The price per apartment ends up being way more important than the price per square foot when it comes to making sure people have homes.
America’s Cities Are Unlivable. Blame Wealthy Liberals. (NYT Opinion)
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It's a symptom of all big-cities with strong economies nowadays.
While SF and NYC lead most of the living costs charts - they are far from alone at the top - Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, HongKong, Shanghai, Zurich, Munich, Frankfurt, London... living costs (and housing) are ballooning in all of them.
The quality of life you get in each of these is another story - I've been through most of the above list and I'd rate actual US city-living near the bottom of the lot.
In a few years people are gonna get fed up with Democrats and vote in Republicans when they finally wise up and craft a state-specific Republican platform that appeals to California natives dissatisfied about the nature of one party rule. Cycle continues.
If the homeless want to move to Bumfuck where most of these vacant homes are, they're welcome to, but that's not reality. The total number of vacant homes is irrelevant, the question is where those vacancies are concentrated.
Dude look at housing yourself. For a major metro area it's 40% cheaper for a one bedroom than major US cities (even in places like Shinjuku and Shibuya). You can get a 500 sqft studio in central Tokyo for $700 in the heart of the city. In LA you can get a shitty equivalent in North Hollywood for maybe $1k.
The problem for blue-state Republicans is that the national GOP drags them down as politics has nationalized. (ditto red state Dems.) You can't escape it.
Yeah, reading it again that was a poor statement. What I meant was that there is no evidence that influxes of population will stop moving to a city just because prices are high. People who think that "people will/should stop coming here" if we make it less hospitable to newcomers are just buying into a smaller scale version of Trump-style immigration policy. People move to cities because of substantially higher economic opportunity, more pay, more choice of jobs, more amenities. When housing stock is kept constant it doesn't stop people from moving there, it just means people who are either more wealthy or more able to take a quality of life hit will simply push out an existing person. Those people either move further or they become homeless. Being homeless in a city is easier than being homeless in a small town because they at least have support networks. Those people aren't leaving. Also many of them can't leave, they don't have money and/or chronic health conditions, mental issues etc. So really all you can do is build more to house them (if we let these people live indoors and take shits in a toilet then maybe they wouldn't live in tents and shit on the street, what a concept!). There is no equilibrium state city populations, if you aren't growing you are dying, and attempts to make it harder to settle simply make it more inhospitable for everyone because even rich people need house cleaners, baristas, line cooks, uber drivers and artisans.
Decommodify housing and abolish landlords. I don't think property rights and the freedom to make fat stacks off the housing market should outweigh human lives. Some people like NIMBYs seem to want to have shit both ways. They (supposedly) want to get rid of the severe inequality in our economic system that deprives others of what they need to live, but fight tooth and nail to hold onto their position of being a beneficiary of said inequality. I don't think that's how shit works.
Yup. People have been coming to America crossing the border for eons because it was worth the move to them even with all the risks. It's why anyone moves- the promise of better opportunity.
A big factor behind border crossings slowing has been bithrate declines and an increase in quality of life as a result for younger generations. (less kids = less financial stress on parents, etc.) Unfortunately those types of factors that are occurring cross-nationally here in the Americas aren't reflected in the intra-US rural/urban dynamics, where rural areas are having massive issues in the modern economy.
Tbh I'm not a fan of this trend. Call me a moderate but it's way too easy for the party to get entrenched behind one faction (clinton) and then a Republican can cut their legs down as that's becomes the only viable way to wage a effective opposition.
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More liberal NIMBYism:
Unfortunately the only places we're seeing buck it are in the red states that have screwed up so bad (Kansas, basically any place that had a Teacher's Strike) that people can't stop ignoring it, and even then it's not a gigantic shift.
Using Tokyo as an example is bad because if you work in Tokyo you can live 30 minutes away by train and the housing prices drop substantially. Meanwhile in Seattle, housing prices go from super expensive to still way too expensive no matter which direction you go.
Japan solved this by:
Building like crazy.
Having the infrastructure to support outward growth.
NOT TYING HOUSES TO A SPECULATIVE MARKET THAT CAN BE ABUSED BY RICH PEOPLE AND GRIFTERS
Rent in Tokyo is expensive but you have to look outside of that. Food is cheap, you 100% do not need a car to live there, most businesses pay for public transportation costs to and from work (a pass, which you can use any time of the day any day of the week to travel to any station along your commute route), and health care is cheap.
You can live on less in Japan period.
Japan solved this by:
Building like crazy.
Having the infrastructure to support outward growth.
