
California should emulate Tokyo, where housing stayed ahead of population growth - krausejj
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/california-affordable-housing-is-no-mystery-just-build-more
======
ortusdux
I really like the idea of Japan's zoning laws. They have 12 zones nationwide,
and they restrict by maximum allowable nuisance. Industry is considered the
highest nussicance and low rise residential the lowest. You cannot build a
business in a residential area, but you can build apartments in a commercial
zone. I feel this opens up many more options for growth while maintaining the
spirit of American zoning laws. Here is a good explanation:

[http://urbankchoze.blogspot.ca/2014/04/japanese-
zoning.html](http://urbankchoze.blogspot.ca/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html)

~~~
extralego
Japan also has an entirely different relationship with residential buildings
and real estate than we do.

It’s so foreign to me that I have a hard time even believing it and I can only
vaguely describe it. But, effectively, houses don’t appreciate in Japan and
they don’t like moving into houses other people have lived in before. It seems
wasteful at first, but they also build very different types of homes. And,
their homes are more optimized for the particular people living in them. And,
the economy seems to greatly benefit from the adaptability this provides.

But, please do your own research. I have visited and seen it for myself but
still have a hard time comprehending all the differences.

~~~
shostack
This sounds really fascinating--do you have any links or search terms to use
to learn more about the differences in homes there? I'm particularly curious
about the optimization for the people who live in the homes. What would drive
that difference in attitude and behavior?

I've also heard that Japanese homes aren't built to last and that they get
rebuilt rather frequently by Western standards, although I'm not sure how true
that is.

~~~
chrischen
They don’t particularly like old things, and so a building built in the 1980s
would be considered an old house.

As a result new buildings get built all the time and everything is nice and
newly renovated everywhere you go, including the subways.

One great example is stepping into the Ginza subway line, which is the first
subway line in Tokyo (circa maybe 1920s or 1930s), and comparing it to the
dungeons of some older NYC metro stations or London’s tubes.

~~~
sunstone
Japan is fond of its old temples though.

~~~
brazzy
Old temples yes, old temple _buildings_ \- not necessarily.

The country's most holy Shinto shrine at Ise is ceremonially torn down and
rebuilt every 20 years.

Most other temples need parts of the building (like the roof) replaced every
now and then, and have burned down a few times over the centuries.

There's really only a handful of temple buildings that have _parts_ that are
more than 500 years old.

------
nimbius
Here in Los Angeles we have some of the most overvalued real estate in
America. a bungalow in the city can go for millions, and is often torn down
and replaced by a gleaming white McMansion because renovation is slower and
costlier than filing new papers with the city. We cant just build more housing
because traditional neighborhoods will fight to the death in courts to prevent
multi family housing from devaluing their property or worse, competing for
their rental income. The large apartment complexes that do get built are
divided between anyone who can affort 10k a month in rent and fees, and "lower
income" applicants who pay a fraction of this but are also held to strict
terms and conditions. You wind up with millionaires and single moms living in
beachfront Santa Monica communities, while anyone with a regular office job
often commutes 40-70 miles in from the valley. Its often said you dont quit
your job in LA, you quit your commute.

new apartments built are not priced affordably because banks and investors
want their interest back quickly and have promised surrounding neighborhoods
they will price accordingly to keep out the riff raff. in turn, dilapidated
apartment complexes from the 60's go for about the same rates because these
property owners know there is no "better offer" in town.

this doesnt even cover the 73,000 homeless people in Los Angeles county we
cant seem to find a place for because no beach city wants to house their own
unsustainable numbers of homeless, and no desert community is within a radius
of health and welfare services required by many transients.

Then there are the haters. people like the Aids Healthcare Foundation who ran
a 6 month campaign to defeat city legislation for new affordable housing. Why?
Mike Weinstein doesnt want any development to obstruct the view from his
penthouse.

[http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-aids-
foundation-...](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-aids-foundation-
political-spending-20170221-story.html)

My husband and I live in LA and love it. but honestly, its bittersweet. We
will never truly own anything more than a latte here.

~~~
pm90
Hmmm... If I may ask you: I'm considering moving to LA for a job in
Venice/Culver city. Wondering if I can live somewhat closeby for a reasonable
rent. I definitely don't want to commute more than 30 min each way :/.

