Cities with No Children

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

1. DC is not a sprawling suburb, it's a medium size low rise -mid rise city. It's relatively dense already, not a village. Population of DC metro is over 6 mil, nothing to sneeze at, the fact that we can absorb this population while also providing more space and privacy is not a bad thing.
2. To increase ridership you need to make PT AFFORDABLE, increase train frequency and number of stations. This isn't happening in DC, metro is only convenient to those who live nearby, which isn't a lot of people due to small number of stations and routes and not very frequent trains. Metro costs are also distance dependent punishing people who live far away, vs. NYC where the fare is flat and monthly pass is affordable even for the poor allowing the to live further out in affordable parts and still living life without car ownership headaches. To make people use PT more than cars following has to happen:
- PT has to be affordable, frequent, with many locations
- cost of car ownership has to be exponentially more expensive than travelling by PT and much less convenient (insane traffic vs. rail at most hours of the day, non existent and expensive parking)
- Basics have to be available to people within short walking distance, this doesn't exist in DC unless you live in its few very urban neighborhoods where you can do all your errands on foot.
3. Residential housing has to be relatively a lot more expensive vs. high rise living, this isn't happening in lower density cities were new highrise construction is highly priced luxury condos for the most part, which is most of the cities in the US where rowhome/SFH living isn't too far away and isn't as unaffordable. People would always prefer more privacy and convenience vs. being crammed. The only way you can compensate them for wanting to be crammed is by making other options unavailable due to cost and/or distance.


On a side note, to not glorify the joys of mass transit, many people choose private vehicles like scooters and bikes over overcrowded and often delayed subways and buses these days and car sharing is pretty popular too, which increases number of taxis/uber on the street. Transit not only has to be more affordable, available and frequent, but has to be humane and reasonably clean and comfortable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Boston has issues with limited supply and high prices as well. But given the jobs in NYC and DC, people are not going to move to Miami instead. In the case of DC they will move further out in the DC area - more sprawl, more stress on infra including roads, more auto reliance, more green house gases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

1. DC is not a sprawling suburb, it's a medium size low rise -mid rise city. It's relatively dense already, not a village. Population of DC metro is over 6 mil, nothing to sneeze at, the fact that we can absorb this population while also providing more space and privacy is not a bad thing.
2. To increase ridership you need to make PT AFFORDABLE, increase train frequency and number of stations. This isn't happening in DC, metro is only convenient to those who live nearby, which isn't a lot of people due to small number of stations and routes and not very frequent trains. Metro costs are also distance dependent punishing people who live far away, vs. NYC where the fare is flat and monthly pass is affordable even for the poor allowing the to live further out in affordable parts and still living life without car ownership headaches. To make people use PT more than cars following has to happen:
- PT has to be affordable, frequent, with many locations
- cost of car ownership has to be exponentially more expensive than travelling by PT and much less convenient (insane traffic vs. rail at most hours of the day, non existent and expensive parking)
- Basics have to be available to people within short walking distance, this doesn't exist in DC unless you live in its few very urban neighborhoods where you can do all your errands on foot.
3. Residential housing has to be relatively a lot more expensive vs. high rise living, this isn't happening in lower density cities were new highrise construction is highly priced luxury condos for the most part, which is most of the cities in the US where rowhome/SFH living isn't too far away and isn't as unaffordable. People would always prefer more privacy and convenience vs. being crammed. The only way you can compensate them for wanting to be crammed is by making other options unavailable due to cost and/or distance.


On a side note, to not glorify the joys of mass transit, many people choose private vehicles like scooters and bikes over overcrowded and often delayed subways and buses these days and car sharing is pretty popular too, which increases number of taxis/uber on the street. Transit not only has to be more affordable, available and frequent, but has to be humane and reasonably clean and comfortable.

A huge part of the DC metro area IS sprawling suburbs. That is where population will go if we don't densify in DC and in transit oriented areas inside the beltway.

We could allow more people to live near transit if we allowed denser development near it.

People can use transit even if not all their trips are by transit. Lots of people own cars but make many transit trips.

And rail is not the only transit. Plenty of people ride buses and more would if we made them more convenient, including by dedicated lanes.

scooters and bikes work best where commutes are not too long. They require the same kind of dense urban form that public transit does.

[Anonymous]

Residential housing has to be relatively a lot more expensive vs. high rise living, this isn't happening in lower density cities were new highrise construction is highly priced luxury condos for the most part, which is most of the cities in the US where rowhome/SFH living isn't too far away and isn't as unaffordable.


