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Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse
- bwb 1y agoIMO... one of the most important benchmarks for judging the effectiveness of a government is the cost of housing. Cheap and basic housing is so key for economic well-being. I would love to see very basic, small, apartments created by governments on a mass level to try to overcome the current situation. Like persistently have a department of government just building to meet needed demands in economic centers. What other benchmarks would you throw out there if you were going to grade gov effectiveness?
- boredatoms 1y agoLife expectancy, starvation rates, literacy rates
- bwb 1y agoUgh, that made me look at literacy rates in the USA at the 6th grade or below.
- westmeal 1y agoIts kinda funny you mention this because a lot of communist countries did pretty much this with high rise apartments. They're still there too.
- bwb 1y agoYa good point, I see those all the time in Serbia. We need some kinda of base building for supply, and the rest of the bit where they can override local zoning, speed up permits, override reviews, etc.
- gonzo41 1y agoAnd that's kind of the dream TBH. Every private dollar that goes into housing is a dollar taken away from people who could be building businesses themselves or investing. Having cheap, plentiful housing provides a base that people can build from. There's other benefits too, say your relationships explodes and you need a new place, the last thing you want to do is be living with your ex, or couch surfing with friends.
- vidarh 1y agoPar of Khrushchev's legacy was switching away from the earlier focus on higher quality housing that largely favoured the elite in favour of throwing up cheap housing fast to alleviate the severe housing crisis. But as a result, a more enduring part of his legacy became that due to economic stagnation, a large proportion of this really poor quality housing that was indeded as a stopgap to meet desperate short-term housing need, survived not just Khrushchev, but the Soviet Union...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- antisthenes 1y ago> But as a result, a more enduring part of his legacy became that due to economic stagnation, a large proportion of this really poor quality housing that was indeded as a stopgap to meet desperate short-term housing need, survived not just Khrushchev, but the Soviet Union... The alternative was people living in sheds and 19th-century timber huts that were falling apart. The Khrushchev apartment blocks, despite their many disadvantages, were a godsend to the ballooning (at the time) population and necessary to support the rapid urbanization without homelessness. The HN bubble will never understand that you can't solve the housing problem with only high-quality desirable housing while still making it cheap enough for the bottom quartile to afford it. That's not even getting into the regulation side of it and local council/town NIMBYs
- vidarh 1y agoSure. I think for all of Khruschev's faults, his housing policy was a significant positive. It is just also a cautionary tale of how easily a temporary fix becomes semi-permanent, but that was on his successors and the failure of the longer term Soviet economy.
- irjustin 1y agoSingapore's HDB system is world class in this regard. Key items being first time owners are highly prioritized (effectively no one else). Must be owner occupied for first 5 years before allowing rental or resale. Government sets initial sale pricing to be quite affordable with special loans being cheap for the BTO. Average 2 year wait from lottery to build. Was 5 during covid.
- lwo32k 1y agoAustria too - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-11-08/the-design-history-of-vienna-s-world-famous-social-housing https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-11-08/the-desig...
- forgotusername6 1y agoA lot of the cheap blocks of government made apartments in the UK are now being torn down. Without regular maintenance and updating, cheap housing can quickly become ugly ghettos. It isn't enough to just build houses. They need to be initially desirable and continually maintained to remain desirable.
- bwb 1y agoYa I don't want it to be cheap, rather super solid and built for 100 years, but run on that type of time frame. I have some friends who build for universities and that is how they think when they build a project versus a cheap throw up that is barely expected to last 20 years.
- iamacyborg 1y agoEven if they are built, the entire insurance system post-Grenfell is causing absolutely insane service charges for residents. Mine are up >50% since 2018, that’s despite gaining no new services and work on the building being put on hold due to it not being essential. The fact that it’s a relatively new build (about 12 years old) is almost irrelevant as construction is shoddy. Putting new buildings up is only part of the problem, the entire system is fucked.
