Cities with No Children

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a very nice looking 55+ neighborhood going in nearby, and I know of at least one older neighbor who is considering moving there to get away from the neighborhood kids who are destroying her hard and crashing their bikes into her cars. Their moms do nothing to control their children. I can't blame these neighbors; wish I could move there too but I'm not old enough yet.

In NYC you cannot get away from kids and mixed population living. Older residents live next door to families and couples with no kids and students bunking together. The rich live a block away in a luxury tower close to a public housing building or MC subsidized building. Tolerance is the name of the game, you have to develop skills and patience living with people of different age groups and in different socio-economic circumstances. People who want to retire in NYC have to be ok with kids all around, drunken after college crowd, projects dwellers and many day commuters from outer boroughs and burbs, or they just walk around looking angry every single day. There are some senior housing buildings, but they aren't luxury places for sure, and once you are on the street, all the bets are off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't think anyone is saying there are no children in NYC. But the number of children is apparently declining. And it's easy to see why. It's not just UMC people flocking to the suburbs and bigger quarters/better schools but it's also poorer people being priced out too.

I am not saying that rising RE prices in NYC and DC are not a problem, they are. I mean even large apts in NYC are expensive because supply has failed to keep up with demand.

All I am saying is that to make it possible for families to live in high demand cities, we need BOTH sufficient apartment/condo supply to be relatively affordable, AND we need it to be acceptable to raise a family in an apt/condo. The latter is already the case in NYC, but the former fails. In DC we don't have quite as far to go on the former, but further to go on the latter.

Increasing the housing supply won't reduce prices. Economists have written papers about this.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2018035pap.pdf

That paper doesn't say what you say it says.

"Even if a city were able to ease some supply constraints to achieve a marginal increase in its housing stock, the city will not experience a meaningful reduction in rental burdens."

Thus, we caution against extrapolating our model’s
elasticities to very large changes to the housing stock.

How many times do we have to go over this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New York City is expensive because lots of people want to live there.

Many other people don't live there because it is expensive. They live somewhere else.

If you tried to reduce housing prices in New York City by increasing the housing supply and you actually did build enough units to affect prices, you would encourage more people to move there because now it would be within their budgets. That would push prices back up.

In that scenario, I don't know what is accomplished, unless the goal is to encourage as many people as possible to live in New York instead of somewhere else.

Population of Manhattan, 1950: 1,960,101
Population of Manhattan, 2010: 1,585,873

Population of Brooklyn, 1950: 2,738,175
Population of Brooklyn, 2010: 2,552,911

I don't know where people get the idea that cities are full and there's no more room.

[Anonymous]

The Kung paper critiqued

http://cityobservatory.org/does-increased-housing-supply-improve-affordability/


https://twitter.com/jenny_schuetz/status/1034805392415576064

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't think anyone is saying there are no children in NYC. But the number of children is apparently declining. And it's easy to see why. It's not just UMC people flocking to the suburbs and bigger quarters/better schools but it's also poorer people being priced out too.

I am not saying that rising RE prices in NYC and DC are not a problem, they are. I mean even large apts in NYC are expensive because supply has failed to keep up with demand.

All I am saying is that to make it possible for families to live in high demand cities, we need BOTH sufficient apartment/condo supply to be relatively affordable, AND we need it to be acceptable to raise a family in an apt/condo. The latter is already the case in NYC, but the former fails. In DC we don't have quite as far to go on the former, but further to go on the latter.

Increasing the housing supply won't reduce prices. Economists have written papers about this.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2018035pap.pdf

That paper doesn't say what you say it says.

"Even if a city were able to ease some supply constraints to achieve a marginal increase in its housing stock, the city will not experience a meaningful reduction in rental burdens."

Thus, we caution against extrapolating our model’s
elasticities to very large changes to the housing stock.

How many times do we have to go over this?

Oh, you mean those scenarios where cities double their housing stocks overnight? I think the economists figured they didnt need to analyze scenarios that will never happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New York City is expensive because lots of people want to live there.

Many other people don't live there because it is expensive. They live somewhere else.

If you tried to reduce housing prices in New York City by increasing the housing supply and you actually did build enough units to affect prices, you would encourage more people to move there because now it would be within their budgets. That would push prices back up.

In that scenario, I don't know what is accomplished, unless the goal is to encourage as many people as possible to live in New York instead of somewhere else.

This.

[Anonymous]

If you tried to reduce housing prices in New York City by increasing the housing supply and you actually did build enough units to affect prices, you would encourage more people to move there because now it would be within their budgets. That would push prices back up.


That assumes that if rents went down in NYC by even 1%, lots more people would move there. It assume a homogeneity of preferences for urban living that is unrealistic - in English - even if NYC were cheaper, there are lots of people who do NOT want to live there.

second if that DID happen - more people living in NYC - it would reduce green house gas emissions, because NYC is the most GHG efficient place in the USA.


