
The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002) - krausejj
http://www.nber.org/papers/w8835
======
krausejj
If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about
social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and
understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most
dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land.

In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that
prevents local governments from banning density near public transit. It is the
_most radical_ housing bill in decades, because it rebalances zoning control
from the local to the state level. It could result in 3 million new units
being created in California, a state that builds <100k per year.

[https://standupcalifornia.com](https://standupcalifornia.com) (this is a
website i set up to support this issue, which i see as the most important
political issue for myself and my friends, and our ability to stay in our
communities)

~~~
Gibbon1
If you care about the rest of the country you should ask why the fire hose of
investment money is directed at SF and New York and not elsewhere. Instead of
asking what's wrong with San Francisco. Why not ask what's wrong with the rest
of the US?

Sure I can name a bunch of reasons why little housing is built in California,
we can start with the Libertarian wet dream that is Prop 13. Prop 13 does two
things, removes any incentive for muni's to approve new housing. And starves
the government of funding to pay for public goods like schools and mass
transit. The zoning restrictions Libertarians bitch about are partly the
direct result of that.

Okay fine. But then still the question is, even if we admit California has
issues, why is it that corporations which are totally free to locate elsewhere
aren't doing so? You would think with a large cost differential corporations
would move. Why not?

Because neoliberal conservative dominated governments in the rest of the US
means that VC's, engineers, and mangers don't want to live in those places at
all. So they and their companies are paying a large premium not to.

No workers don't want to work in 'right to work state' They don't want to send
their kids to schools that teach creationism and abstinence only sex
education. They don't want to live in communities with bad family planning.

~~~
manfredo
I don't really follow what message you're trying to convey, but it sounds a
lot like that you're starting the problem is with the demand for real estate
in Silicon Valley, not the supply.

This isn't the case. Silicon Valley, Seattle, etc. are just on the leading
edge of a larger tend towards greater urbanization. It's a pattern that's also
happening in Austin, Portland, and more cities just to less extreme degrees.
The simple fact is that in a developed country dense population centers are
more efficient - both economically and environmentally.

~~~
secstate
I'd be careful with "simple facts." Rarely do they turn out to be simple. Show
me the evidence that dense urban areas are economically AND environmentally
more efficient. The environment part seems especially suspect.

To a large degree we're still living in the shadow of the industrial
revolution, when workers flocked to cities for work. As a telecommuter, my
quality of life is a thousand fold higher than my co-workers in the D.C. or
Dallas metro areas where it seems many people find themselves alone in a sea
of humans and chronically maligning poorly planned mass transit.

~~~
manfredo
The economic efficiency is demonstrated by the greater job growth in urban
areas. I'll easily find stats on this when I get off mobile. And this is the
first time I've heard someone claim that sprawl and dispersed populations are
environmentally better than urban areas. Not only do dispersed populations
need greater land development, they need significantly more energy used in
transportation to deliver the same quality of life. I saw a stat that compared
the per capita carbon footprint of wealthy countries and it was essentially
inversely proportional to levels of urbanization. And like the economy one,
sit tight for an hour or do for me to get home and share this data.

Sources for greater economic growth in urban areas:

[https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-
population/emp...](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-
population/employment-education/rural-employment-and-unemployment/)

Countries by CO2 emissions per-capita:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita)

Countries by urbanization:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_country)

And that's not even getting into things like the amount of land that gets
developed for low density homes and services, roads, water reservoirs,
electric lines, etc.

Wealthy rural countries (USA, Australia, Russia), produce more carbon than
dense wealthy countries. Granted, I wouldn't be surprised if carbon emissions
and environmental impact of the average city resident was higher than the
average rural resident - but that's largely a result of the fact that rural
residents are generally less wealthy. This is definitely true on a global
scale (the countries with the lowest carbon footprints are poor, rural ones),
and I wouldn't be surprised if it were true on a nation wide scale. I didn't
explicitly state it in in the first post, but I did clarify in the second that
this was for the same standard of living.

On a side note, an interesting thing to look into is how Singapore manages to
provide so much services with such a small budget - 14.2% of GDP per capita as
opposed to 26% in the US. A huge part of this is because it's so much more
efficient to provide services when you're dealing with population concentrated
in such a small area. Imagine how much more money (and energy) it takes to
deliver electricity, running water, sewage, emergency services, education,
etc. to households in Oregon where 4 million people are distributed across
98,466 square miles as opposed to concentrating them all in 278 square miles.
Even if things like land and labor cost more, so much overhead and operational
costs are saved by not having to service such a massive area.

~~~
secstate
Thanks for the data! Is it unreasonable to think that as energy efficiency of
things (cars, heating systems, airplanes) improve and we move towards
renewable energy that the inefficiency of rural life could become offsetting
and the value of nature on the human psyche is allowed to return to our
culture?

I realize that's more of a value judgement and not objective. But there are
definitely costs associated with living in dense urban places. Regardless of
efficiencies we are definitely still living in a post-industrial-revolution
world, and people did not voluntarily cram themselves into giant cities then,
so some sort of reversion when it's possible makes sense. Vast populations of
urban people in China would rather not have to move into the city.

------
techenthusiast
YES.

Seeing an NBER paper on Hacker News of all places makes me want to cry tears
of joy.

That zoning and insane levels of regulation are absolutely the causes of the
housing crises in the US is the mainstream consensus among economists.

For those unfamiliar, Glaeser is widely considered the foremost urban
economist, so I'm shocked to see his famous paper linked on here. He's
absolutely brilliant.

------
empath75
Spend some time walking visiting third world countries sometime and observe
how much homelessness you see. When pretty much anybody can build a currogated
tin shack wherever they want, almost everybody is going to sleep with a roof
over their head.

------
Tempest1981
The impact of Tech giants on housing affordability (2016): (graph)

[https://deleonrealty.com/2016/facebooks-effect-
appreciation-...](https://deleonrealty.com/2016/facebooks-effect-appreciation-
menlo-park-housing/)

------
duncan_bayne
Why not just scrap zoning altogether? Houston has, and it seems to be working
out pretty well for them.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-zESacteu4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-zESacteu4)

------
danieltillett
The problem with all real estate development is all the profits flow to the
developers and all the costs flow to the existing residents (more traffic,
infrastructure, etc). I am surprised that anyone is in favour of development
in their neighbourhood unless they are a developer.

The solution is to share the benefits of new development with the existing
residents so they gain from development. Get this right and communities will
be fighting each other to have developers come in and build new houses.

~~~
wwgg715
more units equals more property taxes for the municipality to pay for
services, and more people buying stuff and paying sales tax, and use fees like
the $11 BART ticket.

~~~
danieltillett
Property tax are not supposed to be a profit center, but cover the costs of
providing services. Adding more people just increases the costs so it works
out a zero for the existing residents.