- mschuster91 1y ago> Even if they are built, the entire insurance system post-Grenfell is causing absolutely insane service charges for residents. If it's building insurance hikes, for fucks sake it should not be allowed to roll these over to the renters - they have had zero say in shoddy construction, the developers should be the ones held liable.
- iamacyborg 1y agoThey should, but they’re not and the government appears unwilling to do anything about it. Hell, my building recently lost it’s fire safety certificate because one guy decided to scam the system which has caused a ton of knock-on impact for owners looking to move out.
- vodou 1y agoMaternal mortality rate.
- Qem 1y agoAlso infant mortality rate.
- jsk2600 1y ago>I would love to see very basic, small, apartments created by governments on a mass level As someone living in a country where it can take five or more years to get approval to build a new house and 10+ for commercial buildings due to the government bureaucracy, I'm scared by the idea of getting the government more involved. The key issue is that the government makes it very hard to build -> less housing -> expensive housing.
- tryauuum 1y agowhat country is that?
- jsk2600 1y agoCzechia. Also, it's very inconsistent depending on local governance. Even Microsoft bailed out their data center project near Prague for this (and other) reasons...
- greenie_beans 1y agoif that is SF then that sounds like the discretionary review process for entitlements, are you familiar with any of those words?
- logicchains 1y agoGovernments caused this problem by fighting tooth and nail to keep immigration levels high. Without that, house prices in most developed countries would be falling now, like they are in Japan, because a decreasing population means less demand for housing.
- graemep 1y agoCure worse than the disease. A aging population is economically ruinous.
- logicchains 1y agoCompare the growth in GDP per capita in Japan Vs the UK, the UK isn't doing particularly better in spite of all that immigration.
- AlexSW 1y agoIt's not obvious to me that comparing GDP per capita is a fair comparison when talking about one country with immigration vs one without. A lot of the immigration I believe to be not so skilled. But we needed lower-skill jobs filled too.
- graemep 1y agoits quite complicated and changes over time. Post Brexit changes make it easier for high skilled workers and harder for low skilled. I have not idea how big the actual change has been. There have been other events and rule changes that have had an impact - covid and Ukrainian visas. Some interesting data here: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migrants-in-the-uk-labour-market-an-overview/ https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/mi...
- graemep 1y agoIt looks to me that the Uk has done a lot better: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?tab=line&country=GBR~JPN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...
- baxtr 1y agoAnd the best way to do this imo is to have the right incentives for investors to build affordable homes.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- serial_dev 1y agoI’d add fertility rate as another powerful metric: when people feel safe, supported, and optimistic, they have kids. So if housing, income stability, healthcare, and trust in the future are in place, you’ll usually see that reflected in birth rates. All this only makes sense in the context of large groups; at the individual level, many factors determine whether someone has children. What the puppet masters will tell you though that a country’s fertility rate are declining, because women want careers, the men are incels, and fertility drops due to climate change and microplastics. Most people I know around my age, either limit the number of children or delay having them because they don’t feel safe bringing a child into this world.
- jstanley 1y ago> when people feel safe, supported, and optimistic, they have kids. I actually thought that wasn't the case. Across the entire world, people in more precarious circumstances have more kids. I don't know why.
- watwut 1y agoWomen who are educated about birth control and able to make those decisions have less kids. That is why - when women specifically have options they choose to have less kids and pursue own happiness.
- YouWhy 1y ago> people in more precarious circumstances have more kids. I don't know why. Did you consider that the judgement of precariousness of the people's situation is in your value system, and does not necessarily transfer to their value system? Especially this could be due to you having access to more information than them
- lazide 1y agoisn’t your comment doing literally the same thing?
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- Gigachad 1y agoI’ve been told in China they have dirt cheap small units available for people who would otherwise be homeless. They aren’t flashy, but they are absolutely better than letting people be homeless. Not sure why this kind of housing just doesn’t really exist elsewhere.
