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Cicero posted:Demand for luxury studios isn't infinite, this is another example of yeah, the market will take the lowest-hanging, most profitable fruit first. That type of housing without regulation is also turned into high priced studios as shown in Portland. Also, I don't know how complaining clearly broken practices is "economic segregation." If anything the current prices and strategy has pushed out working-class families and minorities from most of central Portland. This has been exacerbated by tax-funded improvement districts that progressively pushing the working class out of the city limits. Portland has already tried upzoning all over the place, and the results have been mixed to poor/negative. Mooseontheloose posted:Too true for the 2nd point in this sense, smaller suburbs could build apartment-style housing and help alleviate some of these problems. In Portland, it is already done, but developers pushed the lowest hanging fruits by focusing on apartments for singles. Eventually, prices for studios will probably decrease but infill housing usually doesn't address the issues of families needing housing, if anything it exacerbates it. If anything the non-upper middle class are just ignored/left behind because massively producing over-priced studios was seen as lucrative until that specific niche was completely oversaturated. It isn't that some type of upzoning needs to happen, it is just the current system of largely letting the market run while with various tax-funded subsidies is creating severe issues. (Also, part of the issue is that many of these developments were cheaply made but already designed with a certain high price point in mind. Rent prices are probably going to be sticky.) Ardennes fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Sep 15, 2018 |
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Sep 15, 2018 22:07
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If upzoning hasn't produced enough middle class housing i.e. down to 80% of AMI then you haven't upzoned enough. In fact rent prices going up faster than inflation is proof that supply is being constrained and additional upzoning is needed. You are complaining that General Motors keeps selling more Cadillacs when you increased thier car qouta and didn't start making Chevrolets. This is a signal to tell you the high end of the market is not yet satisfied by the degree of upzoning. To get the the middle class housing you need to upzone enough to absorb all the high end demand so developers desiring to make incremental additional profits are forced to build lower profit margin housing products IE middle class housing. See this works for cars because there is no government enforced limit on the number that can be manufactured. GM first makes enough Cadillacs to absorb all the luxury demand for thier vehicles, then seeking additional profits makes Chevrolets at a lower profit percentage. This process continues down the product line until there are no more profitable vehicles to make. If you want housing to be affordable you have to let developers make enough of it to satisfy all segments of the market. When you restrict them to a very small quota of course they will only make the the highest profit units that is only logical.
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Sep 16, 2018 13:00
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Also low value properties and underdeveloped lots being upzoned and turned into luxury housing is an objective good. The new building with significantly more units, with a much higher per unit property value will generate significantly higher taxes for the city than the previous use of the land. This produces more tax revenue per square foot of land within a city and brings in vital resources to maintain our civic infrastructure. If you care about local governments and budgets at all you should be 100% for luxury housing getting built in your city. All that sweet sweet lucre for the state. Even better if the unit are unoccupied then you can charge the richy rich a vacancy tax, and they won't be adding to the cost to maintain the city. Rich people are literally lining up to pay your city money, you should take as much of it as you can.
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Sep 16, 2018 13:09
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Ardennes posted:If anything the current prices and strategy has pushed out working-class families and minorities from most of central Portland. quote:Portland has already tried upzoning all over the place, and the results have been mixed to poor/negative. Even then, when lots of new supply comes on the market, prices tend to drop or at least stabilize. quote:In Portland, it is already done, but developers pushed the lowest hanging fruits by focusing on apartments for singles. Eventually, prices for studios will probably decrease but infill housing usually doesn't address the issues of families needing housing, if anything it exacerbates it. If anything the non-upper middle class are just ignored/left behind because massively producing over-priced studios was seen as lucrative until that specific niche was completely oversaturated. quote:It isn't that some type of upzoning needs to happen, it is just the current system of largely letting the market run while with various tax-funded subsidies is creating severe issues. quote:(Also, part of the issue is that many of these developments were cheaply made but already designed with a certain high price point in mind. Rent prices are probably going to be sticky.)
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Sep 16, 2018 19:55
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Even permitted luxury projects are being stalled in some of the highest demand markets due to low profit margins due to labor costs, so clearly the issue has scaled beyond just one of permitting, especially if they're looking at completely redesigning projects to reduce labor costs: https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2016/10/construction-pipeline-costs-lennar-build-harvest.html quote:There’s no question that Bay Area contractors and developers are feeling the crunch of the overheated construction market – to the point that some developments have been put on hold. The biggest problem, they say, is that demand for subcontractors far outweighs supply, which is driving costs to unsustainable levels. https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/05/01/construction-costs-could-limit-where-san-jose-homes-are-built-google-adobe-diridon/ quote:Construction expenses have pressured developers severely enough that new market-rate apartments are profitable in no more than two districts in San Jose, according to a new report presented to city officials Tuesday. If developers are demanding 10% profit margins but costs are too high to give them the returns the want, you either have to build public housing or directly subsidize private construction. If we're spending public dollars to build housing, we shouldn't just give it away to maintain the profits of investors.
