
The American Housing Crisis Might Be Our Next Big Political Issue - jseliger
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/05/is-housing-americas-next-big-political-issue/560378/
======
twblalock
Unfortunately it seems so far that voters in California are reacting to the
problem by supporting more of the policies that caused the problem in the
first place, e.g. rent control, opposing new market-rate housing, etc. It's
pretty easy for politicians to sell those bad solutions, which is why we ended
up with them in the first place.

I doubt the YIMBY movement is going to solve the problem, because they have
alienated many lower-income voters.

~~~
majos
The amount of popular support for rent control depresses me in the same way
that the popularity of lottery tickets does. People in general seem to have an
endless capacity to believe that the rare, improbable, valuable opportunity
will go to them.

~~~
scarmig
Rent control isn't the fundamental cause of high housing costs: it's mostly a
matter of supply and demand. And, yes, rent control limits supply a bit, but
nowhere near as much as complicated, arcane, and expensive building and zoning
codes.

Given the trade offs, the only reforms I'd make to rent control is having some
kind of gradual income requirements. The higher your income, the less rent
control you get, up to the point (say, $100k+) where you aren't protected by
it at all. Even that is mostly for optics, though, and wouldn't help housing
costs too much.

~~~
majos
Agreed, but my primary bone to pick here is that people seem to be proposing
further rent control as a viable solution to the housing problem, rather than
fixing existing restrictive building codes.

~~~
closeparen
Further rent control _is_ a viable solution to the problem of existing
residents being displaced. It isn’t a solution to the difficulty of _moving_
to desirable areas, but rent control advocates don’t consider that a
legitimate problem. Or at least are okay with dampening the upward mobility of
already affluent creative-class types to protect marginalized communities.

~~~
nerfhammer
Notice how the possibility that actually non-affluent people would move
somewhere for a better job is not something they think about.

~~~
jhall1468
Nope, that's because rent control makes that problem worse, so it's best to
ignore it.

------
tptacek
This is a regional issue, not a national one. Most urban Americans do not live
in cities with skyrocketing housing costs.

~~~
Larrikin
I thought one third of the country lived between Virginia and Massachusetts,
with nearly the second third living on the west coast.

~~~
tptacek
Something like 80+% of urban Americans live in cities with an average house
price below $300k.

~~~
hunter23
The question is where do people in their 20-40s live and also how fast is
housing prices growing in those areas. Yes you might live in an area that has
houses below 300K but if incomes are low and the annualized growth of house
prices is 2-3x the inflation rate you got a problem.

It's not just a SF or NYC problem. Look at what is happening in Denver,
Austin, and Pittsburgh. All these cities are seeing dramatic housing price
increases.

~~~
tptacek
Every time this discussion comes up, someone points out Austin as if it
somehow validates the idea that housing is expensive everywhere. But, no.
Austin is expensive, but very few people live there. That's why I provided the
statistic. Forget individual cities and look at the macro number: _more than
eighty percent of urban Americans_ live in affordable metro areas.

I don't know where you're coming from with Pittsburgh, where the average home
price was $125,000 in 2017.

If somebody wants to make the argument that housing prices are a calamitous
problem for tech industry employees, that will be supportable. But most
Americans don't work for the tech industry (I would not be surprised if _most
programmers_ don't work in the tech industry).

~~~
hunter23
> more than eighty percent of urban Americans live in affordable metro areas.

I'm sorry but you didn't prove that. You proved that 80% of Americans live
near houses that are under 300k. To prove that 80% of Americans aren't
suffering from housing issues you would have to show that 80% of American
households earn an income such that with 25% of that income they can afford a
reasonable home. I don't know the answer to that.

I perfectly understand that insane housing prices are a local Bay Area issue.
What I'm unsure of is what the case is for most of Americans. The reason I say
this is because my high school friends set (of whom 0% are engineers and 0%
are in Bay Area), a significant portion (>30%) are struggling with housing
related issues. I know that's anecdotal, but I'm just asking if anyone has a
real data point to indicate if the housing issue is national or not. Citing
that most of America has low house prices does not answer that question.

For context I grew up in an area where a 100K house would be considered
luxurious so I am perfectly aware of how low housing prices are in America
compared to Bay Area. That area also has lost tons of jobs so in order to
support themselves, the younger generation has had to move to higher COL
cities where there are jobs available (and where they can't afford housing).
If you have any references that show that 80% of the population can easily
afford local housing then I would gladly agree with your assertion that the
housing issue isn't national.