- switch007 1y agoCareful about cheap. Housebuilders were happy to just use plasterboard to separate dwellings in a flat complex for example (or it at least sounds like it. There is zero soundproofing - every sniff, tap, movement etc can be heard)
- tmnvix 1y agoI often think that for a government to convince me that they are serious about addressing a housing crisis, the first thing they need to do is determine what proportion of residential properties are not being used as a primary residence. It seems to me (looking at changes in the number of households to number of dwellings in my property obsessed country) that that proportion has been declining and policies should be introduced to encourage people not to remove residences from the permanent housing stock (e.g. higher taxes on short term rentals, second homes, empty homes, etc).
- brap 1y agoIt always comes down to we don’t build houses fast enough. Why?
- mrkeen 1y agoBecause it's the explanation that doesn't require the rich and powerful to change their behaviour.
- tmnvix 1y agoYep. The shortage is overblown. Just look at past crashes (e.g. Ireland, Spain, etc). The crashes weren't caused by oversupply of housing, but a credit shortage. After the crash the so-called 'shortage' magically disappeared and people stopped talking about it (until the next boom).
- worthless-trash 1y agoThe population simply doesn't grow once and stop.
- globular-toast 1y agoActually it does. UK population growth is due to immigration.
- wruza 1y agoMore grass -> more rabbits -> less grass -> less rabbits -> (loop). You can mix different rabbits in, but the cycle is fundamental.
- lores 1y agoHumans aren't rabbits. Humans tend to have children in inverse proportion to the amount of grass, poorer people having more children than richer ones. Of course it's not a direct correlation, or a simple one, but the effect is there.
- whatever1 1y agoWe had a chance to defuse the housing crisis with remote work and we blew it. Opportunities are concentrated and building in concentrated areas is inherently hard. We still don’t know how to scale mega cities fast while still operating them at capacity. So the problem will not go away anytime soon.
- oytis 1y agoHigh density is supposed to be good isn't it? And density of European cities is still nowhere near what people have in East Asia
- intrasight 1y agoI interpreted that comment as not meaning density but instead geographical concentration. WFH was an opportunity to escape from geographical concentration which is the main cause of the high cost of housing.
- thrance 1y agoParis, where I live, is three times as dense as Tokyo... The entire city is mixed-used 6 storey buildings.
- skywal_l 1y agoIt's probably because Paris, officially, is the very small hypercenter of the Parisian metropolitan area. Whereas Tokyo is the actual total metropolis. Just look up the population of both. Paris is 2 millions whereas Tokyo is 14 millions. If you were to consider the whole Paris metropolitan area then the population is 11 millions.
- StopDisinfo910 1y agoYes but the average size of a flat in Paris would be shocking to an American. 500 square feet for a couple is standard (that would be seen as a small appartment in the USA) and living in 300 square feet or less is fairly common for someone single.
- nly 1y agoOver the last 50-70 years the UK made the choice to stop building social housing and to sell off the existing stock with aggressive government subsidies. Complaining now is a bit like complaining there's no milk after you sold the dairy farm to build a casino. I read TFA but I'm not seeing anything but useless outrage that would have been better placed 20-30 years ago I became a first time property owner at 36 and it took a top 2-3% percentile income + my partners more median salary to do it on the outskirts of London My mortgage runs until I'm 70 and I, like most owners now, are entirely dependent on the housing casino game continuing. If houses ever return to good affordability I'm screwed. I have to refinance every 5 years, because that's the game in the UK, so if rates spike I'm also screwed. Everyone in UK housing, owner or rented, is screwed and it's been this way for decades.
- daedrdev 1y agoIts not even that, the restrictions on new homes in the UK make it impossible to build any significant amount of housing, social or not.
- matthewmacleod 1y agoBe specific - what restrictions are these and how do they affect building?