1. Not all new multifamily housing has to be high rise - in Minneapolis they are allowing more low rise multiplexes, MoCo finally legalized ADUs.

2. We are talking about greater DC, not most US cities. At least I am.

[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?

1. They build with as much "luxury" as they do because we limit supply so much. If auto producers faced a legal limit on total cars produced they would only produce luxury cars. Increase supply, increase competition, there will be fewer luxury touches added

2. Even so, new housing is costly to build. Markets in the US produce affordable housing when we allow housing to age. There are plenty of old apts in the DC area that are too expensive, because housing is scarce. Build more supply, get more people from those older buildings into the new ones, and the landlords of the older ones will need to cut rents to fill them

3. DC and some suburbs have actual inclusionary zoning requirements - to build more high end units, they have to build income limited units as well.

4. The same NIMBYs who oppose market rate units, generally also oppose new committed Affordable Housing - you won't get more low income housing by preventing new supply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Boston has issues with limited supply and high prices as well. But given the jobs in NYC and DC, people are not going to move to Miami instead. In the case of DC they will move further out in the DC area - more sprawl, more stress on infra including roads, more auto reliance, more green house gases.

Before people move further out, there is this thing going on, called Gentrification. There are enough lower priced neighborhoods in city proper and closer in residential/burb places that are tempting for those not needing best schools or too worried about safety. Majority of DC was unlivable for many people just 20 years ago. Not so today. Some areas in MD and VA were mostly for lower socio-economic groups and recent immigrants, not so today. The point is, DC, as majority of other US cities has space.

[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.

In terms of Green House gases, that is probably true. Plus of course, its good to let people live where they want (I know thats radical)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Boston has issues with limited supply and high prices as well. But given the jobs in NYC and DC, people are not going to move to Miami instead. In the case of DC they will move further out in the DC area - more sprawl, more stress on infra including roads, more auto reliance, more green house gases.

Before people move further out, there is this thing going on, called Gentrification. There are enough lower priced neighborhoods in city proper and closer in residential/burb places that are tempting for those not needing best schools or too worried about safety. Majority of DC was unlivable for many people just 20 years ago. Not so today. Some areas in MD and VA were mostly for lower socio-economic groups and recent immigrants, not so today. The point is, DC, as majority of other US cities has space.

1 where do the people who are displaced go? Do they disappear into the ether? As far as I can tell they move further out, into sprawl. (of course if you think DC was unliveable at a time when 570,000 people lived in DC, I guess maybe those people do not count to you)

2. Do we want a DC with no more poor people, with fewer AA's?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Boston has issues with limited supply and high prices as well. But given the jobs in NYC and DC, people are not going to move to Miami instead. In the case of DC they will move further out in the DC area - more sprawl, more stress on infra including roads, more auto reliance, more green house gases.

Before people move further out, there is this thing going on, called Gentrification. There are enough lower priced neighborhoods in city proper and closer in residential/burb places that are tempting for those not needing best schools or too worried about safety. Majority of DC was unlivable for many people just 20 years ago. Not so today. Some areas in MD and VA were mostly for lower socio-economic groups and recent immigrants, not so today. The point is, DC, as majority of other US cities has space.

+1.

There's actually a lot of affordable housing in Washington. It's just not where people want to be -- they want affordable housing that's surrounded by coffee shops and cool bars and has great schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

1. They build with as much "luxury" as they do because we limit supply so much. If auto producers faced a legal limit on total cars produced they would only produce luxury cars. Increase supply, increase competition, there will be fewer luxury touches added

2. Even so, new housing is costly to build. Markets in the US produce affordable housing when we allow housing to age. There are plenty of old apts in the DC area that are too expensive, because housing is scarce. Build more supply, get more people from those older buildings into the new ones, and the landlords of the older ones will need to cut rents to fill them

3. DC and some suburbs have actual inclusionary zoning requirements - to build more high end units, they have to build income limited units as well.

4. The same NIMBYs who oppose market rate units, generally also oppose new committed Affordable Housing - you won't get more low income housing by preventing new supply.

Every large metro area has sprawling suburbs, do you think NYC doesn't have them? They go on and on and people commute, and population of NYC metro isn't car free! Many people in residential boroughs own cars, only poor do not. Everyone who can afford one, has one, even families in Manhattan. Cars aren't going away, they provide comforts and convenience, not just the only plausible transit option, NYC is struggling to no avail in reducing number of personal vehicles on the roads despite all the PITA associated with car ownership and the heavily used functioning PT.

