|
Nitrousoxide posted:What do you think is the biggest problem with urban planning in the US currently? I'm guessing the highway? Snipe here, but local control of zoning is the largest problem in the US. If we had the same zoning policy as Japan we would have no where near the problems we have now, mostly by removing the local veto. KingFisher fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Aug 3, 2018 |
#
¿
Aug 3, 2018 07:50
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 14:31 |
|
|
To me the motto of YIMBY is not " let's build more affordable/subsidized housing" within an unaffordable market rate housing environment. But rather imagine that through upzones and public investments that there was so much housing that it was affordable simply because of the excess of supply. In this environment the public or a social services provider owns a large % ( say 40%) of a cities housing stock. The city would have a duty to keep building new housing so that rents do not go up relative to inflation. In terms of implementation I would radically upzone every major city in the country. Use this to trigger a massive wave of private investment in new market rate housing with a 10% affordable requirement. Then once the private investors have built all the housing that cancel pencil out via private financing. This is roughly the top of the market down to 80% of AMI. The government would then keep building large housing developments to push down the average rent to where a 1br would be 30% of what a person working 40 hrs a week at the local minimum wage. The city would then be required to build new units every year to keep up with population growth so rents stay pegged to minimum wage Wlearner affordablity. Those unable to work would be housed in the mixed income multi-family developments owned by the city or similar non profit. In Seattle with a $15 per hour minimum wage this would fix rent at $780 per month for a 1br. KingFisher fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Aug 6, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2018 04:16
|
|
|
donoteat posted:i made a thing Great work, I liked 98% of the video. The one bit I felt that was lacking was exploring the consequences of inaction or massive public investment for the posited change. So let's say a new company moved into 52nd street and creates 1k new high income jobs. If the land is already built out to the maximum zoned potential that is able to be financed then, what happens for the residents? I.e. what happens under the no development option? This seems to be something many NIMBYS would perfer. The standard answer would be that the 1000 new highly paid workers would use thier greater incomes to bid up the cost of rent driving 1000 units worth of residents from the city. The NIMBYs benefit because thier homes increase in value giving them every incentives to oppose all development. Also they don't have to deal with any construction, and likely the city becomes more white. See Seattle as an example, one of the few major cities getting whiter every year So even with 0 change in the housing supply or the condition of the housing displacement still occurs. In the decommodification section, it would have been useful to cover the Vienna and Singapore models of social housing. Both cities have decommodofied housing through an essentially massive supply of public housing. I think within the context of the US capitalist system this is the best bet to achieve the goal of housing everyone and removing the mechanisms which drive up rent costs. Most of the policies you highlighted seem to address the "keep people in thier homes" problem and not the "how do we house everyone" problem. Unfortunately as you correctly noted building lots of high quality public housing wouldn't "keep everyone in thier homes". Since the buildings have to go somewhere, ideally next to the mass transit. I'd like to see you show an example of a city that has a law along the lines of "rent should be $500 per bedroom" and if 1000 new highly paid people move in then the city would respond by building 1000 more units of high quality public housing to absorb all the new demand so rent stays the same. Lastly you might want to cover land value taxes as a means for maximizing the taxes collected to government and encouraging private land owners to build the optimal development for a location given it tax value. This would naturally encourage redevelopment where the greatest utility exists. KingFisher fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Aug 22, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2018 17:51
|
|
|
The only way to decommodify housing is to build so much of it that it's value will only be based on utility. We can't do that without first absorbing all of the market rate demand and then using the city to constantly build new units of housing to keep rents fixed or drive them down.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2018 08:50
|
|
|