Edit: The offer is "developer salary" so I assumed it would be OK for a
rundown but safe rental somewhere closeby.

~~~
harmmonica
Even though Venice and Culver City are technically right next to each other
the office jobs in Culver City, for the most part, are a few miles from where
the Venice office jobs are (see here:
[https://goo.gl/maps/963isPRWKmL2;](https://goo.gl/maps/963isPRWKmL2;) short
distance, but traffic from/to the 405 can be pretty brutal at rush hour even
over short distances).

Getting a 30-minute commute to Venice is going to be materially more
expensive, but on a dev salary (assuming $100k-$150k) you should have no
trouble affording a place. If you're working in downtown Culver City you'll
have way more choices at all price points because you can live almost anywhere
between downtown LA and the beach and still get there in under 30.

~~~
pm90
Thank you! That is very useful information:)

------
kevinburke
Please call your state legislators - Senator and Assemblymember - about SB
827, which will do more to accomplish this outcome than any land use bill in
the last twenty years. A lot of homeowners are opposing the bill and we could
use your voice.

[http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/](http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/)

~~~
JaggedJax
I very much hope this bill goes through. The city I live in is a terrible mix
of NIMBYism and corruption making it impossible to move an electrical outlet
or put up a private awning, let along build anything on your property (have
experience with all these attempted permits and more). The only thing that can
stop this is the state completely overriding local zoning laws like this bill
does. The state tried the carrot and many cities like mine ignored it. It's
time for the stick.

~~~
Decade
Don’t just hope. Join California YIMBY and contribute time and money to
defeating NIMBYism. [https://cayimby.org](https://cayimby.org)

------
ajeet_dhaliwal
No one gets the message in London. There should be high rise condo/apartment
buildings like Manhattan, Hong Kong, Singapore, even Toronto, all over the
place given the population but height restrictions persist so people live in
cramped, miserable conditions. There are vested interest that make allowing
this politically challenging, existing owners would see property prices
plummet if this was allowed, and then there's some powerful people just block
it for aesthetic reasons. Either way it can't continue without having an
economic and innovation hit long term.

~~~
MrAlex94
I'm not convinced London has a housing shortage. Or the UK for that matter.
The problem is that anyone can buy a house in the UK and they've become
investment vehicles. Also consider London has just reached its pre-WW2
population, and all the properties bombed most likely replaced by more
efficient housing.

I found a study about supply and demand for housing, but am struggling to find
it. There's a post here which seems credible enough, related to the topic:

[https://medium.com/@ian.mulheirn/londons-housing-non-
shortag...](https://medium.com/@ian.mulheirn/londons-housing-non-
shortage-a059593432b5)

~~~
jonknee
> The problem is that anyone can buy a house in the UK and they've become
> investment vehicles.

Doesn't that imply that there is a shortage?

~~~
MrAlex94
If you're competing with the the whole world - sure. But I have a personal
belief property is one of the things that shouldn't be so freely purchasable.
Want to buy and own a property in the UK? Fine, be a UK citizen then.

Look at how Denmark do it:

"Unless you have lived in Denmark for a period of at least 5 years, you must
obtain permission from the Danish Ministry of Justice (Justitsministeriet) to
buy property. However, this restriction does not apply if you are an EU-
citizen, and if the property is to be used as a permanent residence."

[https://international.kk.dk/artikel/buying-
home](https://international.kk.dk/artikel/buying-home)
[http://um.dk/en/travel-and-residence/family-and-legal-
issues...](http://um.dk/en/travel-and-residence/family-and-legal-issues/real-
property-purchase-in-denmark/)

Seems reasonable to me. Maybe stop shell corporations based in tax havens from
owning property as well? Seems they benefit from the income while paying that
the government doesn't even get.

------
b123400
I think culture helps to keep the house price low as well.

1\. They don't like secondhand homes, they rather rebuild it[1]. So houses are
not a good investment vehicles.

2\. They values good business practices in housing. (I don't have any data to
support). Few months ago I was finding a room in Tokyo, the agent told me
people usually live in the same place for years without rent increased. It's
not usual to raise the price because it's considered rude and it's something
the yakuzas do. It's an entirely different story in Hong Kong where I came
from. HK people almost always increase the price so much that people are
forced to move every 2 years. AFAIK there is no rent control in both HK and
Tokyo.

[1]: "the ratio of used homes circulating in the entire housing market remains
below 15 percent, substantially smaller than in the United States and European
countries."
[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/12/26/national/japans...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/12/26/national/japans-
glut-abandoned-homes-hard-sell-bargains-opportunity-knocks/)

~~~
jac_no_k
/me has "owned" (mortgage) two single dwelling houses in Southern California
and on his third house in the Tokyo area.