Can you make mass transit comfortable and as convenient as a personal vehicle for people who don't live in parts with 90+walkscore and have places to go not accessible by PT on weekends?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Boston has issues with limited supply and high prices as well. But given the jobs in NYC and DC, people are not going to move to Miami instead. In the case of DC they will move further out in the DC area - more sprawl, more stress on infra including roads, more auto reliance, more green house gases.

Before people move further out, there is this thing going on, called Gentrification. There are enough lower priced neighborhoods in city proper and closer in residential/burb places that are tempting for those not needing best schools or too worried about safety. Majority of DC was unlivable for many people just 20 years ago. Not so today. Some areas in MD and VA were mostly for lower socio-economic groups and recent immigrants, not so today. The point is, DC, as majority of other US cities has space.

+1.

There's actually a lot of affordable housing in Washington. It's just not where people want to be -- they want affordable housing that's surrounded by coffee shops and cool bars and has great schools.

And that's not where affordable housing in NYC is located either. Yuppie amenities are always associated with yuppie pricing in every city USA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Boston has issues with limited supply and high prices as well. But given the jobs in NYC and DC, people are not going to move to Miami instead. In the case of DC they will move further out in the DC area - more sprawl, more stress on infra including roads, more auto reliance, more green house gases.

Before people move further out, there is this thing going on, called Gentrification. There are enough lower priced neighborhoods in city proper and closer in residential/burb places that are tempting for those not needing best schools or too worried about safety. Majority of DC was unlivable for many people just 20 years ago. Not so today. Some areas in MD and VA were mostly for lower socio-economic groups and recent immigrants, not so today. The point is, DC, as majority of other US cities has space.

+1.

There's actually a lot of affordable housing in Washington. It's just not where people want to be -- they want affordable housing that's surrounded by coffee shops and cool bars and has great schools.

People don't want just any affordable housing. They want affordable housing in highly desirable locations. The problem is that's an oxymoron. Places are expensive because they are highly desirable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

+1.

There's actually a lot of affordable housing in Washington. It's just not where people want to be -- they want affordable housing that's surrounded by coffee shops and cool bars and has great schools.

If there's so much affordable housing, how come such a large proportion of people are spending such a large proportion of their income on housing costs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Boston has issues with limited supply and high prices as well. But given the jobs in NYC and DC, people are not going to move to Miami instead. In the case of DC they will move further out in the DC area - more sprawl, more stress on infra including roads, more auto reliance, more green house gases.

Before people move further out, there is this thing going on, called Gentrification. There are enough lower priced neighborhoods in city proper and closer in residential/burb places that are tempting for those not needing best schools or too worried about safety. Majority of DC was unlivable for many people just 20 years ago. Not so today. Some areas in MD and VA were mostly for lower socio-economic groups and recent immigrants, not so today. The point is, DC, as majority of other US cities has space.

1 where do the people who are displaced go? Do they disappear into the ether? As far as I can tell they move further out, into sprawl. (of course if you think DC was unliveable at a time when 570,000 people lived in DC, I guess maybe those people do not count to you)

2. Do we want a DC with no more poor people, with fewer AA's?

They don't disappear, many blend in, I don't see any of these areas becoming predominantly one type of demographic, they are usually mixed. Being a mixed neighborhood is a better thing IMO, than being predominantly AA or predominantly white, or predominantly Hispanic, don't you think? Many residents would move out. It becomes harder for some to resist temptation to sell their now more expensive home and cash out and move somewhere even cheaper or it becomes harder for some to continue living a lifestyle that's not compatible with new residents. Those who are not wanting to cash out and who adopt to newcomer's lifestyle habits stay and thrive an take advantage of improving schools and amenities and increased affluence. The problem is with lower income renters that are not protected, but many are protected and only get pushed out when failing to comply or causing problems for new residents. I am not sure why you feel like safeguarding some areas poverty and blight is the answer to accommodating poorer demographics, it's not helping them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+1.

There's actually a lot of affordable housing in Washington. It's just not where people want to be -- they want affordable housing that's surrounded by coffee shops and cool bars and has great schools.

If there's so much affordable housing, how come such a large proportion of people are spending such a large proportion of their income on housing costs?

Move to Anacostia. Your housing costs will plummet.