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>Yes building codes are different, but stuff like trim or brick work or generally curb appeal shouldn't affect that. It very much does, unfortunately. In the U

>Yes building codes are different, but stuff like trim or brick work or generally curb appeal shouldn't affect that. It very much does, unfortunately. In the US, the places with the highest housing shortages are mired with endless red tape, discretionary reviews, parking requirements etc. that substantially increase costs. This leaves little room for anything else, including aesthetics. Developers have gotten very good at navigating this, but it has also led to them sticking to basic "good enough" designs like the five-over-ones we see when new apartments are built.

asdff 18d ago
I'm not sure that squares what I see in these places. Seems to me that pretty much everywhere has the same red tape. Who is letting you build without consideration of fire safety, egress points, floor area ratios, parking minimums, etc? Everywhere across the country has such "red tape" and regulation. But what I notice in the housing crisis cities is that this is almost irrelevant. Whatever the actual limits of the zoning are, that is pretty much what you see built. Regulation be damned, it will get bulldozed through and built if it is allowed to be built in these cities. And the real only dam preventing the flood of development becomes these zoning laws that finally say "no" to development happening at all. The red tape is just cost add that gets passed to the buyer. It isn't like there are a glut of homes too expensive to sell in these places (what you'd see if red tape were really the issue), quite the opposite, after all.
- ProfessorLayton 18d ago
  I wasn't talking about safety issues when mentioning red tape, but even those severely limit housing construction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sfoLUumGnc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sfoLUumGnc Parking minimums are how we ended up with cities that are substantially composed of car storage, instead of housing which people need to live. There's little reason to force developers to build car storage when what people need is housing. People in cities get along just fine without a car, and it's possible to adopt a similar model to Japan that requires people to prove they have a parking spot available before they can register a car. >Whatever the actual limits of the zoning are, that is pretty much what you see built. Exactly, the limits are set very low, and so much red tape, that so little housing gets built, which is why we have a shortage.

asdff 18d ago

I'm not sure that squares what I see in these places. Seems to me that pretty much everywhere has the same red tape. Who is letting you build without consideration of fire safety, egress points, floor area ratios, parking minimums, etc? Everywhere across the country has such "red tape" and regulation. But what I notice in the housing crisis cities is that this is almost irrelevant. Whatever the actual limits of the zoning are, that is pretty much what you see built. Regulation be damned, it will get bulldozed through and built if it is allowed to be built in these cities. And the real only dam preventing the flood of development becomes these zoning laws that finally say "no" to development happening at all. The red tape is just cost add that gets passed to the buyer. It isn't like there are a glut of homes too expensive to sell in these places (what you'd see if red tape were really the issue), quite the opposite, after all.

ProfessorLayton 18d ago
I wasn't talking about safety issues when mentioning red tape, but even those severely limit housing construction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sfoLUumGnc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sfoLUumGnc Parking minimums are how we ended up with cities that are substantially composed of car storage, instead of housing which people need to live. There's little reason to force developers to build car storage when what people need is housing. People in cities get along just fine without a car, and it's possible to adopt a similar model to Japan that requires people to prove they have a parking spot available before they can register a car. >Whatever the actual limits of the zoning are, that is pretty much what you see built. Exactly, the limits are set very low, and so much red tape, that so little housing gets built, which is why we have a shortage.