Another reason for general dislike of second hand houses is that these houses
are poorly designed. Older houses in the Tokyo area (Kawasaki included), from
even ten to fifteen years ago have have a raft of design problems from lack of
insulation to using too low cost of materials. The first and third house was a
bespoke build and I was met with bewildered architects when I specified
designs that they considered appropriate only for Hokkaido (northern island
that get cold air from Siberia). Other crazy things I had to make them modify
was moving the fresh air intake vent away from the fuel cell generator, that
doubles as hot water boiler which has a backup burner. They didn't seem to
realize that a backup burner exists. There were a number of other mistakes
that I pointed out that seemed to have left the builder in a puzzled state. I
made my sales guy work for his pay. Walking around the new development area
I'm in, I could point out any number of usability flaws that most of the house
have. If these were missed, most likely a large number of technical flaws
crept in as well.

The second house was second-hand. (ha!) Very bad decision under somewhat
forced circumstances. Very cheap specc'd floors that scratched easily.
Practically no insulation. Poor air control, with vents pulling in air
directly from the outside with no filtration or pre-conditioning. One of the
reasons for moving on.

And while I'm here, the first place we bought (place 0 in Japan) was a room in
a mansion (aka an apartment). We bought this new, upgraded to durable floors.
I was lucky to have been able to sell the place five years later for nearly
the same price as I purchased it. Unlike California, the all buildings
depreciate to nothing in 30 years. The HOA (home owners association) is only
run professionally for the first 10 years. The next 10 years is a hand off to
the residents. From what I now understand, while under professional
management, the fees while high are spent well and banked for renovations to
be done every decade. But the pattern is that after the second decade, under
home owner control, the association votes to cut the fees. The association
quickly runs out of money and the building falls into disrepair, accelerating
the depreciation. The apartment becomes nearly worthless and difficult to
sell, leaving people with 35 year mortgages under water. Nuts.

I've also been in rental apartments and they have been cheaply made.

Regarding rentals, I think the attitude is that the owner would rather deal
with someone who is known to pay rather then having to deal with an unknown
entity. It's a risk averse culture.

~~~
aikinai
How did you develop the skills to spot these issues yourself? Just time living
and investing in various places?

------
nikanj
It's too late for California. Either housing prices do come down considerably,
and a lot of people have their futures ruined, or they don't come down
considerably, and a lot of people have their futures ruined.

Theoretically massive inflation would be able to fix this, except that would
screw over everyone who's using the US dollar outside of California.

~~~
John_KZ
Yep. I'm not an economist, but I've been watching this weird "urban inflation"
trend too.

People in big cities, even though they don't produce more or better work than
others, get paid a lot more to account for the housing bubble, essentially
increasing their buying power tremendously compared to people living in
smaller cities.

Imho we should give up on the idea of maintaining large cities as aesthetic
monuments or something. It's bad enough for cities like London that have a
decent population density, but places like LA where people just won't give up
on the American suburbia model of housing is just insane.

Cities aren't just a place to hang out and look at pretty buildings, people
need to live there, work and transport within reasonable cost and time
constrains. It's a very practical issue that needs to be solved. Living in a
big city isn't just a luxury, it's a need too for many people.

~~~
barry-cotter
You’re wrong. People in cities do produce more and better work than others.
They’re also easier to serve so more businesses are viable there.

Firms do not pay people more when rent is higher out of the kindness of their
hearts, they do it because it’s worth the greater expense to them, because the
workers are more skilled and more productive. Some of those higher wages
accrue to landlords.

Relevant link
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration)

~~~
John_KZ
Does a developer in SF really produce 500k of work while one in Nevada
produces 80k? Would Google and Facebook pay up so much money if they were
stationed in a European city? No they wouldn't. Cities provide more people
because of their higher population densities. Some of the residents are world
class experts. Most of them certainly aren't. Most of them aren't even very
skilled. Companies pay more money because they have to, not because they want
to. They have to be stationed in the area with the highest population density
to have access to more workers. What if they had both high pop density _and_
low rents? How would that be bad in any way?

