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A huge amount of housing demand comes from immigration. You can't call people who like their neighbourhoods "NIMBYs" for not wanting their nice area to triple i

A huge amount of housing demand comes from immigration. You can't call people who like their neighbourhoods "NIMBYs" for not wanting their nice area to triple in population to solve a problem. They aren't the problem. The demand is the problem.

davidw 29d ago
Actually you can blame them because it was the done thing throughout US history to build more homes when people moved to an area. And there is nothing more American than moving to a place with better opportunities or amenities. "The pursuit of happiness" and all that. Actual immigration from outside the US is a vanishingly small part of our housing problems, just as immigrants do not actually "eat the cats and dogs". Where I live in Oregon the conflict is almost entirely about other Americans moving here vs those pulling up the ladder - which doesn't, of course,stop anyone from moving here, it just means only the wealthy can, rather than teachers, nurses, firefighters and so on.
- happytoexplain 29d ago
  >immigrants do not actually "eat the cats and dogs" This is a pretty stark straw man. It's very normal to be critical of immigration policy without believing that immigrants will eat your pets, and it's petty to try to implicitly cast the person you're talking to into that camp.
- philipallstar 27d ago
  > Actually you can blame them because it was the done thing throughout US history to build more homes when people moved to an area. And there is nothing more American than moving to a place with better opportunities or amenities. "The pursuit of happiness" and all that. Of course you can - good point. It's just extremely misleading to. However, "throughout history" America is only about 400 years in total, and for a lot of that there was loads of free land available. And - more importantly - no benefits, so you came to the US to carve out a new life from the soil, not to join a successful nation and raise house prices. Land in America is now settled, and that means that historical time is over, and no more applicable to debates today than it would be in any other nation, for most of whom the first 400 years would also have been a time of settling and opportunity.
Ajedi32 29d ago
So lack of supply isn't the problem, it's the people who want a place to live who are the problem? Would you make this same argument if the increased demand was from people being born rather than immigration (because it is both)? I think if you want to be able to block your neighbors from building denser housing on their property then that should only be enforceable if it was agreed to by everybody in advance when they bought the place (e.g. via an HOA contract or some similar type of restriction on the property deed). Otherwise this is tantamount to allowing Walmart to get a vote on whether to allow Target to set up next door.
- philipallstar 29d ago
  > So lack of supply isn't the problem, it's the people who want a place to live who are the problem? Would you make this same argument if the increased demand was from people being born rather than immigration (because it is both)? I totally agree it's both, although most first world populations have low birth rates (until you add in generational immigration from high birth rate cultures), so slow building works well.

davidw 29d ago

Actually you can blame them because it was the done thing throughout US history to build more homes when people moved to an area. And there is nothing more American than moving to a place with better opportunities or amenities. "The pursuit of happiness" and all that. Actual immigration from outside the US is a vanishingly small part of our housing problems, just as immigrants do not actually "eat the cats and dogs". Where I live in Oregon the conflict is almost entirely about other Americans moving here vs those pulling up the ladder - which doesn't, of course,stop anyone from moving here, it just means only the wealthy can, rather than teachers, nurses, firefighters and so on.

happytoexplain 29d ago
>immigrants do not actually "eat the cats and dogs" This is a pretty stark straw man. It's very normal to be critical of immigration policy without believing that immigrants will eat your pets, and it's petty to try to implicitly cast the person you're talking to into that camp.
philipallstar 27d ago
> Actually you can blame them because it was the done thing throughout US history to build more homes when people moved to an area. And there is nothing more American than moving to a place with better opportunities or amenities. "The pursuit of happiness" and all that. Of course you can - good point. It's just extremely misleading to. However, "throughout history" America is only about 400 years in total, and for a lot of that there was loads of free land available. And - more importantly - no benefits, so you came to the US to carve out a new life from the soil, not to join a successful nation and raise house prices. Land in America is now settled, and that means that historical time is over, and no more applicable to debates today than it would be in any other nation, for most of whom the first 400 years would also have been a time of settling and opportunity.

Ajedi32 29d ago

So lack of supply isn't the problem, it's the people who want a place to live who are the problem? Would you make this same argument if the increased demand was from people being born rather than immigration (because it is both)? I think if you want to be able to block your neighbors from building denser housing on their property then that should only be enforceable if it was agreed to by everybody in advance when they bought the place (e.g. via an HOA contract or some similar type of restriction on the property deed). Otherwise this is tantamount to allowing Walmart to get a vote on whether to allow Target to set up next door.

philipallstar 29d ago
> So lack of supply isn't the problem, it's the people who want a place to live who are the problem? Would you make this same argument if the increased demand was from people being born rather than immigration (because it is both)? I totally agree it's both, although most first world populations have low birth rates (until you add in generational immigration from high birth rate cultures), so slow building works well.