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Sep 16, 2018 21:03
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KingFisher posted:If upzoning hasn't produced enough middle class housing i.e. down to 80% of AMI then you haven't upzoned enough. Yeah, upzoning has happened across central parts of Portland. It just keep on producing the same time of housing. Just increasing upzoning, isn't going to actually make developers build affordable housing. Housing is a very different thing than cars where it is easy to ramp up produce or change models, if anything it is highly speculative and it may take years for a project to be finished. More over it is highly cyclical and capital invensive for the companies involved. Portland has been very liberal in upzoning and it hasn't produced those results. KingFisher posted:Also low value properties and underdeveloped lots being upzoned and turned into luxury housing is an objective good. The new building with significantly more units, with a much higher per unit property value will generate significantly higher taxes for the city than the previous use of the land. In Portland, there are BIDs that essentially vacuum up increased property taxes and essential solely reinvest in projects in those districts. Portland has only been increasing them in recent years and now they cover pretty much every gentrifying area. (The PDC has been desperate to also keep these districts going long after they should be around.) Cicero posted:Agreed, the current strategy of "hardly do anything" has been a disaster. More radical, serious solutions are required. The government enforcing economic segregation in SFH-only neighborhoods is the people's money being used to make invisibly gated communities. That has to stop. More drastic solutions are required, but upzoning without public investment and regulation toward affordability is clearly a non-starter. quote:Bullshit. Portland has hardly upzoned anything. Most of the residential area is still mandatory very low density, just like nearly all US cities. You absolutely have no idea what you're talking about and clearly, haven't a real clue about how things are right now in PDX. There is infill all over the place including middle class/upper middle class areas. Also, they fact that most of Portland are still single family dwellings is a non-sequitor, it is still a relatively small US city. quote:Even then, when lots of new supply comes on the market, prices tend to drop or at least stabilize. Prices are still increasing for two-three bedroom apartments bud. Trickledown isn't working. quote:Developers like money and will target the most profitable, lowest-hanging fruit first. When you don't upzone very much, and the areas that are upzoned are relatively "central" neighborhoods upzoned for large apartment buildings, yeah no poo poo it's mostly apartments for singles or DINKs, what else would you expect? Btw, even non-central neighborhoods have been opened up for upzoning including those of the edge of the city. The subsidies are BIDs and property taxes strictly being funneled to developers and infrastructure in those districts. Basically, you are asking "faith" in a plan that clearly hasn't been working and now the population has been caught in the middle. Moreover, the housing market has cooled off and fewer new projects are in the pipeline and zoning has almost nothing to do with it. The entire endeavor created a bubble to fulfill speculation on the construction of the "lowest hanging fruit" but this didn't actually trickle down to the population at large since developers didn't have an incentive to construct affordable housing and instead you have a bunch of projects that will be underutilized and perhaps some that won't even be completed. Upzoning without government intervention to address affordability just hasn't worked. Btw, a lot of this discussion sounds semi-libertarian, that it is the government "getting in the way" that is causing the problem not that market dynamics in the US have and will continue to generally gently caress over the poor because that is how capitalism is designed. Developers will naturally try to avoid providing afforable housing if possible because there are looking for a lucrative market even if you allow them to do whatever they want. Portland's municipal government has bended over backwards to pretty much allow them to what they will, and they did. It just didn't work. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Sep 17, 2018 |
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Sep 16, 2018 22:20
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I'm sorry but a milk toast liberal upzoning policy is not "trying it and it hasn't worked". Implementing 10% of the solution and complaining it isn't working isn't an indictment of the solution but the polity. An actual upzoning based solution would allow 500 ft mixed use/income on all existing commerical/residential zoned lots within city limits. That would give developers the capacity to build market rate housing down to the lowest profit margin units. This would solve most of the housing problem. Especially if combined with a 10% performance affordable housing mandate.