If you really believe in the "markets will fix it" rhetoric about workers
wages (not to mention the wage=merit idea) then why don't you let the free
market fix the housing bubble by allowing taller residential buildings? Right
now, almost all of the extra wage ends up in the hand of land owners. That can
be fixed, so the wages will actually reflect how much value the workers
produce, not how exclusive the area they live in is and how much status they
have.

~~~
barry-cotter
I find myself in vigorous agreement with you. As far as I’m aware no one gets
500K without being a known quantity, worth it.

Companies pay more money because they have to, if they want to get the people
everyone else also wants to hire. That’s why the Steve Jobs wage suppression
agreement happened. And then Facebook said hell no and wages rose, at
companies that made enough per employee to pay the new market price.

High population density and low rents sounds like a great combination. If you
know it a developed country that lasted please tell. I’d hold out more hope
for high density and Georgist land value taxes so that the economic rents
accrue to the government/citizenry not the property owners, insofar as it’s
rent, not a return on investment.

------
bassman9000
_One other reason that density might have been more politically acceptable in
Japan is that houses are not used as a vehicle for middle-class wealth
accumulation._

On the spot.

~~~
aphextron
>One other reason that density might have been more politically acceptable in
Japan is that houses are not used as a vehicle for middle-class wealth
accumulation.

How do the Japanese build wealth, then? Buying a desirable home in a solid
market is pretty much the only way for an average person earning the median
wage to make it into the middle class.

~~~
samlevine
The same way the Germans do, they save money.

Rising housing prices have played out the same across the Anglophone world.
It's not sustainable as a means to get the lower classes into the middle
class, because the higher prices rise the more debt they need to take on to
join the game.

Housing is something people consume. It's durable, but so are cars and
imagining them as being a gateway investment to the middle class because they
will cost more in the future should be just as silly as for housing.

~~~
Armisael16
The house itself normally isn't appreciating; it's the land that does. People
don't consume land (usually).

------
mikekchar
I think it's important to have a bit of perspective on this graph. While it
includes the tail end of "the bubble", the vast majority of this graph
documents a time that is pretty difficult to compare with any major city.
After the bubble, real estate prices lost up to 80% of their value. It slowly
crept back up and in the early 2000s there were signs of vigorous recovery,
but in 2006 when the government saw prices going up again, they _restricted
loans_. This stabilised prices. In the last decade, while the prices have gone
up and down, the price index now is practically the same as it was in 2010.

There are a couple of other important factors. Between 1988 and 2013 (the part
documented by the graph), the population of the country grew by only 5 million
people. Tokyo's population grew from about 11 million to about 13 million in
that time -- so it absorbed almost half of the total population increase of
the entire country. Although I haven't looked, I'm willing to bet that Osaka
absorbed the other half. So it's quite a bit easier to focus the government
when all of your growth is in the same place.

Furthermore, if we look at the population increase and compare that to the
household increases in the graph, something is pretty apparent. Population
increased by 2 million and households increased by 2 million. What that means
is that Tokyo was _overcrowded_ in 1988, with large numbers of people living
in the same household. As new residences became available, they spread out.
It's especially important to understand that in the early nineties, prices
were getting _cheaper_ , so that made it easier for people to move.

So while building new residences is important, there are a whole host of other
factors that led to Tokyo's success in this regard. Personally, I think the
resolve to avoid real estate bubbles, even at the cost of economic growth is
huge. One last thing I really need to point out because it's confusing for
people who don't live in Japan: "Tokyo" usually refers to the _prefecture_ of
Tokyo, not just the city. There are parts of Tokyo prefecture that are
decidedly rural, so it is doubly difficult to compare it with cities in other
countries.

~~~
eecsninja
If you want more data, see the chart in this article (sometimes behind
paywall, so I'm linking archived version):
[http://archive.is/oXNHv](http://archive.is/oXNHv)

The chart shows a comparison of increase in population vs increase in price,
for four regions: San Francisco, London, "Tokyo", and the central district of
Minato-ku. While the first three are vaguely defined since they could be
either city limits or metropolitan areas, there is no such uncertainty about
Minato-ku.

Minato had a much larger percentage population increase than SF or London but
a much smaller percentage price increase.

------
reaperducer
Meanwhile, rural places in Japan are being rapidly de-peopled by both urban
migration and an aging population.

I read last year that some towns will actually GIVE foreigners a house if they
promise to live there a certain numbers of years.