~~~
tptacek
Go look at house price to income ratio rankings. They broadly track house
prices, which is to say, Chicago --- which does not have a housing price
crisis --- appears in the same place on both rankings, and San Jose appears on
the top of both lists.

------
patrickg_zill
I keep seeing parallels to the situation in USSR after WWII - there was a
chronic lack of housing: some of the housing stock had been destroyed in WWII,
there were new couples that were owed (by the state) housing, and of course
the existing housing stock had further deteriorated (it was that many years
older than before the war).

Khrushchev championed the construction of pre-fabricated concrete "plank" 5
story buildings - they built 2 factories in different parts of USSR and
cranked them out, delivering them mostly by train to all corners of the
country.

The designs were pretty much the same, down the interior furnishings and
apartment layouts (a plot point of the perennial New Year's Eve favorite
movie, "Irony of Fate"), and fit and finish were sub-standard. BUT, people did
get their housing, had kids, went on with their lives.

With all the post-USSR criticism of Soviet leaders, you realize that
Khrushchev had very few bad things said about him...

I think the person, or organization, that is seen to (somehow, however they do
it) solve the housing problems we have, will have a great deal of political
goodwill and possibly political power.

EDIT: some "Khrushchevka Housing" info
[https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/03/the-disappearing-
mass...](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/03/the-disappearing-mass-housing-
of-the-soviet-union/518868/)

[https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/moscows-new-housing-
mega...](https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/moscows-new-housing-megaproject-
confronts-soviet-history-57312)

[https://khrushchevki.wordpress.com/](https://khrushchevki.wordpress.com/)

~~~
resource0x
Some readers unfamiliar with the matter might conclude based on your post that
Khrushchev somehow managed to solve the problem. No. In most places, you had
to wait a couple of decades (or longer). I left USSR at the age of 36; we ,
the family of 4, occupied a 160 sq ft apartment (with "partial conveniences"
\- you probably know what that means), which we inherited from my grandmother,
with no chance of getting anything else in a lifetime. We couldn't buy an
apartment either, even if we had money (we didn't) - "cooperative" housing was
not available. BTW, I worked as a project lead in a military research center
back then, so the situation was not due to low status or something. Here's an
article that provides some details (in Russian, sorry):
[https://masterok.livejournal.com/2892813.html](https://masterok.livejournal.com/2892813.html)

EDIT: BTW, would it be a good idea to organize AMA thread for those who'd like
to get some first-hand account of what the life in USSR looked like in the
60s,70s,80s (all aspects, including technology)?

~~~
fivre
Perhaps not, but my experience visiting Moscow recently suggests that they're
in perhaps a slightly better place? There are dense residential areas in
various parts of the city, even if the housing stock is older and less than
stellar. Those areas are well-served by transit, which is expanding,
improving, and generally seems to function better than most of what's in the
Bay Area. It's by no means perfect (protests against renovation/relocation
programs and the current waste management snafu clearly demonstrate
otherwise), but at least they're doing _something_ , as opposed to what
appears to be a partial "ignore the problem and we can keep single-family
homes throughout all of the SF Bay Area forever" mentality here.

~~~
resource0x
If you visited it recently: please keep in mind that modern-day Russia is not
USSR. It's completely different country - at least in terms of economy. In
USSR, money meant NOTHING. In today's Russia, it means EVERYTHING. That's the
difference.

EDIT: forgot to mention that Moscow is not a typical Russian city. You won't
make a big mistake if you consider it a separate country. Whatever you observe
in Moscow is specific to Moscow only. The state of the roads/public
transportation across the country at large is (reportedly) not much better
than it used to be in USSR (on average).

------
gradys
I see a lot of discussion of YIMBY policies like building more market-rate
housing. My intuition favors these kinds of policies, but when I've tried to
find high quality evidence that they actually achieve objectives like:

\- Lower housing prices overall

\- Lower housing costs for low-income households (heading off the concern that
only building market-rate housing could hypothetically lower the price of
luxury housing without meaningfully reducing housing costs for low-income
households)

\- Fewer people have to leave the area because of high housing costs

... I haven't been able to find much. What are the best sources that say that
YIMBY policies and especially pro- market-rate housing policies actually work?
Or the converse - that affordable housing quotas or similar policies tend to
make housing less affordable overall.

