5 ms·

> Try to find a city where dense housing made it cheaper. Are there cities where replacing denser housing with single-family homes made housing cheaper?

cyberax 10mo ago
Not quite. But there ARE examples where the price growth was stopped by providing alternative options to the cycle of ever-densification. A really good example is Copenhagen, the world's most liveable city. Its current population is still _less_ than during the 1970's peak: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/20894/copenhagen/population https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/20894/cope... The driver for the decrease was suburban migration, as cars became more accessible. The US _itself_ is a great example. The suburban development created cheap housing for the rapidly growing population in 60-s.
- ImPostingOnHN 10mo ago
  Do you have more details on this 1 example, specifically the trends of city housing prices and demand? A quick search [0] seems to show city housing prices increasing, rather than decreasing. Obviously housing built outside the city will be cheaper than within it, and that might work for people who are fine living just anywhere (like away from the city), but the hypothesis is that the prices within the city increase when more housing (denser housing) is added within the city, right? It's just hard to imagine how replacing a 300-unit occupied building downtown with 4-8 single-family-homes would result in the SFHs being cheaper than a unit in the skyscraper was. 0: https://www.courthousenews.com/copenhagen-housing-prices-double-over-10-years/ https://www.courthousenews.com/copenhagen-housing-prices-dou...
  - cyberax 10mo ago
    > Do you have more details on this 1 example, specifically the trends of city housing prices and demand? I don't have all the information on Copenhagen yet. The stats from 1970-s are not available online, so I commissioned someone to get the data from the archives. The available data basically shows that prices were stagnant during the 70-80-s and started rising in the 90-s. > After all, building more housing in the city isn't mutually exclusive with building housing outside the city. I think it is mutually exclusive, exactly because of the population growth (the lack thereof). Each dense apartment in a city core means one less house in a rural area somewhere. Japan, that I gave as an example, has literally free houses that anyone can get for nothing but the government real estate transaction fees. Just 3-4 hours away from Tokyo.
    - ImPostingOnHN 10mo ago
      > I think it is mutually exclusive Is there any evidence of this? The demand for living in the city (rather than outside of it) already exceeds the supply. > Japan, that I gave as an example, has literally free houses that anyone can get for nothing but the government real estate transaction fees. Just 3-4 hours away from Tokyo Yeah, but that isn't housing in the city, it's housing in a place that isn't the city. Even setting aside the cultural differences of Japan, where homes are rebuilt every couple decades, and even setting aside that it has a declining population: a place where people don't want to live will naturally have lower prices than a place where they do. It kind of sounds like when you're talking about reducing the density of a city, you're actually referring to keeping the density of the city the same, and building SFHs in places that aren't the city (which actually increases the density of those non-city places). Is that what you mean? Or did Tokyo replace skyscrapers with SFHs? And were those SFHs within the city cheaper than a unit in the skyscrapers was?
      - cyberax 10mo ago
        > a place where people don't want to live will naturally have lower prices than a place where they do. But that's not true, is it? Most people in the US want to live in suburban SFHs, yet they are often forced to live in apartments. But that's not a viable option for them because the jobs are only available in dense cities. > It kind of sounds like when you're talking about reducing the density of a city, you're actually referring to keeping the density of the city the same, and building SFHs in places that aren't the city Correct. > which actually increases the density of those non-city places And technically increases the housing price there from zero to some value, just as predicted :)
        ImPostingOnHN 10mo ago
        >> a place where people don't want to live will naturally have lower prices than a place where they do. > But that's not true, is it? It certainly is: look at the price of housing in New York City, then look at the price of housing in Newark, New Jersey. Many people want to live in the former, but must settle for the latter, due to lack of affordable NYC housing. Then look at the price of housing in Ainsworth, Nebraska: Even cheaper, because people want to live there even less. Or look at your own example: People want to live in Tokyo more than they want to live 3-4 hours outside of Tokyo, hence the pricing for the latter is lower. > Most people in the US want to live in suburban SFHs, yet they are often forced to live in apartments. In my experience, most people in the US want lots of square footage within the city, and either settle for suburbia to get the square footage they want, or settle for less square footage to get the city living they want. This goes for both renters and buyers, and for both Single- and Multi-Family Housing. How, then, would increasing the price of in-city housing (by reducing the supply, by replacing denser housing with less-dense housing) allow people to realize their big-city-big-living desires? Alternatively, how would building housing hours and hours and hours outside the city (where pricing illustrates people don't want to live) allow people to realize their big-city-big-living desires?

cyberax 10mo ago

Not quite. But there ARE examples where the price growth was stopped by providing alternative options to the cycle of ever-densification. A really good example is Copenhagen, the world's most liveable city. Its current population is still _less_ than during the 1970's peak: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/20894/copenhagen/population https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/20894/cope... The driver for the decrease was suburban migration, as cars became more accessible. The US _itself_ is a great example. The suburban development created cheap housing for the rapidly growing population in 60-s.

