Why do “YIMBY” urban planners, bloggers & activists constantly cite what they believe are

[Anonymous]

In this thread: Lying shills spreading falsehoods about housing costs as if they're a perfect econ 101 equilibrium adhering to "market principals," when it's actually a literal monopoly controlled by a handful of criminal foreign and domestic RE funds and filthy rich speculators and developers who will always charge whatever they please. They will always squeeze every drop out of the prole class. Especially with non-stop flow of immigrants, prices will never come down in hot metros. Ever.

[Anonymous]

If you don't build enough to house people in the urban areas, then we need to continue to develop the rural areas with corresponding long commute times. Why is this so hard to understand?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:“disadvantages” of living in the suburbs? When in reality, they’re precisely the reasons that people CHOOSE to live in the suburbs? I for one, LIKE that my neighborhood has streets you can’t drive through, lacks sidewalks, lacks public transit, has big yards and is mostly houses with few commercial establishments. I don’t want to be able to walk to a bar or 7-eleven, and I don’t want anyone walking from those places to walk through my neighborhood.

Because they feel that the preference for the suburbs is objectively wrong, and vociferously making the case will make them feel justified in their increasingly aggressive efforts to impose their own preferences on people.

Objectively, low density, car-dependent, residential-only, cul-de-sac neighborhoods are a disaster for the environment, local government budgets, and societal well-being.

However, if that's what you prefer, that's not objectively wrong. How can a preference be objectively anything? Your feelings are your feelings.

Just because you say the word “objectively” does not make it true.

Here is a study that demonstrates that downtown Helsinki residents have more carbon intensive lifestyles than their suburban counterparts.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/6/3/034034/pdf

Consumption based emissions are very real and it turns out significantly more important than transportation emissions for household GHG emissions.

That study is from 2011.

I think things have changed a little since then, no?

What specifically that would make the findings untrue?

We know a lot more about building performance, and particularly the comparison of urban versus suburban where carbon and energy consumption are concerned; bottom line, urban dwellers use less energy, emit less carbon and generally are better for the environment as compared to suburban and exurban dwellers.

That doesn’t answer the question. It is just conjecture. Do you have a study or specific proof that the findings of the study no longer hold? If you do, you should probably email the authors and the journal to let them know. Until you do that, you are talking out of your *ss.

https://climateadaptationplatform.com/who-has-the-bigger-carbon-footprint-rural-or-urban-dwellers/

https://theconversation.com/suburban-living-the-worst-for-carbon-emissions-new-research-149332

and if you are really sciency: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11184-y/

Or to drive the point: https://phys.org/news/2014-01-carbon-footprint-reveal-urban-suburban.html

Researchers found a striking divide: low-carbon city centers ringed by suburbs where households are responsible for an outsize proportion of greenhouse gas emissions. In many big metropolitan areas like New York or Los Angeles, their research found, a family that lives in the urban core has about a 50 percent smaller carbon footprint than a similar-sized family in a distant suburb.


This is really not a hard concept. Thanks for playing.

None of the studies looks at consumption based emissions. Thanks for playing.

“It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt”

― Mark Twain

One of the findings of the Finland study was that suburban families fly less than their urban, downtown counterparts. They theorized that having a yard and larger family size means that people do not need to get away as much for vacations. Show me where any of the links includes differences air transport emissions or show me your clown mask. 🤡

This thread is about YIMBY planners and the built environment between urban and suburban dwellers. You are adding the whole airplane carbon thing. I would submit, more urbanists are using trains when possible to travel, which is a lot less carbon intensive.

Do you have evidence for that assertion?

Back on topic: YIMBY planners have delivered none of what they’ve promised. Compact transit-oriented development was supposed to cost less, but now we have to subsidize it. Downtown areas were supposed to have plentiful housing and prices were supposed to fall but we have anemic growth and high rents. It’s time for a rethink about whether we have this right. I want growth, but what we’ve been doing the past decade or so has not worked.

No one said prices were going to fall. But more supply mitigates the rate of increase. Do you really think the price of a Watergate Condo would ever decrease? You can't be that dumb.

This is some impressive goalpost-moving, because a whole lot of YIMBYs assert on a daily basis that simply adding more housing will make prices automatically fall. You're saying that's not true?

You all should get your story straight before trying to convince people of its merits.

