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The obvious reason is that to a first approximation nobody is building public housing, and so appeals to public housing, especially from owner-residents, read t
by tptacek 7mo ago
The obvious reason is that to a first approximation nobody is building public housing, and so appeals to public housing, especially from owner-residents, read to housing activists as a dodge, a way to perform advocacy for housing without actually providing housing.
A subtler reason is that public housing is drastically more expensive to build than private housing. There's multifarious reasons for this, and the underlying problem is absolutely worth solving (it's one of the three big prescriptions in Abundance), but it's a bigger problem than housing. Right now, people are focused on whatever's going to bring the most units online fastest.
- throwaway27448 7mo agoIs this actually true? Singapore seems to have built, well, their entire country around public housing. I can understand this being more expensive, but drastically so seems hard to believe. Bringing more units online won't matter much if people can't afford them. Zoning (which is what I take abundance to refer to) can only do so much—we will need to attack housing as a commodity (or an asset, depending on who you listen to) in order to make a dent on the housing issues outside the upper middle class.
- tptacek 7mo agoIt's a US-specific observation.