Ardennes posted:Not all housing is the same, and you very well may have affordable family-sized housing torn down (since 827 covered what 97% of SF?) for luxury studios, and of course then you have the issue of rent-displacement of other neighbors. You can't build one particular type of housing stock and pretend it will equalize prices in other types. We know it didn't work in Portland. Just build solves 60% of the problem, IE the part of the market that can afford new housing at 80% of AMI or more. So yeah we should upzone 97% of everything and let the private developers redevelop as much of the city as the banks will finance. Then once all of that investment has been done the city should come in and keep building to drive down rent prices. Hopefully a massive redeveloped of the city combined with mandatory inclusion of affordable units (10%) would produce a significant increase in affordable housing. Like we should be encouraging 100k new units being built. KingFisher fucked around with this message at 11:52 on Aug 30, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2018 11:48
|
|
|
Ardennes posted:Those new units will change the rent dynamics in the neighborhood, pushing out previous tenants and eliminating existing afforable housing, and those afforable units aren't going to be enough. It is also unlikely the city is going to "keep building either." Also, those new units aren't going to be gear towards poor-families but upper middle-class singles. All of what you describe will already happen if no new housing is built. When a city is growing and people with high incomes are moving in all of those effects are the result. At least with redevelopment you can absorb some of that new high income demand and less people will be displaced. Like if you got 10k new households a year moving to the city and build no new housing, then 10k existing households (at minimum, if rents go up more could be) will get displaced if the new people are even slightly more affluent than the existing population. It's pure madness to not build enough housing to absorb all of the increased demand. And yes I agree cities are unlikely to keep building, but that's because 100% of home owners are violently opposed to the decommodification of thier largest asset. KingFisher fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Aug 30, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2018 13:52
|
|
|
Ardennes posted:Newer developments usually accerlate genetrification and the "hipness" of a neighborhood by attraching more people to it in the first place (as well as bringing in more retail devoted to their clientale). More development in this context accelerates this process. Those people may not move into in the first place unless they are drawn to that location. I'm not sure how to tell you this, but if you are a high income person moving to a new city. The "hipness" of an area doesn't matter of you need someplace to live near your job. So the people living in existing neighborhoods will be displaced regardless. And since the new people can afford higher rents than the existing residents the average rent for the area will go up even with 0 redevelopment. This will cause economic displacement of people who aren't literally displaced. The housing market is musical chairs but who sits is decided by ability to pay, not speed to sit. The only way to keep rents from going up is to build enough chairs for new people as they join the game. Usually new people moving to a city for jobs (like in Seattle and San Fransisco which have the worst housing markets in the country) have high incomes and we should build fancy chairs for them, if we don't they will just rent the middle class chairs, and then middle class will rent the poor people chairs, and the poor people will leave the city. Like what's you answer for 10k new people a year moving to a city due job growth? Tell them that they are only allowed to live in new tract SFH homes in the exurbs and they have to commute to work via single occupancy cars? If you oppose redevelopment then you support a greater number of people being displaced which is the more morally monsterous position. If 10k people move to a city and only 5k new units of housing are built via redevelopment then only 5k people are displaced. IE only the poorest 5k households, not the 10k poorest which would happen with no redevelopment. There is no argument against "gentrification" that makes a greater number of the poorest people of the city being displaced as morally acceptable.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2018 14:18
|
|
|
luxury handset posted:hope u like traffic jams Well that's why we should allow transit oriented development so the new residents aren't required to have a car. I live 2 blocks from a major transit center for this exact reason. So yeah traffic isn't a problem with good policy. If I was the king of Seattle I'd require a dozen 50 story apartment towers be built at every light rail station.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2018 05:01
|
|
|
Solkanar512 posted:We did just approve a massive regional light rail plan going into the next 20+ years. There are very good reasons why folks flock to the coasts. Yep and we should maximize the value of that investment. For example the North gate mall in Seattle is being redeveloped. The developer is proposing 1200 units of housing, it should be 12,000. This development with 20+ towers is on a smaller piece of land in a Vancouver suburb: http://shapeproperties.com/projects/the-city-of-lougheed/
|
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2018 05:44
|
|
|
luxury handset posted:uhh dallas has the largest light rail system in the nation and is still expanding it? if you're going to be costally smug at least be factual about it No it's because single family home owners are desperate to block any and housing supply from being added to the market and depressing the value of thier house. They use thier political power to enforce segregationist zoning policies limiting development near rail lines. Like in my example tallest thing allowed on the mall site is 6 stories. Zoning is the problem due to racist and classist white liberals in every major city.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2018 06:05
