The solution is to get rid of zoning laws. Baring some breakthrough in public choice theory allowing us to break out of this mess, I predict we are stuck with this until the robots take over.
One thing you still need to consider is infrastructure like water, sewer, schools, hospitals, etc. I agree it should be easier (and thus cheaper) for landowners to build what's profitable, but there needs to be a feedback mechanism so that the things necessary for people (apart from housing) is available for them.
Zoning laws get a lot of negative on HN, but I think they serve an important, good purpose.
Here me out.
I work from home. Yay.
I live in a residential area in US, near an elementary school across the street, with an apartment building in the way. I can hear kids out running around and playing in the yard. They get pretty noisy, but I'm fine with it.
Right next to the elementary school is an apartment complex where a guy seems to be running a motorcycle repair business based out of his apartment's garage. The garage faces the street, facing my home.
He tests the loud motorcycle engines about 1 - 2 times running a few minutes each time, about 3 - 5 times a week. One of these days, I'm going to super glue his garage shut so that he can't get the motorcycles in and out of the garage.
Ok, well, just kidding. I will just have to deal with it. But still, it is dang annoying to hear the motorcycle engines revving up as described above. I can't imagine how I can deal with a motorcycle/car repair shop across from my home.
Zoning laws are often used as a tool by people who practice NIMBYism, but the laws were introduced for a reason, and I support zoning laws because it would mean keeping certain types of businesses bit placed away from homes.
Loud motorcycles should be violently taxed and restricted to low density zones of operation. I can't think of any other behavior that is as destructive to the common good for so little benefit to the individual. "I like loud sounds" is not good enough reason to inflict them on everyone else.
I mean, I'm ok with occasional loud motorcycles driving through the neighborhood.
But this case is more than that. So, this particular neighbor is not riding a motorcycle through the neighborhood. Other riders do and I'm ok with that. But this particular neighbor revs the motorcycle engines "while standing still to test them". A few minutes at a time, about 3 - 5 times a week.
Now imagine zoning law was gone. It might mean a user car mechanic moving in to operate a repair business, while leaving numerous unused cars on the street. It could mean someone opening a hair salon a door down from me. Or maybe another person opening a martial arts studio above me.
Zoning laws used as a tool by NIMBYers is not good. But the laws have a valid place in our society.
I agree, wholeheartedly and have a hard time understanding the thought process and worldview of someone who rides a loud motorcycle even five blocks in a dense urban neighborhood at night.
In one neighborhood I lived in... each building was 4 stories, with 5 apartments facing the road. There are two sides of the road. There were four apartment buildings per block.
5 * 4 * 5 * 2 * 4 = 800 homes being affected! Yikes!
Getting rid of zoning laws only works if you have a lot of extra land to sprawl out onto. Otherwise, even if you build up to get more dense ala NYC, HK, Tokyo, or Shanghai, the area will just become more attractive and more people will want to live there. No easy solutions here.
You say that like vastly increasing the productivity of our largest cities is neutral at best. This would create an extraordinary surplus, and other cities that can build out would compete for citizens, just like Texas is doing right now.
> Otherwise, even if you build up to get more dense ala NYC, HK, Tokyo, or Shanghai, the area will just become more attractive and more people will want to live there.
The problem with this theory is that it's zero sum. If density attracts people and prices there rise, those people will have come from some other place. Then the prices in that place will fall and we still serve the goal of giving people an affordable place to live.
You can't increase demand in every place at the same time. It has to come from somewhere. And if you increase density everywhere at once, it also can't move from everywhere to everywhere. If one city increases density it attracts new people from other cities. If every city does it there is no net migration because the benefits accrue everywhere, so the demand in each place stays the same and the greater supply lowers prices.
I don't see how that has anything to do with it. Living costs in rural areas isn't the problem. This seems like a variation of the "luxury apartments are actually good for affordable housing" argument. Which of course is popular on HN, but not particularly true.
> I don't see how that has anything to do with it. Living costs in rural areas isn't the problem.
The people can't come from rural areas because they aren't there to begin with, or because they can't leave (e.g. because they're farmers and that's where the farms are, or they don't have the money). To get a large enough influx for the demand to overcome the increase in supply, it has to come from places that already have a lot of people, i.e. suburbs or other cities. Which is where housing costs are a problem.
> This seems like a variation of the "luxury apartments are actually good for affordable housing" argument. Which of course is popular on HN, but not particularly true.
[citation needed]
If you build more housing then people move into it. Those people used to live somewhere else. The place they used to live opens up for someone else.
If the new place is above-average that means everybody gets to move up -- new supply lowers cost of luxury apartments from $3000/month to $2500, which means the previous $2500 apartments fall to $2200, which means the previous $2200 apartments fall to $2000 etc.
On the one hand, this means the effect on $750 apartments is relatively small because some of the benefit of increased supply is also going to people with $1500 apartments and $2000 apartments. On the other hand, that's actually what we need. It's absurd to have a giant cliff between regulated "affordable housing" and market rate housing. People at the 50th percentile need to be able to afford housing too.
> Population growth can increase demand everywhere at once.
But where is the extra population coming from? If you're talking about any other place, it reduces housing costs in that place. If you're talking about a rise in birthrates, that's theoretically possible (though by no means guaranteed), but the timescale is so long that there is plenty of time to build even more housing by then.