~~~
prawn
Not just in Japan either. There have been cases of crumbling historic villages
in Italy promising very cheap housing provided that the buyer commits to
renovating and living within a certain period.

I think stories like this couple well with one also from this week on HN:

    
    
      Why Cities Boom While Towns Struggle
      https://archive.is/9yDHx

------
austincheney
California is bleeding something like 60,000 residents to Texas each year.
That sounds like a big number.

[https://qz.com/1189388/conservative-californians-are-
moving-...](https://qz.com/1189388/conservative-californians-are-moving-to-
texas-for-the-home-prices-and-politics/)

~~~
pascalxus
That's not nearly fast enough. We can't possibly loose enough people. But,
it's a good start. Ideally, we would have a mass evacuation! I'd leave too,
but we have family and friends here, not to mention a good job.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
I don't really see the reason for downvotes. I don't take his comment as
hostile, but rather simply as a function of economics.

Suppose for a moment that everyone of the 7 billion people wanted to live in a
single city. Taking it to the extreme. It doesn't work. Land prices would make
everything unaffordable, there wouldn't be enough space to produce goods and
provide space to live and work. The best thing in such a situation would be to
say, let's have substantial people move away from this particular city, to
live and work somewhere else where natural resources (land, what's on and
under it) is abundant.

To me it seems pretty obvious that this is the position that some price cities
find themselves in.

You can sort of look at a heat-map or height-map of population density. This
map essentially expresses demand for that land, and that expresses the cost of
the land. In that sense, population density to land can be viewed as interest
rates to debt. The smartest thing to do in a debt situation is move high-
interest debt to low-interest debt. Redistribute your debt to where it is
cheap. Similarly, we ought to redistribute our demand for land to where it is
cheap, which means moving people around. In that sense, the above comment
makes sense to me.

I'm not advocating for some kind of forced migration or anything, but
companies and governments should inform, educate and incentivise this
redistribution in a soft manner. Introducing (progressive) land taxes is
probably part of the story.

------
dalbasal
IDK about some of this. When thinking about what policies we should have, we
tend to overemphasize policies' effects on whatever we're we're looking to
fix. A common trope is policing methods and crime rates.

For example, I've heard a lot of talk this past year about german housing
policy with Berlin cited as the best example. It rarely mentions that Berlin's
population peaked before the war, reunification and other things that aren't
housing policy. I'm not saying that Tokyo's housing policies are not good,
just that there's likely a lot of context to their successes.

Housing can be pretty complicated and nuanced. Policies don't translate well
from one place to another. Where I live (dublin), house prices are effectively
a derivative of bank policies. Whatever banks will loan the median person
becomes the median house price. Now that we've had boom, bust & boom again...
it's very easy to see how these two things track.

In a less supply constrained scenario I think bigger houses, not cheaper ones.
Another big part of the story here is a near unanimous objection to
development in general, more out of conservatism than NIMBYism. So, stasis
biased.

Anyway, my point is that it's complicated. The dynamic in Dublin is different
from Austin or Berlin, and policies exist within these contexts. It sounds
like NIMBYism is a big factor in california. I imagine that the economic &
population growth in these cities is another big factor.

~~~
stale2002
Bigger houses by definition mean cheaper, at least in the city.

This is because a bunch of young people can get together and live together in
this hypothetical bigger house.

Twice the size IS half the cost if twice as many people are living there.

~~~
jacobolus
It’s bullshit that people who would prefer to live in studio or 1-bedroom
apartments are forced to live 3–5 roommates to a house with all available
rooms converted to bedrooms (for which the same land could easily fit several
apartments) because the zoning doesn’t match demand, and otherwise it’s too
expensive to stay anywhere within commute range. Especially bad when one of
them wants to start a family but it’s simply impossible because giving up
space in a rent controlled unit makes the whole region entirely unaffordable.

~~~
closeparen
Unfortunately, it's incredibly good politics to be for "real families" and
against young single antisocial techies who want to live alone. One of the
restrictions on multifamily construction is a minimum proportion of 2- and
3-bedroom units.

------
bane
Not only is there enough housing, but the market calibrates it to be
affordable.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv6SbFlZMbU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv6SbFlZMbU)

And there's enough space in the housing market to allow for ultra-precision
housing alternatives like capsule hotels.