|
|
|
Cicero posted:Upzoning the whole city to at least missing middle type housing would be a massive upzone by US standards, as sad as it is. This type of upzone was recommended by the HALA committee, and was going to go in before the NIMBY backlash from people terrified of desegregation. Yep the city should be capturing all of the net new tax revenue from new residental construction and using it for funding a lane separated BRT system to be eventually enhanced with subway/light rail.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2018 12:21
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:lol that you claim a racist landlord as the YIMBY ideal as if it is a good thing. Massive housing complexes for the middle class would be cool and good. It would solve 60% of the housing problem and stop the economic displacement of the poor since the middle class would not be forced to kick the poor our and take thier units.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 2, 2018 16:52
|
|
|
Eskaton posted:This is hair splitting, but you tax the increased *land* value and let the construction go free. Kills the land speculators, makes land cheaper to acquire for redevelopment, and more units get built. Agree 100% I'm a Purestrain Georgist, land value tax or bust.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 8, 2018 10:25
|
|
|
My general proposal is to use upzones etc to pull as much private residential development as possible into a city and capture 10% of that as low income housing. Then once the banks won't finance any more new multi-family housing developments the city should come in and keep building mixed use / mixed income high rise towers and hand them over to non-profits to manage. Then have the city just keep building units to drive down rent to whatever your desired value is. This poo poo isn't really difficult, making rent affordable is a solves problem. Politicians just refuse to stand up to the Rich White NIMBY Liberals who dominate big city politics. Another example of democracy being a bad thing. HAIL SINGAPORE! KingFisher fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Sep 8, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Sep 8, 2018 11:11
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2018 13:00
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2018 13:09
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 17, 2018 12:11
|
|
|
Good work donoteat! https://kotaku.com/the-socialist-youtuber-using-cities-skylines-to-explai-1829245653/
|
|
#
¿
Sep 23, 2018 13:40
|
|
|
I'm pretty yimby and my slogan is not to build more affordable housing. But to build so much housing that bit is affordable for all. To those on the left you should understand this as the de-commodification of housing through the use of supply and demand. Once housing is cheap and widely available it will be much easier to use the existing human services and public housing budgets to house all of the homeless. In Seattle where I live it costs 500k per unit of affordable housing to be built. We will never solve our homelessness and housing affordability crisis untill we radically reduce the cost of housing. I am 100% for a move from a property tax system to a land value tax system. Also radically upzone every urban area. Let the market build all the units it will support, then have the government come in and keep building units until housing is dirt cheap and Land Lords are begging for renters.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2019 22:04
|
|
|
luxury handset posted:the problem with that proposal is that it is a recipe for permanent hellworld gridlock and the rapid depletion of public resources as its logical conclusion, and in a more realistic sense the market will give up at a point of congestion and saturation long before housing becomes universally affordable. it's a bit like saying "let's keep building this building taller and taller, the foundation will sort itself out" Would you like me to respond to your points?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2019 03:53
|
|
|
Nitrousoxide posted:Keep in mind that Germany was pretty much totally destroyed following WW2, so had the opportunity to rebuild in the era of the automobile with automobile centric development just like the US, but they didn't. Same with Japan. I agree we should bulldoze every single family home and build judge dredd style brutalist megablocks. Welcome to the party comrade.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2019 05:08
|
|
|
Build Peach Trees Mega blocks, gently caress NIMBYs
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2019 05:39
|
|
|
Thanatosian posted:Replacing golf courses with medium-density subsidized housing is the way to go, IMO. Get those property values for the neighboring SFHs down. Or we could do towers in the park style high rise mixed use multifamily development and cast some long rear end shadows on NIMBY scum yards.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2019 00:31
|
|
|
BarbarianElephant posted:People basically hate living in huge tower blocks of public housing, because nowhere ever puts aside enough money to upkeep them, so unkempt empty space and broken lifts make them a mugger's paradise. If Singapore can do it so can we. Also public=\ for the poors..
