I'm actually willing to be more charitable than that. For many homeowners, less restricted zoning and construction would actually increase the value of the land by more than it would decrease the value of the dwelling (imagine converting a few single family homes into a multi-story apartment building, that's a _much_ more valuable use of the land). So, at least in some cases, it isn't entirely about their own personal enrichment. Lots of people do have honest desires to not see the "character" of the neighborhood change.
Now, I personally think that A) a static neighborhood is a slowly dying neighborhood and B) when almost every neighborhood acts this way the cumulative negative effects on society quickly become profound, but I can at least understand why, and can see the impulse as not an entirely selfish one. It's just naive and short sighted.
> For many homeowners, less restricted zoning and construction would actually increase the value of the land by more than it would decrease the value of the dwelling (imagine converting a few single family homes into a multi-story apartment building, that's a _much_ more valuable use of the land).
But a huge chunk of them don't think that way and they want to maintain the "character of the neighborhood." I've seen this first hand multiple times. My own grandparents once tried to argue with me against any sort of expansion because it would mean some people would be effected and have to change their lifestyle or pay for changes as a result of, for example, expanding city sewer services.
I believe that the fight is more by developers than residents. It's a zoning outcome, after all, and most people, I suspect, don't keep on top of that being too busy with the lives
Maybe you are right. I live in the bay area and people here who lucked out buying a house in a normal time at a normal value have nothing to do but show up at all sorts of public hearings, meetings, etc. and shout down any kind of new development
As long as population continues to increase, if you want the same living conditions as your parents on similar economic terms supply will need to increase.
This just isn't true. Rents decreased in Texas after an increase in supply. Increasing supply will decrease prices. Freeways typically don't cost money so that doesn't apply.
Houses largely don't get built without being presold. Presales are not going to happen without a significant interest rate drop. Interest rates aren't going to drop. This isn't the multifamily market under discussion. Rent prices have significantly more wiggle room under market forces than does new single family construction, the latter which needs to be profitable upon sale instead of over 30 years.
If Apple would add native Vulkan support to macOS, it would most likely also go through a Metal "emulation layer" (just like their GL implementation, or the D3D12 implementation in the Game Porting Toolkit).
Rent control just rewards people who are lucky enough to get locked in lower rates. The best way to make rent affordable is to increase supply, then the price will fall.
It's good politics and bad economics. It literally is wealth redistribution towards renters who are eligible to vote in a given election and will likely vote again in future elections, at the expense of those who have yet to move into the area and transients.
I still hear notions that rent control works and that capitalists just don't want you to know one weird trick! Or that absolute rent control doesn't work, but limiting how much rent can increase year over year does (no). Models where rents are allowed to be raised when tenants move out also have the unfortunate effect of strongly impairing peoples ability to freely move to a new home in a more suitable location for them as their personal and professional life changes, not just impairing new development. Not to mention the renoviction phenomenon, and landlords making their tenants life hell to force them to move.
I think the only argument you could make for rent control is as a protective against monopolisation/price fixing/cartel behaviour amongst landlords who would love to jack prices up above market value using price fixing software like realpage which are a new phenomenon. But it seems like a rather blunt instrument to accomplish that.
In this case it does, by effectively removing a portion of the money which can be extracted from tenants from the land market, which can then be redistributed towards other ends. Or you could lower taxes elsewhere. It also minimises impact on development by not taxing improvements on land and directly incentivising densification.
It's an extremely bad tax if you are a land speculator, but the point of the tax is land speculators are the penultimate example of those who become rich for being rich without actually adding value to the system.
Just like with roads, more lanes means more cars. More flats can also mean more people moving to the cities.
I don't think anyone would look at Tokyo and be like, yeah more apartments is the solution. It's been what they have been doing forever, and the population and cost of the apartments just keep going up.
Tokyo actually builds a lot of new housing which accounts for why housing is affordable there. People think Tokyo is an expensive city -- and relatively speaking it is -- but it's a lot cheaper than the small US city I'm living in now.