Similar things apply to DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't think anyone is saying there are no children in NYC. But the number of children is apparently declining. And it's easy to see why. It's not just UMC people flocking to the suburbs and bigger quarters/better schools but it's also poorer people being priced out too.

I am not saying that rising RE prices in NYC and DC are not a problem, they are. I mean even large apts in NYC are expensive because supply has failed to keep up with demand.

All I am saying is that to make it possible for families to live in high demand cities, we need BOTH sufficient apartment/condo supply to be relatively affordable, AND we need it to be acceptable to raise a family in an apt/condo. The latter is already the case in NYC, but the former fails. In DC we don't have quite as far to go on the former, but further to go on the latter.

Increasing the housing supply won't reduce prices. Economists have written papers about this.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2018035pap.pdf

That paper doesn't say what you say it says.

"Even if a city were able to ease some supply constraints to achieve a marginal increase in its housing stock, the city will not experience a meaningful reduction in rental burdens."

Thus, we caution against extrapolating our model’s
elasticities to very large changes to the housing stock.

How many times do we have to go over this?

Oh, you mean those scenarios where cities double their housing stocks overnight? I think the economists figured they didnt need to analyze scenarios that will never happen.

They did not say doubling. But a large increment. They specifically warned against using the paper the way you are doing - if the only problem was applying it to unrealistic scenarios, I don't think they would have put that warning in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New York City is expensive because lots of people want to live there.

Many other people don't live there because it is expensive. They live somewhere else.

If you tried to reduce housing prices in New York City by increasing the housing supply and you actually did build enough units to affect prices, you would encourage more people to move there because now it would be within their budgets. That would push prices back up.

In that scenario, I don't know what is accomplished, unless the goal is to encourage as many people as possible to live in New York instead of somewhere else.

You cannot build more housing without fixing the infrastructure and adopting it to handle more population. It's already at its very max, highways are in need or repair and much expansion, too many cars/trucks. Subways are overcrowded and cannot handle all the population needing to use them, even bike lanes and sidewalks are crowded. The electric grid is stressed, and the water/steam system and sewage needs constant maintenance. Building more housing doesn't solve the problems, you have to build the supporting elements of the city to withstand the tremendous population growth, or things will crumble and fixing them would become expensive and taxes on population will grow, QOL will suffer too. Also with all the new towers going up all over NYC in the recent years prices had not gone down enough to reasonable levels. These new apartments are going for far more than older buildings offerings. Public housing is also in much need of maintenance. Since someone has to pay for this, COL isn't going to go down.

[Anonymous]

You cannot build more housing without fixing the infrastructure and adopting it to handle more population. It's already at its very max, highways are in need or repair and much expansion, too many cars/trucks. Subways are overcrowded and cannot handle all the population needing to use them, even bike lanes and sidewalks are crowded. The electric grid is stressed, and the water/steam system and sewage needs constant maintenance.

Here in DC the metro is NOT at its max, it has not recovered its ridership from ten years ago. And we can build more bus only lanes to supplement, and if we had more population we could justify building more rail lines.

Not only are bike lanes (other than 15th street) not crowded, but anti bike people complain they are under used. Most sidewalks could handle more people too.

Sewage systems have huge costs to fix out dated combined sewer outflows. More housing means more people share that cost.

In general dense cities can provide infrastructure much more cheaply than sprawling suburbs.

And we need to rely less on autos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New York City is expensive because lots of people want to live there.

Many other people don't live there because it is expensive. They live somewhere else.

If you tried to reduce housing prices in New York City by increasing the housing supply and you actually did build enough units to affect prices, you would encourage more people to move there because now it would be within their budgets. That would push prices back up.

In that scenario, I don't know what is accomplished, unless the goal is to encourage as many people as possible to live in New York instead of somewhere else.

You cannot build more housing without fixing the infrastructure and adopting it to handle more population. It's already at its very max, highways are in need or repair and much expansion, too many cars/trucks. Subways are overcrowded and cannot handle all the population needing to use them, even bike lanes and sidewalks are crowded. The electric grid is stressed, and the water/steam system and sewage needs constant maintenance. Building more housing doesn't solve the problems, you have to build the supporting elements of the city to withstand the tremendous population growth, or things will crumble and fixing them would become expensive and taxes on population will grow, QOL will suffer too. Also with all the new towers going up all over NYC in the recent years prices had not gone down enough to reasonable levels. These new apartments are going for far more than older buildings offerings. Public housing is also in much need of maintenance. Since someone has to pay for this, COL isn't going to go down.