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Sep 17, 2018 12:11
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quote:You absolutely have no idea what you're talking about and clearly, haven't a real clue about how things are right now in PDX. There is infill all over the place including middle class/upper middle class areas. quote:Also, they fact that most of Portland are still single family dwellings is a non-sequitor, it is still a relatively small US city. quote:Prices are still increasing for two-three bedroom apartments bud. Trickledown isn't working. quote:Btw, even non-central neighborhoods have been opened up for upzoning including those of the edge of the city. quote:The subsidies are BIDs and property taxes strictly being funneled to developers and infrastructure in those districts. quote:Basically, you are asking "faith" in a plan that clearly hasn't been working and now the population has been caught in the middle. Moreover, the housing market has cooled off and fewer new projects are in the pipeline and zoning has almost nothing to do with it. The entire endeavor created a bubble to fulfill speculation on the construction of the "lowest hanging fruit" but this didn't actually trickle down to the population at large since developers didn't have an incentive to construct affordable housing and instead you have a bunch of projects that will be underutilized and perhaps some that won't even be completed. Upzoning without government intervention to address affordability just hasn't worked. quote:Btw, a lot of this discussion sounds semi-libertarian, that it is the government "getting in the way" that is causing the problem not that market dynamics in the US have and will continue to generally gently caress over the poor because that is how capitalism is designed. Developers will naturally try to avoid providing afforable housing if possible because there are looking for a lucrative market even if you allow them to do whatever they want. Portland's municipal government has bended over backwards to pretty much allow them to what they will, and they did. It just didn't work. And you don't have to be a loving libertarian to have a basic grasp of how markets function. Was Obama a libertarian? Is Paul Krugman libertarian? Is California's Legislative Analyst's Office libertarian? You're just throwing around "libertarian" and "trickle down" as cheap tricks to deflect from the fact that you somehow don't think increasing supply will help a problem where the whole issue is demand outstripping supply. Cicero fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Sep 17, 2018 |
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Sep 17, 2018 12:53
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The urbanist/YIMBY idea is that while yes, new market-rate housing that replaces older buildings will generally be more expensive than what it replaced (it is newer, after all), the total housing stock going up relieves price pressure for the region as a whole. And eventually, what was once brand new, "luxury" housing will become the older, affordable housing in the future. And indeed, that's exactly what you see: Berkeley did a series of case studies on particular neighborhoods in the bay area and found: http://www.urbandisplacement.org/research#section-84 quote:* At the regional level, both market-rate and subsidized housing reduce displacement pressures, but subsidized housing has over double the impact of market-rate units. quote:Housing Production May Not Reduce Displacement Pressure in a Neighborhood I look forward to hearing how UC Berkeley's Urban Displacement Project is also "libertarian" and obsessed with trickle down economics. Cicero fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Sep 17, 2018 |
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Sep 17, 2018 13:44
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Also, "Market-rate production is associated with higher housing cost burden for low-income households, but lower median rents in subsequent decades." sounds like it is saying what I am saying. In Portland, the growth of market rate studios has actually started to decrease rental prices through supply, but it hasn't helped low-income households. The issue with "letting the market roam wild" supply is targetted to particular types of housing stock at a certain price point. In Portland, this is exacerbated by the urban growth boundary (which has its issues) since there is only so much cheap housing on the fringe of the metro region. In SF, sprawl probably helped address this issue to a certain point (at the cost of congestion and environmental damage). Either way, prices for studios and I bedroom places did stablize in Portland (at a higher price point) but 2 brs and 3 brs are continuing to climb in price because they simply aren't being built. Cicero posted:All I've read about are upzones in central areas and little strips. The current zoning map shows most of the residential area still zoned for very low density. That's hardly "all over the place". The metro area is about 2 million (most of which is suburbs, some in a completely different state), while Portland itself is about 700-800k it isn't a terribly large place. But the fact you think there are single family homes left is the issue explains a lot. There has been a absolutely massive building boom in Portland, and just because most of the original city is left...isn't enough. Basically, it sounds like you will only accept the entire city being bulldozed. Btw, most of the year I live in Moscow, a city most of which is made up of extremely high density housing blocks. Those housing blocks were built on the fringes of the existing city and then connected to the center through very high capacity heavy-rail transport. It works becuase it was designed in a certain way and had the infrastructure to support it (the traffic is a nightmare). Portland honestly doesn't expect for light-rail lines in awkward areas. If Portland had Moscow style density, it would be a f'ing trashfire. quote:lol, more "trickle down" bullshit from supply and demand denialists. Or rather, people who acknowledge that demand outstripping supply causes prices to rise, but insist that increasing supply will have no effect, somehow. "The poor are getting outbid by the rich because there's not enough X to go around, so let's make more X" is totally the same thing as "give tax cuts to the wealthy", right? Different types of housing dude, I have said this a dozen times at this point.Btw, the BIDs are pretty much tax subsidies to the rich. quote:Only in little bits and pieces though. It's basically the urban village model. Now, concentrating the most density along certain corridors or in certain areas isn't the worst idea, it's just that, if you look at the map, you can see even most of the "higher density areas" in, say, Eastern Portland are still only like R2 or R1. That's basically "missing middle" level density, which is really what the minimum level of zoning should be at across the city, and those corridors should be at low or mid-rise. Basically, the city couldn't handle that type of density even if the market wasn't cooling, there just isn't the transportation infrastructure that could support it quote:Do you have an article that talks about this more? Also, property taxes being funneled to developers or to infrastructure are two very different things. Both, "Propser Portland" has a bunch of planning documents. I honestly discovered most of it myself. Look at the maps and budgets in particular to get a sense of the scale and money involved. Most of it is still supporting development. Also, the infrastructure is usually concentrated in particular districts. quote:It only requires "faith" if you haven't been paying attention and think supply and demand don't exist (or only works one way?). That is because the world is clearly much more complicated than "supply and demand" and that social utility is usually lost in that mix. The market will supply plenty of luxury studios and 1 brs aparments, what is everyone else going to do? Letting the market making one particular type of housing, isn't actually solving the issue and in some ways is exacerbating it. Obama loved charter schools and Krugman lost his mind over Bernie, they aren't the best examples man even if they aren't classical libertarians. Both of them are too reliant on market solutions, and both are still more moderate than your proposals. Increasing total supply simply put doesn't address the actual disparity happening simply put because it is overproducing one particular style of housing.