Do the math. Buy a place in Watergate for 2 million dollars. A new tower comes up between the Watergate and Kennedy Center. With all of those new units, does the Watergate lose value? Or as economics shows us, more buyers flood the new buildings until there is a stasis between the two. Now, with two buildings with an equal number of units, as they turn over, there is more selection thus keeping prices down. But at no point, does the Watergate LOSE value.

Please point to a place where a YIMBY said that market values would decline because of the new units, because I doubt anyone made that assertion.

Eric Saul (and retweeted by the former planning chief of staff): We forget that many renters are in single family homes are paying around $3-4k/mo. in Montgomery County. They can do so because a 2-bedroom apt. costs 3k/mo. We need more supply to lower prices across the board. And don’t forget all the promises about filtering. Turns out developers are smart enough to control supply to prevent prices from falling.

That is rental prices. I was referring to sales prices. There is a difference.

Wait you still think YIMBYism is going to lower rental prices without an oppressive regulatory intervention? That’s hilarious.

You need to understand what was meant by "lowering prices across the board" - but I don't think he meant in raw dollar numbers, but rather mitigating prices over the long term in a relative manner. Supply and demand suggests this is the case.

Why do the PPs words require interpretation and how do you know that it is a “he”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don't build enough to house people in the urban areas, then we need to continue to develop the rural areas with corresponding long commute times. Why is this so hard to understand?

I think we’re past debating the value of urban development. What we need to figure out is how to do it in a an established metro because what our planners have recommended isn’t working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don't build enough to house people in the urban areas, then we need to continue to develop the rural areas with corresponding long commute times. Why is this so hard to understand?

Work from home, dear. And stop pretending you care about how far proles commute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don't build enough to house people in the urban areas, then we need to continue to develop the rural areas with corresponding long commute times. Why is this so hard to understand?

No. Live elsewhere if you’re going to have to have a long commute time to afford living & working here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't build enough to house people in the urban areas, then we need to continue to develop the rural areas with corresponding long commute times. Why is this so hard to understand?

No. Live elsewhere if you’re going to have to have a long commute time to afford living & working here.

People have to live where the jobs are.

[Anonymous]

From 1960 to 2021, the US population increased from 181 to 332 million people. Clearly, if the population has almost doubled then you need to almost double the housing. Clearly, nobody is going to build new housing in economically depressed places where the people are leaving. So this means you have to MORE than double housing in other places. Do some people have trouble understanding this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:If you don't build enough to house people in the urban areas, then we need to continue to develop the rural areas with corresponding long commute times. Why is this so hard to understand?

No. Live elsewhere if you’re going to have to have a long commute time to afford living & working here.

People have to live where the jobs are.

Not anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From 1960 to 2021, the US population increased from 181 to 332 million people. Clearly, if the population has almost doubled then you need to almost double the housing. Clearly, nobody is going to build new housing in economically depressed places where the people are leaving. So this means you have to MORE than double housing in other places. Do some people have trouble understanding this?

yes, apparently they do

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From 1960 to 2021, the US population increased from 181 to 332 million people. Clearly, if the population has almost doubled then you need to almost double the housing. Clearly, nobody is going to build new housing in economically depressed places where the people are leaving. So this means you have to MORE than double housing in other places. Do some people have trouble understanding this?

I am not obligated to house illegal immigrants.

You’re not entitled to live wherever you want. If all you can afford is to live in an “economically depressed” place, too bad, so be it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't build enough to house people in the urban areas, then we need to continue to develop the rural areas with corresponding long commute times. Why is this so hard to understand?

No. Live elsewhere if you’re going to have to have a long commute time to afford living & working here.

People have to live where the jobs are.

Get a different job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don't build enough to house people in the urban areas, then we need to continue to develop the rural areas with corresponding long commute times. Why is this so hard to understand?

This is false. 70% of Montgomery County residents work in Montgomery County. If you build more housing in the suburbs it will provide places to live for people who work in the suburbs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't build enough to house people in the urban areas, then we need to continue to develop the rural areas with corresponding long commute times. Why is this so hard to understand?

I think we’re past debating the value of urban development. What we need to figure out is how to do it in a an established metro because what our planners have recommended isn’t working.

We haven't actually done what our planners (and non-planners) are recommending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't build enough to house people in the urban areas, then we need to continue to develop the rural areas with corresponding long commute times. Why is this so hard to understand?

I think we’re past debating the value of urban development. What we need to figure out is how to do it in a an established metro because what our planners have recommended isn’t working.

We haven't actually done what our planners (and non-planners) are recommending.

If we aren’t doing those things then they need to focus on what we can do.