Details! The important thing -- the thing we should be really concerned with, as a society -- is encouraging as many people as possible to live in New York City.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you tried to reduce housing prices in New York City by increasing the housing supply and you actually did build enough units to affect prices, you would encourage more people to move there because now it would be within their budgets. That would push prices back up.


That assumes that if rents went down in NYC by even 1%, lots more people would move there. It assume a homogeneity of preferences for urban living that is unrealistic - in English - even if NYC were cheaper, there are lots of people who do NOT want to live there.

second if that DID happen - more people living in NYC - it would reduce green house gas emissions, because NYC is the most GHG efficient place in the USA.


Similar things apply to DC.

Developers build what's profitable for them, which is luxury condos, not affordable housing. This helps nobody. Would you move from a 3K a month rowhouse rental or an older building 2 bedr apartment to a 3K a month one bedroom luxury apartment in the same area?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you tried to reduce housing prices in New York City by increasing the housing supply and you actually did build enough units to affect prices, you would encourage more people to move there because now it would be within their budgets. That would push prices back up.


That assumes that if rents went down in NYC by even 1%, lots more people would move there. It assume a homogeneity of preferences for urban living that is unrealistic - in English - even if NYC were cheaper, there are lots of people who do NOT want to live there.

second if that DID happen - more people living in NYC - it would reduce green house gas emissions, because NYC is the most GHG efficient place in the USA.


Similar things apply to DC.

Developers build what's profitable for them, which is luxury condos, not affordable housing. This helps nobody. Would you move from a 3K a month rowhouse rental or an older building 2 bedr apartment to a 3K a month one bedroom luxury apartment in the same area?

Ding Ding! In DC, when people talk about adding to the housing stock, they're really just talking about building more luxury condos. They never EVER actually build affordable housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New York City is expensive because lots of people want to live there.

Many other people don't live there because it is expensive. They live somewhere else.

If you tried to reduce housing prices in New York City by increasing the housing supply and you actually did build enough units to affect prices, you would encourage more people to move there because now it would be within their budgets. That would push prices back up.

In that scenario, I don't know what is accomplished, unless the goal is to encourage as many people as possible to live in New York instead of somewhere else.

You cannot build more housing without fixing the infrastructure and adopting it to handle more population. It's already at its very max, highways are in need or repair and much expansion, too many cars/trucks. Subways are overcrowded and cannot handle all the population needing to use them, even bike lanes and sidewalks are crowded. The electric grid is stressed, and the water/steam system and sewage needs constant maintenance. Building more housing doesn't solve the problems, you have to build the supporting elements of the city to withstand the tremendous population growth, or things will crumble and fixing them would become expensive and taxes on population will grow, QOL will suffer too. Also with all the new towers going up all over NYC in the recent years prices had not gone down enough to reasonable levels. These new apartments are going for far more than older buildings offerings. Public housing is also in much need of maintenance. Since someone has to pay for this, COL isn't going to go down.

Details! The important thing -- the thing we should be really concerned with, as a society -- is encouraging as many people as possible to live in New York City.

The recent blackouts during heat wave and floods in subways and closures apparently escaped your attention if you are even remotely serious. I take it as sarcasm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New York City is expensive because lots of people want to live there.

Many other people don't live there because it is expensive. They live somewhere else.

If you tried to reduce housing prices in New York City by increasing the housing supply and you actually did build enough units to affect prices, you would encourage more people to move there because now it would be within their budgets. That would push prices back up.

In that scenario, I don't know what is accomplished, unless the goal is to encourage as many people as possible to live in New York instead of somewhere else.

You cannot build more housing without fixing the infrastructure and adopting it to handle more population. It's already at its very max, highways are in need or repair and much expansion, too many cars/trucks. Subways are overcrowded and cannot handle all the population needing to use them, even bike lanes and sidewalks are crowded. The electric grid is stressed, and the water/steam system and sewage needs constant maintenance. Building more housing doesn't solve the problems, you have to build the supporting elements of the city to withstand the tremendous population growth, or things will crumble and fixing them would become expensive and taxes on population will grow, QOL will suffer too. Also with all the new towers going up all over NYC in the recent years prices had not gone down enough to reasonable levels. These new apartments are going for far more than older buildings offerings. Public housing is also in much need of maintenance. Since someone has to pay for this, COL isn't going to go down.

Details! The important thing -- the thing we should be really concerned with, as a society -- is encouraging as many people as possible to live in New York City.

The recent blackouts during heat wave and floods in subways and closures apparently escaped your attention if you are even remotely serious. I take it as sarcasm

Sarcasm indeed. I don't understand this mantra about increasing the housing stock in order to cut housing prices. I don't think it would ever work and it would have all sorts of unintended consequences, as you point out. I also don't understand why we'd want policies to encourage people to live in NYC (or Washington, for that matter). Why do I care if someone chooses to live in NYC or DC instead of Boston or Miami?