“Tokyo is one of the few cities in which supply has kept up with demand, keeping a crisis from developing. But that is due largely to deregulated housing policies that other countries would have a hard time reproducing.”
This “crisis” is completely artificial and the solution is obvious: take off the zoning straight jacket and make it legal to build higher density housing.
Property owners should have zero authority over anything outside of their property lines. Giving Joe Blow the ability to shout down and bikeshed new developments is idiotic.
You are not wrong. The future is extreme high density living. We are trying to put 7 billion people in cities. People have to give up their suburbia dreams.
I think the primary problem here is the rural-urban migration; people the world over are moving from villages and small towns to large cities for work and other opportunities. This is a truly global phenomenon with the share of people living in cities rising from 55% in 2018 to a projected 68% in 2050. [0]
Housing and transportation policies are secondary in that they have failed to adequately address this first problem.
The solution is entirely new cities built to meet the demands of the twenty-first century.
That friction presents an interesting set of problems.
One aspect of the current housing crisis, at least as it exists here in California, is that young people increasingly rent instead of owning.
A generation ago home ownership would be a form of lock-in for “legacy” cities. High rents and low home ownership suggest that this lock-in is less of a factor.
we have an abundance of production efficiency that’s kept prices from rising. But what to do with that extra money? It’s like a gas, and it has gone to housing. If food, education, healthcare, etc we’re free we would be laying 90% of our income on housing. This will continue until we have an Elon Musk who can solve housing.
There's no crisis. Where does it say here ought to be an oversupply of real estate at lower prices?
The article makes invalid assumptions and then describes a non-existing problem.
Maybe not everyone ought to move to big cities. Maybe housing prices would be more affordable if urban planning wasn't done by governments. Maybe housing prices wouldn't be bloated if central banks weren't trying to engineer asset inflation and asset bubbles for the past 10 years.
The least likely explanation is that markets don't work so we need a policy response, but the failed article doesn't even consider that possibility. Total fail.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 44.9 ms ] threadDoes the article mention Henry George or land tax?
This “crisis” is completely artificial and the solution is obvious: take off the zoning straight jacket and make it legal to build higher density housing.
Property owners should have zero authority over anything outside of their property lines. Giving Joe Blow the ability to shout down and bikeshed new developments is idiotic.
Too stressful living in constant noise.
Housing and transportation policies are secondary in that they have failed to adequately address this first problem.
The solution is entirely new cities built to meet the demands of the twenty-first century.
[0] https://population.un.org/wup/Publications/Files/WUP2018-Key...
One aspect of the current housing crisis, at least as it exists here in California, is that young people increasingly rent instead of owning.
A generation ago home ownership would be a form of lock-in for “legacy” cities. High rents and low home ownership suggest that this lock-in is less of a factor.
The article makes invalid assumptions and then describes a non-existing problem.
Maybe not everyone ought to move to big cities. Maybe housing prices would be more affordable if urban planning wasn't done by governments. Maybe housing prices wouldn't be bloated if central banks weren't trying to engineer asset inflation and asset bubbles for the past 10 years.
The least likely explanation is that markets don't work so we need a policy response, but the failed article doesn't even consider that possibility. Total fail.