> And affordable housing away from a high demand urban center is no use to anyone and not going to attract anyone if there aren’t good jobs there.
Where do you expect the people to be coming from? If it's another city, that's still an urban center with jobs. If it's the suburbs, people can still live there and work in the city as they do now.
And they can't be from the middle of farm country because there aren't enough people there to be a major source of demand, even before accounting for the fact that they would have to both want to move to the city and be able to afford to.
Birthdates don’t have to rise for population to increase. For instance, our global population is expected to continue to rise for the next couple decades even as birth rates fall because life expectancy is rising. Yes, the US is currently below replacement rate (without immigration), but if birth rates 20 years ago were higher than the current death rate, demand for housing will be increasing.
As for where people are moving from other than farm country, there are plenty of economically struggling cities, towns, and suburbs.
> Birthdates don’t have to rise for population to increase. For instance, our global population is expected to continue to rise for the next couple decades even as birth rates fall because life expectancy is rising. Yes, the US is currently below replacement rate (without immigration), but if birth rates 20 years ago were higher than the current death rate, demand for housing will be increasing.
The relevant numbers are relative to the status quo, not relative to zero. If we are expecting rising housing costs due to rising population, a method of lowering hosting costs is productive even if it only reduces the rate of price growth, since the alternative would be for prices to be even higher.
The only problem is if the method can itself cause population growth, e.g. by short-term lower housing costs allowing more people to afford to start a family. But that's the thing we have plenty of time to stay ahead of by continuing to build more housing.
> As for where people are moving from other than farm country, there are plenty of economically struggling cities, towns, and suburbs.
Except that they're in the same position as farm country. There aren't that many people there anymore -- Detroit has already lost more than 60% of its population since 1950 -- and the people who are there can't afford the cost of living in an expensive urban center.
The people who move into the city center when new housing opens up are predominantly the people who used to live in that city's suburbs.
Your argument would also imply a strong case for "economically struggling cities, towns, and suburbs" to eliminate density restrictions and attract economy-boosting density-preferring people to locations where housing is already more affordable.
> According to the website RealEstate.co.jp, average housing prices throughout Greater Tokyo have actually decreased since 2006. In 2014, the average price of second-hand condos was 27,890,000 yen, or about $232,914. This is above the U.S. median of $187,000, but is a steal when considering that average housing prices in many destination U.S. cities are triple or quadruple this amount.
I heard many many commuters who work in Tokyo actually live pretty far away, commuting via the bullet trains. So the housing market in Tokyo is not in tremendous demand.
> Getting rid of zoning laws only works if you have a lot of extra land to sprawl out onto.
Other way around. Zoning encourages horizontal growth by constraining vertical growth. Once supply has reached horizontal and vertical limits, prices skyrocket to reach equilibrium with demand.
> Otherwise, even if you build up to get more dense ala NYC, HK, Tokyo, or Shanghai, the area will just become more attractive and more people will want to live there.
Density implies noise, pollution, traffic, people, and a certain type of urban lifestyle... all of which decrease attractiveness.
> Density implies noise, pollution, traffic, people, and a certain type of urban lifestyle... all of which decrease attractiveness.
Prices in big dense cities say otherwise, there is plenty of demand to be where all the economic action is, many people also prefer urban lifestyles.
The lack of zoning doesn't encourage density at all, if there is land to build out instead of up, everyone will prefer the former because its cheaper and can provide amenities like free parking. Zoning can prevent that, it can also discourage vertical growth but at the same time discouraging horizontal growth as well.
> Prices in big dense cities say otherwise, there is plenty of demand to be where all the economic action is, many people also prefer urban lifestyles.
Prices just show urban areas are highly valued, there is no proof those areas defy supply and demand.
Density increases attractiveness for some people, but the trade-offs are clearly not for everyone given NIMBYism and higher prices outside some urban areas. Increasing supply may increase demand to a point, but there is still an equilibrium - density is still part of the solution.
> The lack of zoning doesn't encourage density at all, if there is land to build out instead of up, everyone will prefer the former because its cheaper and can provide amenities like free parking. Zoning can prevent that, it can also discourage vertical growth but at the same time discouraging horizontal growth as well.
Moot point, this entire discussion is about urban areas where land has already run out.
> if there is land to build out instead of up, everyone will prefer the former because its cheaper and can provide amenities like free parking.
"Everyone", except people that care about the time cost of commuting and the financial obligation of car ownership.
Prices are very high in low density areas like Los Angeles, Silicon valley, North Virginia, Palm Beach, etc.
Before Manhattan got "nice" 20 years ago, it was dense, and there was cheap real estate to be had. It was the gentrification that drive the price increase, not the density.
Demand isn't infinite. Every person that moves to the attractive city is one less person that wants to move to the attractive city because that person is already there.
The goal isn't lowering the housing price. If one person moves in and the price stays the same that alone is already a success.
> The solution is to get rid of zoning laws. Baring some breakthrough in public choice theory allowing us to break out of this mess, I predict we are stuck with this until the robots take over.
The breakthrough is using higher-level entities to constrain lower-level entities. What creates the problem is that you have a neighborhood zoned only for low density and the only people with a vote to change it are the existing homeowners whose collective voting sentiment is "screw you, got mine."
What's needed is a law at the state or federal level that any given fifty mile radius has to have a certain percentage of area zoned for unrestricted density.