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Sep 17, 2018 19:28
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Ardennes posted:Basically, the city couldn't handle that type of density even if the market wasn't cooling, there just isn't the transportation infrastructure that could support it tampering with land use is the easy, cheap, magic bullet solution that sounds smart but won't work since transportation and land use are two sides of the same coin, the harder but better answer is to expand transportation first and match land use to it. this is how tokyo style value capture worked in a quasi-command economy, entirely outside of the soviet system
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Sep 17, 2018 19:52
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Ardennes posted:Also, "Market-rate production is associated with higher housing cost burden for low-income households, but lower median rents in subsequent decades." sounds like it is saying what I am saying. If only there was something we could do about the former, like, say, spread out the development over the whole region rather than hyperconcentrate it into tiny little areas. Alas, it is impossible for us to do what every other country already does for some reason. quote:In Portland, the growth of market rate studios has actually started to decrease rental prices through supply, but it hasn't helped low-income households. The issue with "letting the market roam wild" supply is targetted to particular types of housing stock at a certain price point. In Portland, this is exacerbated by the urban growth boundary (which has its issues) since there is only so much cheap housing on the fringe of the metro region. In SF, sprawl probably helped address this issue to a certain point (at the cost of congestion and environmental damage). https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/or/portland/ https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-portland-or-rent-trends/ For example, Rent Jungle is showing 2br prices about the same now as in early 2016. quote:The metro area is about 2 million (most of which is suburbs, some in a completely different state), while Portland itself is about 700-800k it isn't a terribly large place. quote:But the fact you think there are single family homes left is the issue explains a lot. There has been a absolutely massive building boom in Portland, and just because most of the original city is left...isn't enough. Basically, it sounds like you will only accept the entire city being bulldozed. Besides, you should know that the strict exclusionary zoning has much of its origin in keeping out "undesirables", whether that be other races or the impoverished. The former is less of an issue today than it was in the past, but the latter sentiment is still alive and well. And even though not everyone supports that kind of zoning for the purpose of economic segregation, that is nonetheless the result: where a working class family can't afford an entire house but could afford a unit in a 4-plex, the outcome would be unacceptable to many. quote:Btw, most of the year I live in Moscow, a city most of which is made up of extremely high density housing blocks. Those housing blocks were built on the fringes of the existing city and then connected to the center through very high capacity heavy-rail transport. It works becuase it was designed in a certain way and had the infrastructure to support it (the traffic is a nightmare). Portland honestly doesn't expect for light-rail lines in awkward areas. If Portland had Moscow style density, it would be a f'ing trashfire. quote:Different types of housing dude, I have said this a dozen times at this point.Btw, the BIDs are pretty much tax subsidies to the rich. quote:Basically, the city couldn't handle that type of density even if the market wasn't cooling, there just isn't the transportation infrastructure that could support it quote:Both, "Propser Portland" has a bunch of planning documents. I honestly discovered most of it myself. Look at the maps and budgets in particular to get a sense of the scale and money involved. Most of it is still supporting development. Also, the infrastructure is usually concentrated in particular districts. quote:That is because the world is clearly much more complicated than "supply and demand" and that social utility is usually lost in that mix. The market will supply plenty of luxury studios and 1 brs aparments, what is everyone else going to do? Letting the market making one particular type of housing, isn't actually solving the issue and in some ways is exacerbating it. quote:Obama loved charter schools and Krugman lost his mind over Bernie, they aren't the best examples man even if they aren't classical libertarians. Both of them are too reliant on market solutions, and both are still more moderate than your proposals. quote:The Obama administration Monday is calling on cities and counties to rethink their zoning laws, saying that antiquated rules on construction, housing and land use are contributing to high rents and income inequality, and dragging down the U.S. economy as a whole. Heck, Krugman says there's lots more room to put more housing in NYC, which is already quite dense. quote:Increasing total supply simply put doesn't address the actual disparity happening simply put because it is overproducing one particular style of housing.
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Sep 17, 2018 20:27
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I can't find anything about "BID" being some special portland thing (though Googling it mostly gets construction/project bid info) but assuming it stands for Business Improvement District then you're totally misunderstanding what a BID is. In a BID the properties choose to pay additional taxes that go towards paying for increased services in their direct area. It's like the exact opposite of being given a tax subsidy by the city.
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Sep 17, 2018 22:53
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FISHMANPET posted:I can't find anything about "BID" being some special portland thing (though Googling it mostly gets construction/project bid info) but assuming it stands for Business Improvement District then you're totally misunderstanding what a BID is. In a BID the properties choose to pay additional taxes that go towards paying for increased services in their direct area. It's like the exact opposite of being given a tax subsidy by the city. It think it's a specifically a reference to the Portland Development Commission https://prosperportland.us/about-us/frequently-asked-questions/ Apparently they changed their name in the last year or so.