If you need to commute in, there's an astonishingly good public transit
system.

The same youtube channel has an excellent multipart series on homelessness in
Japan that's absolutely worth watching. Here's the episode on housing the
homeless:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBPyN3LE65g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBPyN3LE65g)

------
popcorncolonel
Everything in America should emulate Japan, pretty much.

~~~
azernik
Just not the oppressive gender norms, the work-life balance at mainstream
employers, the level of direct political corruption, or the thousand other
very real problems Japan has that are worse than in the US.

Let's not idealize foreign countries, please and thank you.

~~~
buf
I agree that we shouldn't idealize.

As an American, I've lived in western Europe, eastern Europe and spent months
in Japan. There are some things these places do worth idealizing.

Americans should travel more and replicate the best parts.

~~~
xenihn
>Americans should travel more and replicate the best parts.

I hope you realize that the vast majority of the country isn't as privileged
as we are when it comes to being able to afford to travel, or even to get time
off in the first place.

~~~
azernik
I think this gives those of us who _do_ have that privilege an obligation to
be responsible about the ways we speak and write about our experiences. For
the majority of Americans who never make it to e.g. Japan, it makes a
difference how they hear travelers speak in person, on TV, or in commenters on
reddit (or even, _gasp_ , Hacker News).

------
ggg9990
Japan is so idiosyncratic that you cannot assume that any policy from there
will behave similarly anywhere else (except in some cases Singapore)

~~~
eecsninja
When did "idiosyncratic" come to describe a country where people are polite
and keep their society clean and running punctually?

Japan has little litter even though there are few trash cans in public.

In the NYC subway, there is a ton of litter in the tracks even near a trash
can.

Maybe it is the West that is actually idiosyncratic?

~~~
apotheothesomai
Every culture by definition is idiosyncratic compared to others. Cultures are
demarcated by their differences.

There is no objective measure by which individual aspects of one culture can
be judged better than another, unless the majority of people from every
culture involved in the comparison have agreed to certain principles, e.g.
slavery is unacceptable.

The litter example simply illustrates a different cultural norm in a very
homogenous society. The US is profoundly diverse and individualistic.

Besides, the NYC has litter, when Tokyo transit has men reading rape comics on
the train. Japanese culture is not perfect, nor is any culture.

~~~
eecsninja
Men reading rape comics while keeping to themselves is still less of a
nuisance than all the musicians, panhandlers, and people talking to themselves
on the NYC subway.

Those who litter when there's a trash can nearby are not demonstrating
individualism. They are demonstrating a profound LACK OF CONSCIENTIOUSNESS.

These same people vote too, you know. The nuts have taken over the nuthouse.

------
hokus
I enjoyed this read a while back.

How I Used Eve Online to Predict the Great Recession (2013) (gamasutra.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16469619](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16469619)

------
pfedigan
What if I don't want to live in an apartment most of my life?

~~~
pchristensen
Earn more or move or commute longer.

~~~
majormajor
Or vote and be politically active.

Ignoring that as a rational choice for many people already in expensive areas
is just asking for your proposals to fail.

We very frequently talk about the economic value that could be produced by
different housing actions, but policy is not purely determined by economic
value. I know more people opposed to upzoning because they _like_ their yards
and their space than because they're worried about their property values
(denser cities in the US are very rarely _cheaper_ ).

------
Apocryphon
What are some other cities which are in-demand but have plentiful housing.
Berlin? Montréal?

~~~
s0rce
Not sure what the definition of plentiful is but Chicago is a great city and
housing is far less expensive than other cities of similar size and with lots
of stuff to do/eat. Doesn't have mountains or coastal California weather, so
you win some you lose some. Seasons are nice though.

~~~
dredmorbius
And the residents complain of high property taxes. They may not realise the
blessing.

~~~
s0rce
Better than prop 13. Also, Illinois has lower state sales and income tax than
California (not as low as other places though).

------
MarkMc
Seems that 'not in my back yard' is a big problem. So what about a rule that
says, "If you build a high-density apartment you must financially compensate
nearby residents"?

~~~
nsnick
Nearby residents are already compensated. When you build a high density
apartment, the value of land near it goes up.

~~~
MarkMc
The _value of the land_ goes up, but the potential _rental income_ goes down
due to increase in supply. For house-owners the net change in property value
will likely be positive, but for apartment-owners it might well be negative.

