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Why does being in a city “naturally” mean less home ownership? More demand and higher prices yes, but you also should be earning more and dense housing projects

Why does being in a city “naturally” mean less home ownership? More demand and higher prices yes, but you also should be earning more and dense housing projects should be trivial to justify. It’s legislation all the way down, politicians protect the interests of the wealthy who want to rent seek regardless of location. Look at how mamdani got a common sense luxury home tax in NYC, before that ultra wealthy owned multiple homes just because they could.

mauvehaus 3mo ago
Because multi-family buildings (required for higher density) come with more complicated ownership models. Owner occupied triple deckers in Boston, for example, often come with their own condo associations because there needs to be some way to handle the shared maintenance and expenses. That's for a three unit building. Now scale that to a twenty or one hundred unit building. At some point, it makes sense for a single entity to handle the common maintenance through outright ownership and rent. Individual families have the flexibility to leave if things suck without being financially tied to the building long-term and subject to changes in housing prices. Yes, moving as a renter is expensive. It's still lower cost and friction than moving as an owner. Source: rented for years in cities. Now happily a homeowner in the hinterlands of Vermont.
- jimberlage 3mo ago
  A counterpoint is that a huge number of suburban Americans already have experience with a condo association through being in an HOA. Rural homeowners and people with single family homes in streetcar suburbs or cities don't, but most new developments already have an organization with dues for shared maintenance.
- 100percentjake 3mo ago
  Pulling from fuzzy memories here, but to my knowledge the legal framework for the bastardized entity known as Homeowners Associations here in the US originated from the exact thing your describe; multiple person ownership in parts of a single building.
PunchyHamster 3mo ago
One thing soviet commies did right was housing builds. Build factory for city blocks, then just pop them up, constantly, keeping the line busy. It should really be city that is building the new housing (even if in the end it gets subcontracted, at least the top level have vested interest in keeping the quality and cost in check). Maybe even offer some rent-to-own programs where part of rent gets put into savings that can be used to either buy it after few years of use or be withdrawn when moving so renter have nice lil bit of money to put forward for buying new apartment/home. Then the city can actually plan for it, rather than hope housing developer that bought the land does something good for city and not just their own pocket.
- ajsnigrutin 3mo ago
  There's no need for the city to build it, they have zoning plans, and they can easily zone "that corn field over here" into an aera of commie-style apartment buildings (5+ floors, commercial on ground floors, apartments above, garages underground), and assign some percentage of space for green areas. I live in one of those used-to-be-commie countries, and we somehow manage to keep cornfields in prime locations, and in many areas, the most the local government allows you to build is a two-apartment two-story house, but none of the non-built land is actually buildable, so you need to demolish something else first. Here and there someone is able to build something with maybe 6-8 apartments (probably with an envelope switching hands), but that's it. It's as if some rich people connected to the government managed to get a lot of realestate in the 1990s when communism fell, and now they don't want prices to drop. But hey, we're building office buildings without any issues and making airbnb even easier instead... so yeah... the situation is pretty bad.
- the_sleaze_ 2mo ago
  > One thing soviet commies did right was housing builds I disagree. I have yet to see a nice-place-to-live low-income project. In USA Russia Brazil or Southeast Asia.
  - rightbyte 2mo ago
    There are plenty in e.g. East Berlin. High rises with alot of parks around. You need to imagine them as they were new though.

mauvehaus 3mo ago

Because multi-family buildings (required for higher density) come with more complicated ownership models. Owner occupied triple deckers in Boston, for example, often come with their own condo associations because there needs to be some way to handle the shared maintenance and expenses. That's for a three unit building. Now scale that to a twenty or one hundred unit building. At some point, it makes sense for a single entity to handle the common maintenance through outright ownership and rent. Individual families have the flexibility to leave if things suck without being financially tied to the building long-term and subject to changes in housing prices. Yes, moving as a renter is expensive. It's still lower cost and friction than moving as an owner. Source: rented for years in cities. Now happily a homeowner in the hinterlands of Vermont.

jimberlage 3mo ago
A counterpoint is that a huge number of suburban Americans already have experience with a condo association through being in an HOA. Rural homeowners and people with single family homes in streetcar suburbs or cities don't, but most new developments already have an organization with dues for shared maintenance.
100percentjake 3mo ago
Pulling from fuzzy memories here, but to my knowledge the legal framework for the bastardized entity known as Homeowners Associations here in the US originated from the exact thing your describe; multiple person ownership in parts of a single building.

PunchyHamster 3mo ago

One thing soviet commies did right was housing builds. Build factory for city blocks, then just pop them up, constantly, keeping the line busy. It should really be city that is building the new housing (even if in the end it gets subcontracted, at least the top level have vested interest in keeping the quality and cost in check). Maybe even offer some rent-to-own programs where part of rent gets put into savings that can be used to either buy it after few years of use or be withdrawn when moving so renter have nice lil bit of money to put forward for buying new apartment/home. Then the city can actually plan for it, rather than hope housing developer that bought the land does something good for city and not just their own pocket.

ajsnigrutin 3mo ago
There's no need for the city to build it, they have zoning plans, and they can easily zone "that corn field over here" into an aera of commie-style apartment buildings (5+ floors, commercial on ground floors, apartments above, garages underground), and assign some percentage of space for green areas. I live in one of those used-to-be-commie countries, and we somehow manage to keep cornfields in prime locations, and in many areas, the most the local government allows you to build is a two-apartment two-story house, but none of the non-built land is actually buildable, so you need to demolish something else first. Here and there someone is able to build something with maybe 6-8 apartments (probably with an envelope switching hands), but that's it. It's as if some rich people connected to the government managed to get a lot of realestate in the 1990s when communism fell, and now they don't want prices to drop. But hey, we're building office buildings without any issues and making airbnb even easier instead... so yeah... the situation is pretty bad.
the_sleaze_ 2mo ago
> One thing soviet commies did right was housing builds I disagree. I have yet to see a nice-place-to-live low-income project. In USA Russia Brazil or Southeast Asia.
- rightbyte 2mo ago
  There are plenty in e.g. East Berlin. High rises with alot of parks around. You need to imagine them as they were new though.