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Sep 17, 2018 23:27
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FISHMANPET posted:I can't find anything about "BID" being some special portland thing (though Googling it mostly gets construction/project bid info) but assuming it stands for Business Improvement District then you're totally misunderstanding what a BID is. In a BID the properties choose to pay additional taxes that go towards paying for increased services in their direct area. It's like the exact opposite of being given a tax subsidy by the city. The idea of BIDs and other improvement districts is that improvements are paid for by TIFs ie paying down bonds with future property taxes. The problem is that the PDC has steadily refused to wind down these districts in order to return money to the general fund and instead has fought to prolong them even after bonds are paid off ahead of schedule. Moreover, they are expanding them into areas that honestly probably don't need to be changed and will probably ruin their pre-existing character, for example along 82nd which is a Slavic/Asian immigrant district. Cicero posted:It's associated with higher housing cost burden in the short term for the neighborhood where the development is concentrated, yes. The fact that it reduces displacement even in the short term for the region implies that the regional housing cost burden goes down immediately. The burden depends on what type of housing stock is available. quote:If only there was something we could do about the former, like, say, spread out the development over the whole region rather than hyperconcentrate it into tiny little areas. Alas, it is impossible for us to do what every other country already does for some reason. The issue is that developers don't give a flip about affordable housing unless they are forced to and will continue to make the same type of housing stock. quote:It would be easier for them to be built if missing middle housing was legal in more of the city. That said, where are you getting your data? Because what I'm seeing is that 2br and 3br prices stabilized too within the last couple years: From this article: quote:Rents for apartments in newly constructed buildings declined last year—marking a real change, at least temporarily, in the upward trajectory of housing costs. https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2018/04/27/rent-declined-in-the-newest-buildings-in-portland-in-2017/ quote:No, the metro is about 2.5 million (well, 2.45 million): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_metropolitan_area and the city proper is 650k. Yes, small for a major city, but still a major city. And you're just ignoring how tiny suburbs in other countries are still more dense. You seem to have a weird sense of American exceptionalism, as if low density was just built into the soil. The metro is 2.389,000 million but including suburbs like Vancouver that honestly have a completely different way of conducting their affairs. quote:Who gives a poo poo about non-historic buildings if refusing to replace them means people suffer more? What a bizarre position for a socialist to take.[/qoute] In this case upzoning doesn't do squad because that working-class family is forced out anywhere and isn't going to be able to squeeze into a $1300 dollar a month studio. It is just a different method of segregation. quote:Agreed, to accommodate truly high density buildings en masse, you'd need radically improved infrastructure (which would be a good idea). But you don't need that for missing middle level housing. For that, you could get away with cheaper, faster improvements: more buses, more greenways and other bike-friendly improvements, more mixed-use zoning so that more businesses are in walking and biking distance, etc. Portland pretty much maximized this type of transit, and at a certain point people aren't going to be biking 45 minutes to get to downtown. Bike lanes are fine but they are a poor replacement to genuine infrastructure. Portland just really wasn't historically designed for high density beyond a certain point. quote:If these are separate markets because of different kinds of housing, why is it that new market-rate developments in the bay area -- which are largely nicer, "luxury" complexes -- is still associated with lowered regional displacement, even in the short term? If I'm missing something there, by all means point it out. So far you seem to be doing your best to ignore the fact that even a very obviously left-leaning study out of UCB said that while market-rate units aren't as good as subsidized ones for affordability, they're still a net positive. A new positive for whom? Like the article pointed out, even if rents decline or stabilize they don't do it for every catagory. Moreover, in the case of SF, it sounds like the working class was generally displaced to make way for these developments and probably pushed out in more inaccessible areas. (In Portland, they generally get pushed into East Portland/Gresham and thats why prices are still climbing). quote:Absolutely it could, it only lacks the political will. Sure, heavy rail/subways would take a long-rear end time, but converting general traffic lanes to bus only lanes can be done much more quickly and cheaply. Converting local neighborhood streets to greenways for increased bike usage is also pretty drat easy, they seem to be doing it mostly just throwing down diverters every few blocks, that's certainly not that hard. Increasing parking fees or even introduction a rush hour congestion charge, these are options that aren't too difficult to actually implement. Politically these things are certainly challenging, though. Yeah, basically a lot of that is essentially pushing working class people at a certain point (beyond bus lanes). Working class people won't be in biking distance of jobs in East Portland, and high parking fees/congestion charges are pretty much to make sure only upper-middle-class people can affordable commute by car downtown. More buses are better, but it doesn't really matter if they are stuck in traffic on narrow city streets. Portland has pretty aggressive about most of this stuff anyway, it just low-cost options have reached their limits. quote:Wait, so first the infrastructure isn't good enough to handle higher densities, and now focusing the improved infrastructure in higher density areas is bad? But thanks for the tip, I'll take a look. The issue is there needs to be a focus on broader regional wide investment not focusing cloistering way property taxes in specific districts. Infrastructure needs to be built but it needs to done with the entire city/metro in mind. quote:The market demand for luxury studios and 1br apartments isn't infinite, and when affluent people take new units like those that didn't exist before, they free up space in lower end housing they would've otherwise competed for. That filtering down effect is real, it's not just "libertarians" that acknowledge it, and I believe it's discussed in the study I linked to. In the Portland, plenty of people, especially in new buildings, are transplants. It lines up what it is going on in that WW article. quote:Bulllllllshit. You can't say that because -- at least from what I've read -- they haven't put out specific proposals to even compare against. But what we DO know is that Krugman and Obama's administration supported relaxing zoning rules to allow for more housing. For example: Deregulating zoning is a market-based solution on its face because your are almost entirely relying on market-housing. Also, the Cato Institute literally is praising Obama in that article. Also, the Berkeley article is actually fairly negative about market-based solutions on their , and seems to suggest that market-based housing may have a minimal positive effect on addressing affordability even if there is a effect on regional median rents. (It seems there is minimal "filtering" from high end to low-end earners for housing.) Btw, this is really extremely tedious and you obviously aren't responding to what I am saying and we see to be dancing around the same points about a dozen times at this point. Median prices can decline across a metro, but not necessarily for all type of housing/income groups/areas. In Portland, prices are cooling/even declining in certain areas but are still climbing for essentially ghettoized portions of the metro area, where the working poor has been concentrated because they have been too priced out of the rest of the metro area and it doesn't seem to be stopping after a massive construction boom. If it seemed bulldozing everything in sight made a difference, I would be more open to "just upzoning it" but instead it seems to have greater a whole host of issues that haven't resolved the real issue at the place: affordable housing for people who can't afford it otherwise (and preferrably doesn't push them into the edge of civilization). Anyway, at a certain point, developers are slowing/stopping construction because they have figured they over-built studios and are unlikely to move on to affordable housing because the working poor in Portland simply don't have enough cash to draw developers. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Sep 18, 2018 |
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Sep 18, 2018 00:22
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Square footage restrictions also keep costs down and I am starting to see towns in Massachusetts talk about square footage restrictions for SFHs, I am imagining the same might need to be done for apartments too.