~~~
anonuser123456
Tokyo/Japenese housing regulation is often cited as evidence for this
hypothesis.

[https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-
housing-...](https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-
costs-tokyo)

~~~
pkaye
The Japanese are used to living in tiny accommodations. If we follow their
route we could probably reduce costs a lot. Get rid of parking spots. No
outdoor patio. Can easily reduce the square footage by 50%.

~~~
jaredklewis
As far as I can tell, they basically don't build Japanese apartments without
outdoor patios. No one has dryers, everyone hangs their clothes outside.

But to your point, my anecdotal impression is that even though the average 1
bedroom or 2 bedroom in Japan Tokyo is smaller than an equivalent in the US,
the price per sq foot in Tokyo is also much less than in New York, San
Francisco, or Los Angeles.

Hard to find reliable, cross-country data but this blog post [1] pegs price
for rental square foot for SF at $4.75 and Tokyo at $2.79.

It's also true about the parking, but again regulations are at play here.
Minimum parking requirements are the norm, not the exception in the US.
Developers can’t build less parking even if they want to. Even a giant
metropolis like San Francisco didn't start to eliminate minimum parking
requirements until the late 90s [2].

1\. [https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/what-
is-1500-wor...](https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/what-
is-1500-worth-worldwide-rent-per-square-foot-around-the-globe/)

2\. [https://www.livablecity.org/parking-history-
sf/](https://www.livablecity.org/parking-history-sf/)

------
maxxxxx
It will probably be a big issue and be solved as well as education costs and
health care are being solved right now. There will be many words and no
solution. There are way too many people benefiting from the current state.

------
scythe
If you want to really address the zoning problem on a cultural level, you have
to find a way to create an "expectation" of the quality of life in some
category of multi-unit building which is acceptable to the modal American.
It's pretty typical to expect apartments to be noisy, smelly, not-so-private
places which are not so desirable to live in. I can't say my own experience
living in an apartment has really contradicted this, either.

I'm speculating here, but I think that part of the reason people oppose
housing types considered _unpleasant_ is that people may be less likely to
stay in them if they have the opportunity to move. If you move into a nice
unit (house, townhouse, apartment, whatever) in a stiff market, and the market
eases up and you can afford to move, you might not, because moving is a lot of
work and the expected benefit is small. But if you move into an unpleasant
space in a difficult market, you're likely out of there as soon as you have
the chance. This might imply that unpleasant housing types are more likely to
become vacant during a market downturn, and because of problems associated
with vacant housing, people might want to avoid unpleasant housing being
constructed near them. The key exception here are the small add-on units
recently legalized in San Francisco; because the main unit will remain
occupied, issues associated with vacancy and disrepair of the subsidiary unit
are prevented.

However, there aren't clear standards that determine whether a multi-unit
building will be a place people want to stay, whereas SFH are usually for
whatever reason _expected_ to retain their occupants. So when I say "to create
an expectation", I mean an expectation among the neighbors that whoever moves
in is going to like the place they live in enough that they won't move out in
five years when the market cools off. And if you expect the market will never
cool off, you're also assuming you never solve the housing crisis, which is
not a good founding assumption for making plans to solve the housing crisis.