|
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2019 16:50
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 14:31 |
|
|
pointsofdata posted:It isn't easy but neither are any of the other solutions, since they generally require spending money on poor people (rent control isn't a complete solution as it doesn't get you the additional units that we need/want). No they just lack the political will to confront thier racist and classist voters. Incoming effort post on how to decommodify housing: My solution would be to first replace property taxes with land value taxes, and vacancy taxes. This encourages land to be developed to it's optimum useful level. Also it prevents housing as an investment that reduces housing supply. Next I would make it law that each municipality would be legally required to take whatever action needed to ensure the private housing market would produce net new housing units to meet the need of net new population and households. This can primarily be achieved through upzoning. The private housing market meets the needs of the 80% of AMI and up market by definition this is 60% of the total market. In general removing exclusionary SFH zoning should be the baseline. For those below 80% of AMI the population is divided into a few subgroups, but generally you have a population of low income people who are marginally employed or on fixed incomes and you have homeless people with little to no income. The solution for both groups is interrelated, since we have taken to lid of of new housing production you can now tax all the new housing produced to provide for the creation of "affordable housing" these populations need. The homeless population needs "Housing First" basically no cost housing with some real around services. Low income people need reduced rent (subsidized housing). In Seattle for example we have two programs MTFE (multifamily vtax exemption) and MHA (mandatory housing affordability). MTFE produces affordable housing for people who earn 60% to 80% of AMI, usually about 20% of the units. The city is basically trading property taxes for below market rate rents. Ironically this program can only be used on 16% of city land, and the city council doesn't like the idea of expanding it because it would "cost too much money" heaven forbid... MHA does something similar it requires all new buildings to include 7-9% affordable units or pay a equivalent tax, in return developers can make thier buildings slightly larger. This policy is again only applicable to 16% of city land. Paying the tax is actually better because the city taxes the MHA taxes and uses those funds to go secure 2 more dollars for every 1 paid in MHA taxes and then uses those 3 dollars to build affordable housing. Unfortunately the low income units cost about 500k to produce. The Land Value tax, and upzoning would reduce the land cost dramatically by increasing the supply of land that can be used for housing. So let's take a look at the scale of the problem. In Seattle we have about 12k homeless people and 50k people who pay 50% of thier income as rent. Additionally we are seeing about 12k people a year moving to the city. So that's about 62k units. So the solution is to allow upzoning to produce enough new housing units to absorb all of the net new population growth, and supply housing for 60% of the market. Those new buildings would all include affordable housing or contribute to it's construction. This will arrest the primary cause of the increase in rent cost, IE those with more money able to out bid those with less for the scare amount of housing in the city. Since we fail to produce enough units here it drives many thousands of poor people out of the city each year. The other major cause of rent going up is the shift in the demographics of the potential rebt payers IE if everyone new to city is rich it will raise the average price of rent, and creates an incentive for land lords to raise rents driving out the poor and renting to those more well off. However if sufficient market rate units are being produced the net new housing supply will absorb all of the net new population with high incomes and the incentive to raise rents for existing renters goes away. Recent research shows that for every 100 units of market rate housing produced, it prevents in 65 units of lower cost housing, causing them to be "preserved". This is the effect caused by allowing the market to produce enough new units to absorb new demand. Now let's say that after private developers have built all the housing they can profitably, can we harness these same forced to drive down the cost of rent to a socially preferred level? Why yes it does and here is where the city should take a more DIRECT ACTION. The cost of rent can further be driven down by adding additional housing supply to the market, and the city government has ability and obligation. Let's do some maths. Minimum Wage is $15 hr here, housing should cost no more than 30% of gross income. So 15*40*52 =31200. 31200*.3 /12 = 780, so $780 per month. So let's just say $700 a month. The city should produce multi family mixed income mixed use public housing towers at each light rail station / BRT bus lines until the cost of rent falls to this level. Ideally these would be 400+ foot towers in the walk/bike sheds. Just keep borrowing and building until rent is cheap and owning a single family homes are a terrible investment. KingFisher fucked around with this message at 10:55 on Jun 13, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2019 10:33
|
|