NOT TYING HOUSES TO A SPECULATIVE MARKET THAT CAN BE ABUSED BY RICH PEOPLE AND GRIFTERS
Rent in Tokyo is expensive but you have to look outside of that. Food is cheap, you 100% do not need a car to live there, most businesses pay for public transportation costs to and from work (a pass, which you can use any time of the day any day of the week to travel to any station along your commute route), and health care is cheap.
You can live on less in Japan period.
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We're not going to get Tokyo level density or mass transit, but the fact that American cities have so much restriction to build is the key driver here.
NIMBYs are way too powerful.
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It's not about it being ugly. It's about keeping the poors out. That's why they are upset.
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You could always buy a single family home.
The issue is that not everyone can nor wants to.
Give me some of that good old brutalist public housing.
Yes I'm aware of the irony of posting Le Corbusier.
Ugly? I think they look good enough. I rather like the garage downstairs and the whole three floors set up.
Give me some of that good old brutalist public housing.
Yes I'm aware of the irony of posting Le Corbusier.
Yeah this is 100% ugly.
I kind of loathe the slatted house look so common in America where suburbs are copy pasted throughout areas no one can afford to live in (because there's no jobs, not because it's too expensive, the opposite of the SF problem). IIRC it's called "neo-colonial"? Well I guess these denser side by side places are neo-neo colonial since they don't have yards, or probably have communal yards.
Vaguely related I also think America needs to de-carify for economic and environmental reasons so giving every family a garage is not exactly high on my list of priorities vis a vis urban development.
The biggest problem with this world and especially when it comes to politics, is that many people act in favour of their own interests, I don't think it is exclusive to a particular political leaning.
If putting others happiness before our own was the way of the world then I truly believe we would live in a naturally better world by default.
Unfortunately money and materialism is a huge motivating factor behind not putting other people and their happiness first and unless we change our approach to what's really important in life then this will forever remain the same, we place value on things that will never truly make us happy rather than placing value on life itself.
If putting others happiness before our own was the way of the world then I truly believe we would live in a naturally better world by default.
Unfortunately money and materialism is a huge motivating factor behind not putting other people and their happiness first and unless we change our approach to what's really important in life then this will forever remain the same, we place value on things that will never truly make us happy rather than placing value on life itself.
There should always be vacancies, much like the ideal unemployment rate isn't zero. Vacancies existing isn't the problem.
The problem is that even if you put everyone who needs or wants a home into the vacant places, it wouldn't be enough.
That's not necessarily my point in bringing that up to the person I quoted.
Anyways, you aren't wrong. if my understanding of economics is right with higher vacancy rates the rents go down correct? Except NYC remains unaffordable and the reason we have those vacancy rates in the first place is due to speculative investments.
That's the point they're making though.
South Bend Indiana currently has a vacancy rate of 12%. NYC's is currently 3.75% A "full" vacancy rate is about 5%, once you get past that, rents start increasing because housing demand has outpaced supply. And NYC's has been under 5% every year except for two in the wake of the recession, which for obvious reasons are an outlier. There aren't enough houses there.
Housing as speculative investment is indeed a big part of the problem, but "vacant houses" aren't really the reason it's a problem in most areas- it's houses that could be built, but aren't.
Yeah, it's pretty fucking awful. I'm lucky with my current apartment. It's a sweet old couple that just wants good tenants, and they haven't raised the rent once on me. I'm paying $1,650 for a 1BR apartment. It's an old unit and really barebones, with no garbage disposal, in unit washer/dryer, AC, etc. I would love to move to an actual apartment complex with more amenities, since I'm living in a duplex at the moment with no front or back yard, but for a 1BR apartment at an actual apartment complex with those things in San Jose costs like $2500 minimum.
Sure. But stepping away from the economic mechanism a bit, NYC has built a ton of homes with in the past few years since 2014. What doesn't sit well with me is working families filling up homeless shelters while apartments in the city remain vacant because it's more profitable for speculators to leave them so. Also where were building matters. Like I said before building a "luxury" apartment in Brownsville and slapping 30% affordable units in it is going to have a radically different impact in that area then doing the exact same in Forrest Hills for example. Like were working backwards here but this goes back to policy failures and not economics
This is one problem that capitalism can fix. Allow the builders to build and homes will become affordable again. You don't have to force anyone to do anything, just loosen the restrictions preventing builders from doing what they already want to do. It will even fix your housing as investments problem. Even if they are building luxury condos it's ok. The former luxury condos become middle class, the former middle class become lower class etc. Once the market determines that you can no longer acquire a luxury price for a luxury piece of housing because of demand, it will build accordingly.