I could imagine standards like: external entrances, private outdoor space
(balcony), in-unit laundry, sound insulation, and separate ventilation. But
those are just _my_ preferences; any actual standards ought to be based on
reliable evidence of some kind. It may be possible to survey the kinds of
units that people move out of during housing market downturns in order to
identify some predictive characteristics which can both influence housing
standards and allay the concerns of voters.

~~~
closeparen
I think you’re on to something, but at the same time it’s the nicer
multifamily buildings that face stiffer opposition, due to the perception that
such buildings are inherently reserved for the impossibly wealthy. Outside the
YIMBY camp, no one believes that building enough of these could make them
affordable. But when you really look at it, the most extravagant high-rise
condos are physically equivalent to below-average houses with no yards. Made
abundant enough, they should be priced that way.

~~~
scythe
>but at the same time it’s the nicer multifamily buildings that face stiffer
opposition, due to the perception that such buildings are inherently reserved
for the impossibly wealthy.

I do think you're looking at two different opposition demographics here. On
the one hand, you have homeowners concerned about the future of their
neighborhood; on the other hand, you have low-income communities concerned
about gentrification. While they occasionally support the same political
candidates -- particularly in San Francisco -- they live in different places,
and crucially, the latter often live in neighborhoods which have had many
apartment buildings for years (e.g. the Mission). These are not entirely
separate fights, but I did mean to address the homeowners' concerns in this
particular argument, motivated by the observation that suburbs are quite
common and underutilized. I would even say that building larger apartment
buildings in low-income medium-density districts is the norm for addressing
housing issues right now (that and building exurbs), while upzoning less dense
areas is not currently performed in a way that seems to point to a more
general strategy for addressing housing issues.

------
api
Look at Canada (Vancouver and Toronto specifically) for a glimpse of how bad
it can get if anti-development urban policies combined with pro-home-inflation
monetary and banking policies are allowed to run unchecked. The prices are
even more insane than San Francisco / Silicon Valley when considered as a
multiple of median income.

It's really kind of incredible. These prices seem economically impossible, yet
there they are and houses are apparently selling. It seems like there actually
is no ceiling to house prices. A lot of people blame cash buyers from overseas
using real estate as a financial instrument but I have yet to see hard
evidence that this is prevalent enough to explain this madness.

~~~
graeme
I think TO housing starts have outpaced population growth. I think it's
actually just a bubble. Different from a place like SF where supply is the
limit and demand is exploding from real economic factors.

------
ummonk
Too late for us but hopefully it will make obtaining a home easier for our
children!

------
nikanj
We routinely oppose building for the majority because the homes built would
not fit a minority.

Vancouver is proposing new parking norms that force at least half the parking
spots in a residential parking garage to be extra tall, to accommodate tall
vans for disabled people.

This is a great idea, but it again raises the cost of building new homes, for
the benefit of the minority who need a full-height van because of their
disability.

------
8bitsrule
The 'crisis' (an overused word) has developed since Glass-Stiegel was
repealed. There used to be two kinds of banks.

It became possible to think of houses as investments. Stop the speculation.
Return to sound principles.

Or will we wait until the same thing happens to food, water and then air?
Can't happen? Why not?

------
dsfyu404ed
This is a regional issue and it boils down to the fact that micro-managing
what people build on their own damn property has had negative consequences.

Regulation isn't going to solve this problem. Regulation caused it.

------
dionidium
Cheap detached homes are the _norm_ in the vast majority of the United States.
What's happening in California and the Northeast Corridor is a serious problem
that should be addressed, but the issue isn't going to catch on at the
national level, because, again, cheap detached homes are the _norm_ in the
United States.

When Millennials on the coasts talk about how their generation won't ever own
homes, I have to wonder if they're seriously that out of touch.

Here's a house that's for sale in my hometown of St. Louis. I just picked a
neighborhood at random and selected the first house I saw for sale around this
price (~$100k):

[https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Saint-Louis-
MO-63116/3...](https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Saint-Louis-
MO-63116/3019850_zpid/85934_rid/1-_beds/0-600000_price/0-2428_mp/globalrelevanceex_sort/38.564794,-90.290579,38.56295,-90.29346_rect/18_zm/)

This is a quiet, safe, well-maintained, working-class neighborhood. That house
is nothing to write home about, but it's not a bad little bungalow, either.
That'd be a great home for any young family.

I get it, I get it -- "but then I'd have to live in St. Louis!" That's funny,
I guess, but who is the joke really on? How much is that ocean worth to you?

