alt Hacker NewsIt's frustrating that the problem is acknowledged (Housing prices are too high) but the solution seems to evade the author and nearly everyone involved in setting housing policy; not because of a lack of rent control.
Housing is too expensive because it's illegal to build enough of it.
No, multi-generation households will not save us. We should not make it impossible for young people to move to cities where high-paying jobs are, or force anyone to stay in abusive homes because we have made it impossible to live on your own.
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The fundamental problem is that building quality housing is a society-level project - you don't just need to build a house/apt but supporting infrastructure, such as water, power, waste, public transport, supermarkets, and figure out how to connect it to the city's infrastructure.
There used to be political will to do this. Nowadays what I see around me, is that developers keep plopping down housing projects either in the middle of nowhere or in some highly undesirable area (like next to the train tracks, or some old industrial development) and sell the resulting apartments at crazy pricess. Zero infrastructure of course.
> Housing is too expensive because it's illegal to build enough of it.
A lot of us are in the US, where (except for SF and handful of specific cities) housing is legal to build practically everywhere, municipalities are handing out free money for any form of development, so people do build tons of new housing all over...
...and the prices still rise anyway.
80% of the buildings within a 1 mile radius of me did not exist at all 20 years ago. There's almost 5,000 new units around. Half of the new apartment buildings are only at like 70% utilization. We barely hit 1% population growth year-over-year.
Prices are at 40 year record high prices anyway (yes, even after factoring for inflation).
> Housing is too expensive because it's illegal to build enough of it.
A lot is being built. The problem is ruthless cost extraction, parasitic chain of agents and agencies, and oftentimes real estate is the only investment vehicle free of capital gains tax. Have you seen what is being built everywhere from Australia, through Europe, to America? 20-30 sqmt apartments where you walk in straight to the kitchen and sleep next to the oven and dishwasher, if the place is even large enough to fit the full kitchen.
> Housing is too expensive because it's illegal to build enough of it.
This is part of the problem, and one that many people actively want to avoid discussing so it is important to discuss it, but it is only part of the problem.
I think for real reform in this area you need to have the government strictly regulate rental properties.
That includes determining the rental price, and imposing fines for empty units.
Every time there is a stimulus check or an increase in minimum wage the detractors say "this will just be captured by the landlords".
We need to have clear stipulations for rental prices and ideally link it to another value that also changes over time.
I would argue a 1 bedroom apartment should have its rent capped at less than 40% of the monthly take home of someone on minimum wage.
Let the landlords and employers battle over who gets the bigger slice of that pie, while allowing the workers to survive their petty skirmish.
Here is Adam Smith talking about a minimum wage:
> A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more, otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation. Mr Cantillon seems, upon this account, to suppose that the lowest species of common labourers must everywhere earn at least double their own maintenance, in order that, one with another, they may be enabled to bring up two children; the labour of the wife, on account of her necessary attendance on the children, being supposed no more than sufficient to provide for herself: But one half the children born, it is computed, die before the age of manhood. The poorest labourers, therefore, according to this account, must, one with another, attempt to rear at least four children, in order that two may have an equal chance of living to that age. But the necessary maintenance of four children, it is supposed, may be nearly equal to that of one man. The labour of an able-bodied slave, the same author adds, is computed to be worth double his maintenance; and that of the meanest labourer, he thinks, cannot be worth less than that of an able-bodied slave. Thus far at least seems certain, that, in order to bring up a family, the labour of the husband and wife together must, even in the lowest species of common labour, be able to earn something more than what is precisely necessary for their own maintenance; but in what proportion, whether in that above-mentioned, or any other, I shall not take upon me to determine.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm#chap1...
In what US city can someone on minimum wage raise two children? On the US federal minimum wage?!
> Housing is too expensive because it's illegal to build enough of it.
This is a factor in some places, but a gross over-simplification in others.
There are neighborhoods full of affordable new construction houses not far from where I live. They sell slowly because people would rather live in the popular areas.
There are affordable high density housing options for rent here. They stay on the market because everyone wants their own house.
It's not even about remote work here, as the popular location for office builds and jobs is actually closer to those affordable housing neighborhoods few people want to live in. Being near the office buildings is actually a reason why they're undesirable.
There are some obvious broken housing situations like San Francisco, but I don't see permitting reform as a magic cure-all in every city.