
Mixed-use developments may actually reduce housing affordability - fern12
https://phys.org/news/2018-02-mixed-use-housing-social-diversity.html
======
sologoub
> "Making mixed-use neighbourhoods was done with the best of intentions for
> our health, happiness and the environment, but as communities become more
> attractive places to live, demand to live there increases costs," said
> Markus Moos, a professor at Waterloo's School of Planning. "Walking to a
> nearby fancy coffee shop is nice, but the premium people pay for that luxury
> means the barista can't afford to live near their job.

Feels like clickbait and a statement of the obvious - of course well thought
out and walkable developments will attract a premium when compared to less
walkable and useful developments. If we want people to not be priced out, we
need to build enough to meet the demand and redevelop existing stock to match
the current trends.

And you know what, we’ll still be rebuilding neighborhoods to match the then
current trends 100 years from now. That’s the entire point - if the city
doesn’t adapt to what people need/want overtime, areas that reflect those
preferences will become unaffordable, whereas areas that do not reflect those
preferences will decrease in value.

~~~
DataWorker
Or everything will increase in value because of less supply than demand.

------
pessimizer
Isn't this exactly what you would expect from something pleasant and rare? If
you just want to make an area more affordable, you should make it less
pleasant.

The answer is to do this more, until it's not special, and during the process
subsidize. In fact, if mixed-use areas are inherently more livable, build more
public housing projects around a mixed-use format.

> The study of Toronto neighbourhoods found that the increased cost, which was
> _further heightened by the retraction of government support for affordable
> housing in mixed-use areas_ [...]

~~~
aaronchall
This makes sense to me. The luxury apartments of yesterday became the
affordable apartments of today.

If we want more affordable living spaces, we need to build build build.

~~~
wmf
_The luxury apartments of yesterday became the affordable apartments of
today._

Most affordable housing activists either don't understand or outright
disbelieve that such filtering is possible. They're also somewhat impatient,
so they want to see brand new yet affordable housing get built.

Unfortunately, because urban housing was uncool for decades virtually all
urban housing tends to be either very old and run-down, recently remodeled and
expensive, or recently built and expensive. There are no decent-yet-affordable
20-30 year old downtown apartments/condos.

~~~
jrochkind1
I guess you could call people living in unsafe substandard housing, paying
upwards of 60% of their income on rent, and homeless... "impatient" for this
to change. If only they knew it was good for _society_ to be more "patient"
about their substandard housing.

~~~
closeparen
Increasing funds for public housing might accelerate a solution. Stonewalling
market-rate development doesn’t make anyone better off (except existing
owners).

Since we find affordable housing through (effective) taxes on market rate
construction, blocking it yields lower total affordable housing production.

------
byoung2
The fantasy is that low income people without cars will be attracted to mixed
use developments where all their needs are in one place. But middle and upper
income people want that too, and that drives prices up. We own a condo in the
Philippines with retail downstairs and a mall next door and prices have
tripled in the 6 years since we bought. In traffic congested Manila mixed use
is not just a luxury, it's a necessity.

~~~
joe_the_user
It's a myth that some particular kind of development will increase
affordability.

It's plainly obvious that an increase in the supply of available housing
increases affordability of housing and a decrease similarly decreases it. And
similarly with demand.

Not everything has it's price determined by the blunt cudgel of supply and
demand but things that are needed to live clearly do.

~~~
akvadrako
That's not obvious. NYC has a lot more available housing than somewhere
upstate and is a lot less affordable.

More housing means more people, but prices might even go up.

~~~
rdiddly
More supply might lower prices, or it might lead to "induced demand" that
eventually makes prices creep back up... Maybe even higher than before. So
you're both right. The deciding factor which way it's gonna go is basically
"location, location, location."

~~~
YokoZar
And where is that hypothetical "induced demand" coming from? Some other city
that now has more affordable housing due to the people leaving town.

Either way, when you legalize housing and build more houses, you end up with
more houses. That makes getting a house easier, for someone, somewhere.

~~~
sevensor
> Some other city that now has more affordable housing due to the people
> leaving town.

Indeed. Contrast New York City and Buffalo.

------
fern12
Link to paper:
[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2017.14...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2017.1406315)