~~~
Zach_the_Lizard
> Cheap detached homes are the norm in the vast majority of the United States

Perhaps by land area. But not necessarily by population.

Something like 1/3rd of the population lives in the DC-NYC-Boston corridor.
Throw in the West Coast, Chicago, etc. and you're looking at a much more
national problem.

~~~
patio11
Chicago is an odd inclusion in that sentence.

------
rajacombinator
It’s a fiat induced worldwide suicide pact. Only one way out.

------
metapsj
the focus on housing is short sighted. there will always be a physical limit
based on the geography of the area. most political agendas are focused on
concentration of wealth to maximize public programs i.e. mass transportation.
i think we've reached a point where redistributing high paying jobs across a
larger geographic area is the only real solution for most large cities.

~~~
epistasis
Which of these cities is even near to the physical limit?

I think you're getting downvoted because none of them are at any sort of
physical limit.

Density is amazingly good for humans: it promotes huge amounts of intellection
and economic growth.

Density is what so much of the country is yearning for, and being denied by
prior generations and entrenched wealthy residents.

There's only one place density should go: cities. And they have a _ton_ of
room for growth in the US to even match other dense cities in world, such as
Paris.

~~~
metapsj
physical limit is probably to narrow to effectively argue my original
position. there are many limiting factors including physical boundaries of
geography. consider the political climate, economic environment, accumulated
technical debt of past construction practices, artificial boundaries
development by cities to bolster real estate values, not to mention
investments made by individual home owners and businesses. there are a lot of
forces at play to gain consensus especially when you have significant momentum
moving along a trajectory started easily 30 years ago that led us to where we
are today. and not to mention the accumulated debt of a city like san
francisco which the last i read was at $10B. these forces are like concrete or
better yet non-newtonian in nature, the more you stir the pot the more rigid
it becomes.

i agree there are a lot benefits to density, i'm not down playing those
benefits. but i do think we have a lot of great technology in play and coming
down the pipe that allows us to have many of the same benefits across large
geographic areas.

also i feel large cities are captive to it's wealthy benefactors whether it's
a company, an individual, or a politician who wields influence.

more importantly, it's far easier to create incentives to entice companies
with high economic value and high paying jobs to an area with few competitive
forces.

------
grabarz
Stop printing money.

~~~
posix_compliant
Could you elaborate?

~~~
jMyles
It's not a terribly elaborate solution, just a simple and good one: let's have
the federal reserve stop promoting monetary policy that encourages reckless
spending, easy money, expensive houses, and tons of plastic shit.

Some people present it as a solution to all the world's ills, which it is far
from. But it's a good foundation for many solutions for many ills.

~~~
ShabbosGoy
It still won’t matter in real terms. _Real_ housing prices will still continue
to rise, until the fundamental housing shortage is solved in places like the
Bay Area.

------
dba7dba
The REAL cause of the housing crisis is more and more rich people/companies
view real estate as a way to make money. Not just as a way to park wealth to
defend against inflation, but to make $. With astounding return rate.

Frankly, I think the only way housing crisis can be resolved is

1\. taxing severely anyone who owns multiple house/condos (not apartment
units) with the plan of renting. Probably gradually higher tax rate based on
number of units or monthly rent fee.

2\. Heavy tax for profit made from flipping a house.

The goals of the tax would be to control excessive amount of $ from flowing
into real estate.

Real estate investment is made out to be a really smart/great investment. But
why?

~~~
anonuser123456
If your goal is to create a Venezuela like housing crisis sure, you could do 1
& 2\. I'm not sure the rest of us want that.

~~~
dba7dba
My goal is not to create a Venezuela like housing crisis.

But housing investment is sucking in $ from everywhere, even non-American
investors. Some at top are raking in money while everyone else is paying for
it.

There is a reason more and more wealth is concentrated in less and less people
at the top.