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Sep 18, 2018 04:12
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Mooseontheloose posted:Square footage restrictions also keep costs down and I am starting to see towns in Massachusetts talk about square footage restrictions for SFHs, I am imagining the same might need to be done for apartments too. Eh, most of the new apartments I have seen advertised 400-500 SQ in Portland and are hardly palatial. If anything developers are building small and cheap and charging luxury prices with the expectation they would make a ton of money off of transplants. The problem is prices are most likely going to be sticky because no landlord wants to disrupt the market and there may be enough people still moving to keep the market from collapsing.
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Sep 18, 2018 04:20
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Mooseontheloose posted:Square footage restrictions also keep costs down and I am starting to see towns in Massachusetts talk about square footage restrictions for SFHs, I am imagining the same might need to be done for apartments too. Could you give some examples here?
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Sep 22, 2018 07:17
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Good work donoteat! https://kotaku.com/the-socialist-youtuber-using-cities-skylines-to-explai-1829245653/
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Sep 23, 2018 13:40
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Mooseontheloose posted:I wrote about affordable housing for my master's thesis, especially in regards to my homestate and the regulations they have to force towns to build affordable housing, happy to see this thread/contribute if people have questions. I'd be interested if your home state anything other than California or Oregon.
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Sep 24, 2018 04:33
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I guess this thread is perhaps dead but I wasn’t sure where else to post this article: https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2018/10/prop-j-initiative-exposes-rift-among-austin-environmentalists/ Interesting discussion of how density splits environmental groups, including one leading Austin environmentalist saying we should just do more sprawl development because that’s good for the environment somehow.
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Oct 9, 2018 14:51
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the greenfields guy? i read it as clustering which is not uh the greatest idea ever but it's sort of valid, but maybe not in the context of within the austin city limits
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Oct 9, 2018 15:35
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Badger of Basra posted:I guess this thread is perhaps dead but I wasn�t sure where else to post this article: https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2018/10/prop-j-initiative-exposes-rift-among-austin-environmentalists/ And that's generously assuming that they aren't arguing in bad faith. In Minneapolis, citizen journalists have uncovered that, far from being the heroes of the downtrodden they make themselves out to be, the leaders of local NIMBY efforts are rich, privileged, and conservative. The city council gave in to a lot of their demands, severely scaling back proposals for 4-plexes and carving out a massive area of downzoning in the richest neighborhoods of the city. Unrelated, but here's a thoughtful article on why "YIMBY" isn't a perfect slogan to rally behind and why "Neighbors for More Neighbors" is catching on in the Twin Cities (and yes, I've picked up one of their signs for my apartment window!). N4MN doesn't roll nearly so well off the tongue, so I think I'll stand behind both labels. 
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Oct 10, 2018 01:40
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Cugel the Clever posted:This is bizarrely common amongst critics of density/non-car transportation. "I support the fight against climate change, but am unwilling to accept the slightest change to my current circumstances!" I get really tired of the focus being on individuals when the problem (whatever environmental issue you want to discuss) is mostly due to use/abuse of the particular resource on an industrial scale. It’s messed up to ask the poor to pay a price the rich aren’t willing to pay, and it’s downright stupid to address issues on the side while ignoring the low hanging fruit in front of us.