Tokyo is a surprisingly affordable megacity because of housing availability.
My understanding that one thing that is unique in Japan is that housing is not an investment vehicle for preserving wealth. Housing is a consumable -- not an investment, and old houses actually lose value (most prefer buying new). Part of it is due to the fact that it's earthquake prone, so houses are ephemeral anyway.
Ever wondered why the population of Tokyo keeps going up? Hint: it's because of the apartments
> In the past half century, by investing in transit and allowing development, the city has added more housing units than the total number of units in New York City. It has remained affordable by becoming the world’s largest city. It has become the world’s largest city by remaining affordable.
> Those who want to live in Tokyo generally can afford to do so. There is little homelessness here. The city remains economically diverse, preserving broad access to urban amenities and opportunities. And because rent consumes a smaller share of income, people have more money for other things — or they can get by on smaller salaries — which helps to preserve the city’s vibrant fabric of small restaurants, businesses and craft workshops.
There’s a limit to how much price can fall when buildings and land are investments. A house which appreciates underneath tenants will get sold, the new owner will have a higher mortgage payment, and rent will necessarily be higher.
Housing isn't bitcoin, it's possible to make more of it. And that's the point: Rent control often ends up disincentivizes construction, making it worse for tenants in the long run.
rent is an economic version of serfdom. The martial winners and their tax collecting partners run the entire market. Practically zero long term successful people in society are renters, perhaps their children at a young age or other temporary versions.
In the modern post-2007 world, capital in massive amounts is travelling to every corner of the West, and also capital from other systems into the West, to own, not rent. The reason to own is to capture the value increase in the market - renters get none of that.
Established theories about economic adjustment of rent prices are like tales of why the dogs nose is cold, or why it rains after a certain holiday. Many modern accepted economic theories are repeatedly disproved. Economic theory is half marketing and alcohol IMO. wave from the Coastal West USA
see also "Supply and Demand are a capitalist hoax"
is this literally true? no.. but neither are the Milton Friedman Chicago Economics theories, so who is "correct" ? see "manufacturing consent" .. "manufacturing desire" .. post-industrial supply chain economics .. history of the savings and loan institutions in America .. more ..
I live in a country that was run by the communists until ~30 years ago, and we built A LOT of housing... until 30 years ago.
They would find an underdeveloped area, build a factory there, build apartment buildings and the city would grow. In existing cities, if there was a need for more apartments, new apartment building blocks were build, and then more, then a school, kindergarden, cultural center, and everything else, and then more apartment buildings.
What if you wanted a private house? You could build it yourself... sometimes literally. Papers were either simplified or you could "forget" about them for a bit, start building and "legalize" stuff after, you could get your buddies to come and help you and you could build stuff on your own, every weekend for 2, 3, 5 years, to get a house to move in to, so you could save on (already cheap government) rent, to finish the second flood, and maybe even put some insulation on.
Clearly, we didn't have a housing problem.
Then the 90s came, no more yugoslavia, the new government didn't want to deal with the upkeep of thousands of buildings and sold the apartments off to current renters for really really cheap (now, compared to a cost of a new car).
Then we got some closing down of factories due to end of communism and a mix of people living in factory cities protesting against those remaining factories (pollution, noise, traffic, ....) and even more ofthose factories closing down.. So people have to drive (mostly) to the capital city to work, because they don't want anything new built in their small towns.
Then we got more and more regulation on building houses, so no way to do anything by yourself anymore, no ore friends helping you, etc. Also, papers first, and just the communal taxes cost approximately the same as bricks and cement do, probably a roof too.
Then more land regulation.. natura 2000, farming land must stay farming, no building here, no there... and we literally have cornfields and cows within our ringroad, next to highways and older 10+ story apartment buildings.
At the same time, more and more people want to move from smaller cities to the capital.