In any case, support for NIMBY suggests the current level of financial
compensation is insufficient.

------
walshemj
which will only help the property developers IMHO

~~~
kjksf
Let's also set limits on how much milk farmers can make.

Producing enough milk to fully satisfy demand only helps farmers.

~~~
walshemj
you think developers aren't going to game the system big time

------
ISL
"Sadly, the bill is already encountering opposition from homeowners’ groups,
which are no doubt eager to push up their property values."

My impression is that neighborhood groups aren't generally interested in
raising property values, but rather in preserving the less-developed
neighborhood in which they have invested and chosen to live.

~~~
mjevans
I agree, it's more the "I got mine, screw everyone else" mentality.

~~~
robotrout
A large influx of people into your area is almost guaranteed to lower your
quality of life, either by increased crime, or just by increased congestion,
increased noise, decreased property values, and possible demographic shifts
that marginalize your culture.

To minimize these concerns in the way you do seems non-productive and can only
lead to more polarization.

These types of initiatives stem from Agenda 21
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21)
proponents that, while advocating many admirable things, tend to completely
ignore the feelings of the populations they are intent on engineering a
radically different future for.

I am saddened that the dream we all shared of allowing small towns to once
again flourish, because knowledge workers could be located anywhere on the
planet, are being quickly forgotten in favor of ultra-dense citiscapes.

~~~
xracy
This is the definition of "vaguely racist": "increased crime... and possible
demographic shifts that marginalize your culture"

Don't want none of them other demographics moving here to increase the crime,
and marginalize the culture.

~~~
Mononokay
. . . It wasn't, though? He could easily be talking about Midwesterners moving
there, too. He never brought up race, and thinking "Increased crime rates!?
Demographic shifts by [Anything can go here, try "Neoconservatives" or
"Neoliberals" or "Social Conservatives" or "Fiscally Conservative
Liberals"]??!? HE MUST BE THINKING ABOUT [RACE]!"

I think they're not the racist one here.

~~~
xracy
They could've been, but they weren't.

I wasn't calling it "explicitly racist", I was calling it "vaguely racist"
because, while we all new what they were implying, They didn't come out and
say it. Ergo "vaguely racist".

Nobody is talking about "neoconservative demographic shifts" causing problems
in cities in this article. The demographic referred to is "poor people".

But please continue being intentionally obtuse for the purpose of calling me a
racist.

~~~
Mononokay
> They could've been, but they weren't.

> I wasn't calling it "explicitly racist", I was calling it "vaguely racist"
> because, while we all new what they were implying, They didn't come out and
> say it. Ergo "vaguely racist".

You're saying that "poor people" can't include Caucasians and Asians, then?

Midwesterners are quite notable for being both neoconservatives and poor,
along with (generally) being majority-white. He could have easily been
referring to them. What made you associate "Poor people" and "Racist"? Poor
people are a demographic.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Midwesterners are quite notable for being both neoconservatives and poor

No, they aren't, especially the former.

~~~
Mononokay
They very much are - Reagan's loved and Cheney even moreso in the Midwest.
Both of which are notable neocons. [0]

And economically, they're on average more poor than a lot of areas. See
"County Level Poverty." [1] And if you're comparing wages between the two,
Midwesterners make significantly less on average than those on the West Coast.

Although I was moreout giving an example and sticking with it for the sake of
the main argument to begin with.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism)

[1] [https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-
population/rur...](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-
population/rural-poverty-well-being/geography-of-poverty.aspx)

~~~
weerd
Thanks, those obvious points really needed references. And come on... SF is
the last place a Midwestern neocon would consider!

------
behindmyscreen
Supply that meets demand means prices come down... however, it.needs to be the
right supply for the right demand. A bunch of high end housing doesn't make
middle or low end housing cheaper.

~~~
AgentME
If people who would be buying high-end housing are forced to buy lower-end
housing because the supply is tight, then prices will be forced to go up
everywhere.

~~~
stevenwoo
That's been happening in Bay Area for last 20 years, folks buying lower-end
and demolishing and doing a rebuild. Palo Alto/Menlo Park are just more local
and visible to me, but I assume it's the same elsewhere gradually. Coming from
a softer market back around 2000 it was crazy to get outbid on a starter home
and see someone demolish it right away.