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Oct 10, 2018 11:19
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This is a lengthy and good article about why transit sucks in the US and how it could be improved: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/10/while-america-suffocated-transit-other-countries-embraced-it/572167/
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Oct 10, 2018 17:42
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Cicero posted:This is a lengthy and good article about why transit sucks in the US and how it could be improved: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/10/while-america-suffocated-transit-other-countries-embraced-it/572167/ pretty decent article but a bit simplistic, it takes the popular perspective of looking at urban land use/transportation from a train nerd perspective while leaving out the role of government, private business, and general land use economics. which is to say there's nothing really wrong with the article but it's only a small bit of the picture. i have some criticisms quote:Many, though not all, major cities in the U.S. have a number of rail lines radiating out of their centers. Most of them are only used by freight or a few commuter train trips a day. It’s a huge, untapped resource. There’s no reason why those railway lines can’t be turned into what are effectively subway lines—high-capacity routes that allow people to get across the city quickly—without the immense cost of tunneling. from a material, engineering standpoint no, but legally there's a big reason - these rail lines are often privately owned by freight companies who protect them and their use of them like a dragon's loving hoard because you are NOT going to put new rail lines in, around, or through american metros today. urban rail lines are an incredibly scarce resource and since they belong to large companies, good luck getting them to budge at all on access quote:Converting existing rail lines to run real transit service can be shockingly cheap: Ottawa converted a lightly-used freight route to a five-stop rail transit line with trains every 15 minutes for only $16 million. By comparison, one station on New York’s Second Avenue Subway cost $740 million; the 2.2-mile-long D.C. Streetcar cost $200 million. again we're missing the forest for the trees here - american transit officials would come up with the money for new rolling stock if they got right of way. they'd sell their kidneys if they had to. this is like saying "first, assume your biggest and strongest obstacle to implementing commuter rail disappears. how do we move on from there?" if we're assuming a world where state governments (or an oddly empowered federal government) can simply nationalize rail lines and distribute them for passenger travel then i dont think we're going to have to worry about funding quote:The U.S. did stop building rail, despite much talk among American planners of “balanced” transportation plans that included both highway and public transit improvements. There were nearly no significant rail projects between the New Deal era in the 1930s and early 40s, and the Great Society era of the 1960s. i'll give them the early 60's, but i wonder why new rail projects dried up during the 1930's and early 40's...  the whole chapter called lesson 6 just made me wince, especially when i read that the author of this peice is a phd candidate in urban planning (who gets a doctorate in planning? a masters is traditional to enter the field) it was cringeworthy because the dude brings up the example of toronto (good, yes) and how toronto has a strong regional planning body (very good! this is almost a full argument!) quote:In 1954, a metro government—sort of like a very strong county government—was created by the province of Ontario and charged with overseeing many services for the both city and its suburbs, including transit. then the conclusion of this chapter is... better service attracts more riders, the same thing that's been said through the article  it's nitpicky but this is a pretty common attitude i've seen among planning types. focusing too much on the gritty details of cost per mile and origin/destination grouping and other quantifiable stuff while purposely ignoring the big, scary problem, which is that urban planning is inherently a political process and it is one that urban planners consistently lose. if you do not advocate for government reform you will not ever achieve meaningful land use reform. you have to challenge these systems at the root or you'll be writing analyses of infill development and writing up white papers that get filed and ignored. it is the biggest reason why people leave urban planning as a government practice, either for private design firms or out of the field altogether. it's like if modern medicine was in the strong grip of an embedded folk cure industry and the majority of the population firmly rejected evidence-based medicine entirely. you have to convince people first that planning is meaningful, and since this is a huge and terrifying problem, it's easier to nerd out about trains and imagine a better future which won't ever be built i looked up this guy's other articles, this one is also very good on the details and bad on the conclusion https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/08/how-america-killed-transit/568825/ spot on history of american urban growth from the perspective of transportation engineering and the metrics of service provision. not a single mention of anemic regionalism and how fragmentary jurisdictions effectively cede planning to land developers. i bet i could guess this guy's thesis topic in three tries
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Oct 10, 2018 18:07
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and just to reiterate i'm not saying anything in that article is wrong. it is a well written and good primer for how transit can work in america. it's just narrowly focused on one bite of the apple, and when compared to the overall problem of "why does american transit suck" this article has some holes you could drive a... well, you get it
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Oct 10, 2018 18:16
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luxury handset posted:if you do not advocate for government reform you will not ever achieve meaningful land use reform. Problem in the American system. By "government reform" it usually means consolidation/regionalization, no? Home rule is a biiiiig thing, though, especially in the Northeast. The system is expressly set up to prevent that sort of consolidation in a lot of ways, because within states the major urban areas otherwise do ride roughshod over the suburban and rural areas on basically everything, and no the needs of (for example) Monmouth and Ocean Counties are not the same as Essex County (Newark) or Camden County (Camden), and you bet none of the above's needs are remotely similar to Salem and Gloucester counties (South Jersey, very rural). And New Jersey isn't the worst example, think of "New York transportation planning that's openly, not just subtextually, dominated by NYC and leaves the Northern Tier hosed" or any number of more rural states where if you're outside the urban corridor you'd be hosed. Between states, well, the Port Authority of NY/NJ is a great example of why interstate bodies are hosed. And since the states are independently sovereign of the Federal government and may not be combined by federal action (only split), you can't regionalize that way.