The solution really is clear. Just difficult because of NIMBY's and real estate investment. But at some point you have to tell them to pound sand. Stop expecting 7 percent growth on your home per year. Problem is after the poor give dems their vote, what else do they have as an incentive to do the right thing? I promise you there are a lot of tie ins between real estate investment and politics. There's a reason why the only thing to pass was tax breaks for holders of "historic" property. It's not about preserving history, it's about preventing development and increasing their property value. In the city I live in, the people on our historic property administration committee are real estate investors and that's it. They don't give a shit about historic buildings in that sense, just as a tool to manipulate real estate prices. Everyone with the money is benefiting from this system so what's their incentive to change it? Like I said they already have the votes of the poor anyway.
The solution really is clear. Just difficult because of NIMBY's and real estate investment. But at some point you have to tell them to pound sand. Stop expecting 7 percent growth on your home per year. Problem is after the poor give dems their vote, what else do they have as an incentive to do the right thing? I promise you there are a lot of tie ins between real estate investment and politics. There's a reason why the only thing to pass was tax breaks for holders of "historic" property. It's not about preserving history, it's about preventing development and increasing their property value. In the city I live in, the people on our historic property administration committee are real estate investors and that's it. They don't give a shit about historic buildings in that sense, just as a tool to manipulate real estate prices. Everyone with the money is benefiting from this system so what's their incentive to change it? Like I said they already have the votes of the poor anyway.
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San Francisco's problem is not a "housing crisis". The mentally ill people that currently live on the street in San Francisco are not in the market for buying houses. They need long-term psychiatric care.
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I don't have enough facepalm for this.
No one's saying they shouldn't be taxing unused or vacant properties to encourage development. There's plenty of empty lots in Brooklyn even in hot neighborhoods. The city needs to get better about being efficient and not making housing too expensive, but there's certainly plenty they could do to prevent speculation (although I imagine the biggest impacts there would affect commercial rentals, not residential.)
New York for their part are trying to be pretty aggressive against short term rentals that are helping to deplete supply.
The problem isn't really the vacancies, its the houses that could be built, but aren't. It's that which could be done, but which isn't done because existing property owners don't want market competition that lowers their returns.
You see this in areas in NYC where it's currently illegal to build housing that's of equivalent density to existing buildings because it's been made illegal to do so even though the city's reliant on that older, denser housing stock for its supply.
We have had those threads on this board. This very forum, lol. Results come out interestingly problematic too.
These townhomes are nice.
No, it's not.
I know we've talked about that element of it before on this forum. It's worth discussing different elements of the issue
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I mean, this is a cancer which has spread throughout the entire DMV. Are these million-dollar homes? I struggle to see how.
They're not single family homes. That's a good thing. They're in the 350-400K range just over the Fairfax/Loudoun border.
Indeed. Housing is very expensive in big cities, especially in Asian ones. Of course, there are many factors to take into account: welfare, average wages, and so on. Living in the city centre of big cities without a sizable wage is challenging everywhere, though, even in countries with low inequalities and high average wages like Denmark.
I was talking about housing prices, not rental market. However, it might be that rent prices are lower in Tokyo. Overall, the average flat is smaller in Tokyo than in your typical big US city.
Give me some of that good old brutalist public housing.
When I lived in Sydney and commuted for work I used to love passing the 'Sirius Building'.
Really stood out in the context of the area it was in which you don't get in that image.
As for house pricing being an issue, my partner and I moved back to Melbourne due to how crazy house pricing was in Sydney.
Even in areas that had been affordable entry points it was out of control. Tax incetives like 'negative gearing' had meant baby boomers and people with more capital had been able to buy up awhile people trying to enter the market were at a huge disadvantage.
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Mentally ill vagrants are a fraction of the homeless population.
Yes it's a shame how these places that were once envisioned as mass housing for the working class became valuable real estate for the upper class only passing hands between the already rich and priced way out of the range of everyone below them.
I'd rather see more of these (if we were to build new housing) than our American triangle roofs and slatted walls though, which are kind of space inefficient for density and also offends my delicate architectural sensibilities.
I think my overall point is the influx and power of investment capital in the housing market is probably one of the biggest causes of the current housing crisis. It gives rise to NIMBYism as people want to protect their investment which then gives ways to the policy failures addressing housing in local municipalities. In my home of NYC, Real Estate is the biggest Lobby in the city, they got no trouble pouring money into statewide elections. I think for the most part on resetera and elsewhere we frame this conversation as NIMBYs vs YIMBYs and I think that's about as good as trying to interpret politics through party politics. You're not getting the full picture. Ultimately I think most of us would agree that we need housing to become an interchangeable commodity but how that happens will differ between. To stop people capital from gaming the system I believe we have to decommodify housing and culturally view it is a human right!
They're townhomes. They're excellent because they provide density yet at the same time they usually give people ownership of the land the house is built on.