Then we started gentrification in the city center... make it look nice for the tourists, close down the streets for cars (supposedly for more space for pedestrians), rent out that space to restaurants to put tables on (so even less space for pedestrians than before, with cars there), loud music, no car access, and "normal" people move out, since noone wants to live above a hoarde of drunk tourists drinking every night, especially if you have a small kid or something.
Then airbnb happened, and new apartment buildings have people buy multiple apartments at once just for airbnb.
So yeah, we're fucked. Sooner or later someone is going to get his retirement calculated (before you retire you get a calculation), look at the number there, look at the rent, and hopefully, instead of just committing suicide (like a lot of our people already do), take some policians with him.
TLDR: government used to build stuff and let people build stuff, now no building by the government, no building by the people, concentration in (mostly one) large city, and airbnb
That's a great summary of what's happening. I'd probably add in the financialization of real estate and having effective oligopolies in some countries and cities.
It really is that simple. If you want people to have decent, affordable housing, then you build (or simply allow the building of) enough housing, and make sure people own it, not sketchy LLCs owned by investment funds. The NIMBY component isn't that bad in south & east europe yet, but it's building up speed. There's millions of people who just want to live in decent flats with enough space close to the city centre and their jobs, and then there's all these people who don't want anything else built. That's how you end up like LA or London.
The story in Sweden was similar. During the era where Sweden was more heavy into social democracy and the government doing things itself, they had the "million program" where they built a million homes in 10 years (this was when the population was like 7 million). But since the 90's the name of the game has been market economy and privatization and the government doesn't get involved as much (aside from the underfunded local government housing companies). And now those million homes are poorly maintained and decrepit and need to be replaced and nobody is picking up the tab.
Generational real estate and land ownership in general is also first dibs. If you didn’t acquire the asset early on and at the right price, too bad so sad. This is somewhat universal anywhere with land ownership legal frameworks.
If the people want rent control, they’ll get rent control and capital and newcomers will have to deal with it.
“Better” and “worse” are subjective. Affordable housing vs “fair” free market housing selection will be governed by individual belief systems. It’s possible local citizens don’t want what some consider “better.” Up to the people who live there to vote for what they want.
Sweden seems to want rent control, so rent control it is and the discussion is academic (still interesting, but highly unlikely to lead to a delta in current outcome trajectory).
Ya, most rent control just rewards those that are there when it happens, if it applies to new renters, supply eventually seizes up.
I’m not sure what model parent thinks will work. Maybe rent control light where price increases are limited but the limit is highish? I can see that working out, limiting increases to 1.5-2X inflation might keep the market fluid and provide some stability to renters without locking new tenants out.
The secret is for the government to make up for the decrease in private supply. Vienna showed how it's done - see this article for example: https://citymonitor.ai/environment/housing/red-vienna-how-au... There's a reason it's been #1 most livable city in the world on several rankings for years in a row now.
You need to have some residency control for that to work. Otherwise, everyone would just flock to the most popular cities for their discounted apartment. This also works in Singapore, but only for qualified residents.
Yes! Buying your own home is the ultimate form of rent control, even though property taxes increase over time (and its even worse in CA with prop 13). Very unfair.
If we wanted to make the market fair, we would disallow home owners all together. This effectively happens for most people in some places in Europe. Also, I heard of some places in Europe where if you own your own home, you have to pay some extra tax vs. what you would have paid in rent. I think Switzerland? They also had some form of rent price control, although this just made it really hard to rent an apartment even if you were willing to pay more. These are fairly complex systems that all give advantages to existing residents (so moving to Europe for two years to do a post doc is much harder than it would be if you did that in the USA).
Criminal penalties for the landlords and at least triple refunds issued to affected tenants. Also build so many new apartments that the prices fall since landlords are forced to compete to find tenants.
A landline phone obviously wouldn't have such capabilities. As far as smartphones, I doubt Apple / Google would build classifiers into their default phone applications for obvious privacy reasons.