- fifticon 1y agoI can answer part of that. Very few areas are even opened up to allow building private housing, all kinds of "neighbours" can veto anything, just to name two problems
- mattdneal 1y agoPage 8 of the recent CMA study into housebuilding in the UK: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65d8badb6efa830011dcc5bc/_Summary_of_housebuilding_final_report_.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65d8badb6efa8... A prior condition for building houses is having permission to build them. We have found that the planning system is exerting a significant downward pressure on the overall number of planning permissions being granted across Great Britain. Over the long-term, the number of permissions being given has been insufficient to support housebuilding at the level required to meet government targets and measures of assessed need. In particular, we have seen evidence of three key concerns with the planning systems which we consider are limiting its ability to support the level of housebuilding that policymakers believe is needed: (a) Lack of predictability; (b) Length, cost, and complexity of the planning process; and (c) Insufficient clarity, consistency and strength of LPA targets, objectives, and incentives to meet housing need. We have also seen evidence that problems in the planning systems may be having a disproportionate impact on SME housebuilders.
- globular-toast 1y agoHug of death?
- kgwgk 1y agoOther content works though: https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/ https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/
- coolThingsFirst 1y agoI need a house
- milesrout 1y agoYou don't have to wait 100 years for a home, though. You might need to wait 100 years for a free home. You can buy one straight away or rent one.
- bendigedig 1y agoFree home? What are you on about? You still have to pay rent in social housing.
- milesrout 1y agoHeavily subsidised rent
- bendigedig 1y agoNot necessarily, it depends where you live. Remember that market rents are higher than they need to be due to the artificial scarcity imposed by a NIMBY-friendly planning system and the inaction of successive Governments who have chosen to look the other way. And who would do the cleaning and serve you coffee if social housing didn't exist? It might cost you a lot more.
- milesrout 1y agoI agree that supply is constrained and rents are higher than they should be. The solution is to free up the supply of land and allow people to build, to bring down prices for everyone. The same people would do the cleaning and serve coffee as do now, because they don't live in social housing.
- untoasted12 1y agoHas anyone in the comments read the article? The page has been down for ages.
- asplake 1y agoSeems ok for me now
- somewhereoutth 1y agoIn the UK we never really got medium rise apartment blocks right. Instead we have terraces, which don't give the same housing density. The neighborhood I now live in in Portugal is mostly 7-10 storey apartment buildings, which is enough density for plenty of shops, cafes, restaurants, schools, playgrounds, public transit etc. It houses an astonishing amount of people in reasonably generous conditions (e.g. balconies are the norm), quite the modern miracle in my UK eyes.
- globular-toast 1y agoI got sick of hearing my neighbours through the walls. It sucks.
- keybored 1y agoDecommodify owning a home. You’re gonna be fretting about why housing is getting more expensive while fighting a ghost battle against homeowners until you do.[1] Do-gooder liberals are gonna worry about what policy mistake was made in the last 50 years. No. You have competing interests and the people who own something have the leverage as well as something to lose if too many people get what they already have. What’s difficult to understand? Don’t try to “grow the middle class”, this selfish NIMBY sociological construction (it’s just gonna compact anyway, and it is). Decommodify having a dang roof over your head. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43726760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43726760
- RobinL 1y agoPreface: I'm a yimby who wants to see far more building, especially building upwards in London, but also more general building elsewhere. That said, a 100 year wait for social housing in Westminster is not surprising, and not as bad as it sounds. A typical professional couple in London could not afford a family home in Westminster, and it's extremely common for people in their 30s to move out of the centre when they have kids. I don't think this should be any different for social tenants: they should certainly not have to wait 100 years, but it seems reasonable for them to be offered housing outside of Westminster. The Guardian article I read about the 100 year wait specifically mentioned 3 and 4 bed family homes, and my immediate reaction was that no one else can get them either! I think the bigger problem is the lack of affordable housing particularly for young families (social or otherwise) outside of London
- amai 1y agoWhat happened to IKEA houses: https://www.boklok.com/global/ https://www.boklok.com/global/