to do at the scale of a small city (250k population ish), but such places tend to be relatively poor unless they have some premium offering, a top university or a high-margin specialist industry. Big business seems to prefer bigger cities (they want a large talent pool, and peoples' willingness to relocate can be limited), and at that point for the average citizen, you have a choice between higher-density apartment living with biking distance, or the family home but a longer commute. The relocation thing is a bit of a vicious cycle tbh, high property prices make it harder to move, but also make people more invested in what they've bought, which in turn makes them less keen to relocate, which forces companies to locate where talent is, which pushes prices in those areas up further.
  - mitthrowaway2 2y ago
    There are a lot of different types of workplaces, from office towers to corner stores to shipping ports to neighbourhood restaurants to nail salons to farms to industrial parks. I think with office towers being the only possible exception, the rest could easily have all of their workers live within biking distance. The office towers can be located walking distance from a metro stop. The key is just to avoid restrictive zoning that prevents people from opening a barber shop or a corner store in their residential neighbourhood.
    - Earw0rm 2y ago
      That and having a dynamic housing market; flexibility in other services e.g. schools, so that people can move where work is, and move somewhere else when they're not working; and building mixed-use neighbourhoods that have schools, doctors, sports facilities and so on. Not sure how the US handles that, but in my country (UK) there are various factors that mean people don't move as much as common sense might suggest. High sales tax on houses, very variable quality of schools meaning the good ones are oversubscribed and if you move your kids may end up at a worse school some distance away, and so on.
closeparen 2y ago
Sure but the objective characteristics of the housing you're competing for, at whatever level of resources you can bring to bear, can be dramatically better or worse depending on supply.
energy123 2y ago
Studio apartments are not positional goods, and yet...
- Earw0rm 2y ago
  Nice studio apartments a short & cheap travel time from well-paying professional work might be. It can, at the same time, be true that there is manipulation and exploitation going on at the other end of the market.

It's a positional good, in effect there can never be "enough" supply. Short of a socialist/communist system, people will always compete for the best, using whatever resources they can bring to bear.

mjevans 2y ago

For the Best? Yeah, that's still in competition now among places for the 1%... For the median and low end? There's enough when people have a _real_ choice of moving to a unit house or apartment a mile away and leaving a bad option UN-SOLD on the market. Sufficient means there's slack in the market, so the free market works.

no_wizard 2y ago

Land Value Tax creates what would otherwise be a market pressure dynamic to sell. Since real estate isn't a normal (nor decidedly functional) marketplace - because you can't simply make new land in any realistic quantity - it comes as close as it can to creating a situation that increases utilization and decreases inefficient use of land. The incentives under an LVT system run in the opposite direction of what they do now.

Earw0rm 2y ago
Yes, that's broadly a good thing which tilts the playing field in favour of locating productive people close to their work. Whether it's possible to set it at a level strong enough to produce the right "nudge" without creating a bunch of unintended consequences, harder to say. Probably worth trying in a few city-regions though to see what happens.

mitthrowaway2 2y ago

I don't know about this. If I were the median family and supply was sufficient that I had 4 bedrooms, a garden, storage, EV parking and a workshop space, biking distance from my workplace, I think I'd invest the rest of my resources into enjoying those things rather than spending them on bidding for an even bigger and better home.

Earw0rm 2y ago
Workplaces tend to agglomerate, for all sorts of reasons. Biking distance is, what, five miles? Ten? Economics & geometry mean it's challenging to provide enough of this that the median family can afford it. It's quite practical to do at the scale of a small city (250k population ish), but such places tend to be relatively poor unless they have some premium offering, a top university or a high-margin specialist industry. Big business seems to prefer bigger cities (they want a large talent pool, and peoples' willingness to relocate can be limited), and at that point for the average citizen, you have a choice between higher-density apartment living with biking distance, or the family home but a longer commute. The relocation thing is a bit of a vicious cycle tbh, high property prices make it harder to move, but also make people more invested in what they've bought, which in turn makes them less keen to relocate, which forces companies to locate where talent is, which pushes prices in those areas up further.
- mitthrowaway2 2y ago
  There are a lot of different types of workplaces, from office towers to corner stores to shipping ports to neighbourhood restaurants to nail salons to farms to industrial parks. I think with office towers being the only possible exception, the rest could easily have all of their workers live within biking distance. The office towers can be located walking distance from a metro stop. The key is just to avoid restrictive zoning that prevents people from opening a barber shop or a corner store in their residential neighbourhood.
  - Earw0rm 2y ago
    That and having a dynamic housing market; flexibility in other services e.g. schools, so that people can move where work is, and move somewhere else when they're not working; and building mixed-use neighbourhoods that have schools, doctors, sports facilities and so on. Not sure how the US handles that, but in my country (UK) there are various factors that mean people don't move as much as common sense might suggest. High sales tax on houses, very variable quality of schools meaning the good ones are oversubscribed and if you move your kids may end up at a worse school some distance away, and so on.

closeparen 2y ago

Sure but the objective characteristics of the housing you're competing for, at whatever level of resources you can bring to bear, can be dramatically better or worse depending on supply.

energy123 2y ago

Studio apartments are not positional goods, and yet...

Earw0rm 2y ago
Nice studio apartments a short & cheap travel time from well-paying professional work might be. It can, at the same time, be true that there is manipulation and exploitation going on at the other end of the market.