ImPostingOnHN 10mo ago
Do you have more details on this 1 example, specifically the trends of city housing prices and demand? A quick search [0] seems to show city housing prices increasing, rather than decreasing. Obviously housing built outside the city will be cheaper than within it, and that might work for people who are fine living just anywhere (like away from the city), but the hypothesis is that the prices within the city increase when more housing (denser housing) is added within the city, right? It's just hard to imagine how replacing a 300-unit occupied building downtown with 4-8 single-family-homes would result in the SFHs being cheaper than a unit in the skyscraper was. 0: https://www.courthousenews.com/copenhagen-housing-prices-double-over-10-years/ https://www.courthousenews.com/copenhagen-housing-prices-dou...
- cyberax 10mo ago
  > Do you have more details on this 1 example, specifically the trends of city housing prices and demand? I don't have all the information on Copenhagen yet. The stats from 1970-s are not available online, so I commissioned someone to get the data from the archives. The available data basically shows that prices were stagnant during the 70-80-s and started rising in the 90-s. > After all, building more housing in the city isn't mutually exclusive with building housing outside the city. I think it is mutually exclusive, exactly because of the population growth (the lack thereof). Each dense apartment in a city core means one less house in a rural area somewhere. Japan, that I gave as an example, has literally free houses that anyone can get for nothing but the government real estate transaction fees. Just 3-4 hours away from Tokyo.
  - ImPostingOnHN 10mo ago
    > I think it is mutually exclusive Is there any evidence of this? The demand for living in the city (rather than outside of it) already exceeds the supply. > Japan, that I gave as an example, has literally free houses that anyone can get for nothing but the government real estate transaction fees. Just 3-4 hours away from Tokyo Yeah, but that isn't housing in the city, it's housing in a place that isn't the city. Even setting aside the cultural differences of Japan, where homes are rebuilt every couple decades, and even setting aside that it has a declining population: a place where people don't want to live will naturally have lower prices than a place where they do. It kind of sounds like when you're talking about reducing the density of a city, you're actually referring to keeping the density of the city the same, and building SFHs in places that aren't the city (which actually increases the density of those non-city places). Is that what you mean? Or did Tokyo replace skyscrapers with SFHs? And were those SFHs within the city cheaper than a unit in the skyscrapers was?
    - cyberax 10mo ago
      > a place where people don't want to live will naturally have lower prices than a place where they do. But that's not true, is it? Most people in the US want to live in suburban SFHs, yet they are often forced to live in apartments. But that's not a viable option for them because the jobs are only available in dense cities. > It kind of sounds like when you're talking about reducing the density of a city, you're actually referring to keeping the density of the city the same, and building SFHs in places that aren't the city Correct. > which actually increases the density of those non-city places And technically increases the housing price there from zero to some value, just as predicted :)
      - ImPostingOnHN 10mo ago
        >> a place where people don't want to live will naturally have lower prices than a place where they do. > But that's not true, is it? It certainly is: look at the price of housing in New York City, then look at the price of housing in Newark, New Jersey. Many people want to live in the former, but must settle for the latter, due to lack of affordable NYC housing. Then look at the price of housing in Ainsworth, Nebraska: Even cheaper, because people want to live there even less. Or look at your own example: People want to live in Tokyo more than they want to live 3-4 hours outside of Tokyo, hence the pricing for the latter is lower. > Most people in the US want to live in suburban SFHs, yet they are often forced to live in apartments. In my experience, most people in the US want lots of square footage within the city, and either settle for suburbia to get the square footage they want, or settle for less square footage to get the city living they want. This goes for both renters and buyers, and for both Single- and Multi-Family Housing. How, then, would increasing the price of in-city housing (by reducing the supply, by replacing denser housing with less-dense housing) allow people to realize their big-city-big-living desires? Alternatively, how would building housing hours and hours and hours outside the city (where pricing illustrates people don't want to live) allow people to realize their big-city-big-living desires?