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Oct 10, 2018 18:49
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Spacewolf posted:Problem in the American system. By "government reform" it usually means consolidation/regionalization, no? exactly, and this is the problem the needs of the city are, we would like a unified and coherent transportation system. the needs of the suburbs are, we want to artificially inflate the price of travel and housing so as to enforce socioeconomic aka racial segregation. without a strong regional body to cut through this home rule disagreement, you end up with the suburbs dictating land use/transportation in their jurisdiction, and that is the birds and bees of how sprawl is created this is why it's way more attractive to keep your head down and talk about the theoretical implementation of transit systems across a theoretical regional framework that theoretically doesn't prevent such things from existing in order to enforce the status quo Spacewolf posted:And since the states are independently sovereign of the Federal government and may not be combined by federal action (only split), you can't regionalize that way. states can organize and coordinate regional government between themselves without the feds having to get involved. it goes top down, not bottom up. the feds can't force NJ and NY to play nice but any collection of states can come together and sort out some kind of agreement between them, assuming regional land use ever becomes popular again Mr. Fall Down Terror fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Oct 10, 2018 |
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Oct 10, 2018 18:57
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luxury handset posted:exactly, and this is the problem This has always been so interesting to me because from what I understand in most states municipal borders and special districts could be completely reorganized just by passing a bill in the state legislature - there's no state that has constitutional language about municipal rights or anything like that. But since suburbs dominate the legislature they get to run the state.
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Oct 12, 2018 02:59
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Badger of Basra posted:This has always been so interesting to me because from what I understand in most states municipal borders and special districts could be completely reorganized just by passing a bill in the state legislature - there's no state that has constitutional language about municipal rights or anything like that. But since suburbs dominate the legislature they get to run the state. yup. this is what happened to oregon in the late 70's when they had a wave of environmentalism and passed a popular referendum to enable the state to strengthen existing regional planning agencies. this created Metro, which has the authority to coordinate land use and transportation on the oregon side of the portland urban area. Metro has enough teeth to enforce the urban growth boundary, for better or worse. this effectively removed home rule over land use decisions from 25 cities and 3 counties. so it can absolutely be done, it's a question of political willpower
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Oct 12, 2018 03:14
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Cugel the Clever posted:This is bizarrely common amongst critics of density/non-car transportation. "I support the fight against climate change, but am unwilling to accept the slightest change to my current circumstances!" Everything has come full circle, my mom's front yard has now been posted on SA.
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Oct 12, 2018 19:10
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I feel like this is underreported compared to the shittiness of the MTA (maybe just because I follow too many reporters who live in NYC), but WMATA is also terrible now and no one in management there seems interested in fixing it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...0b1f_story.htmlquote:Some Metro officials are not convinced the agency can win back riders fleeing the system because of sparse off-peak service — or that it should try — in the face of looming financial obligations, budget constraints and the endless backlog of maintenance needs. 
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Oct 13, 2018 19:29
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there wolf posted:I'd be interested if your home state anything other than California or Oregon. I wrote about Massachusetts it's 40B housing law. Ostensibly the law states that every municipality should have 10 percent of housing deemed affordable (up to 80 percent AMI) and that if you are below that rate developers can bypass local zoning restrictions if the town is willing to play ball. Naturally, cities have a lot of housing and smaller and wealthier communities tend to have less housing. There were a few takeaways from my project but I think the biggest was town managers or town planners ostensibly admitting that without the law the housing won't be built in their communities.
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Oct 14, 2018 03:12
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Donoteat's put up his bonus video on Killdozer on his patreon. Go and give him a buck, it's great. Here's the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeTylBLNO2k He also posted it in the Cities Skylines Thread, but you should still give him a buck if you can.
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Oct 14, 2018 11:53
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CountFosco posted:The suburbs are the worst of both worlds: you miss the opportunities and thrill of the city, while at the same time being deprived of genuine proximity to nature and sense of community in actual rural towns. Thrill? More like misery. Some of you seem to have the idea that people live in the suburbs because they simply haven't experienced the ~magical wonder~ of urban living. When in reality a lot of people have experienced it, which it why they got the hell out. I think if I had to live in the city I would go stark raving mad.
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Oct 14, 2018 20:39
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I mean, it wouldn't be a D&D thread about urban planning without posters assuming every rural or suburban is just an ignorant racist needing to be forcibly relocated to the city, or at the very least bussed in to watch a production of Hamilton. Bunch of loving white collar six figure techbros who think 'affordable housing' means a bigger, cheaper Bay Area condo for them so they can finally afford to buy a boat.
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Oct 14, 2018 23:38
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hailthefish posted:I mean, it wouldn't be a D&D thread about urban planning without posters assuming every rural or suburban is just an ignorant racist needing to be forcibly relocated to the city, or at the very least bussed in to watch a production of Hamilton. This but assuming every city person is a quote:white collar six figure techbros who think 'affordable housing' means a bigger, cheaper Bay Area condo for them so they can finally afford to buy a boat. Suburbs might be bad or good but they are going to destroy the planet
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Oct 14, 2018 23:43
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hailthefish posted:
On the other hand, small towns of 1,000 to 10,000 people living on 1 acre McMansions isn't a great way to bring affordable housing to people either. Talking strawmen to strawmen.
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Oct 14, 2018 23:57
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Suburbs don't have have to be lovely like the US does them. Plenty of suburbs in other developed countries that are still reasonably dense with good transit going into the city.
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Oct 15, 2018 06:24
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