Cities with No Children

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole debate boils down to the frustrated expectations of 30-year old white guys.

It's always some guy who moved to Washington from Pennsylvania. Back home, he grew up in a big house in a nice neighborhood. His parents made a lot of money. He studied hard and went to a good school and then moved here.

But he went into a profession that pays peanuts and he realized he's never going to be able to afford a place like where he grew up. He has champagne taste and a beer budget. Now he is lobbying politicians to fix everything for him, to make things more like they were back home. He wants them to change the zoning laws to create more units so that he can live in neighborhoods he'd otherwise never be able to afford and so he doesn't have to have long commutes or worry about crime. All the people worried about shady real estate developers and overcrowded schools and disappearing green space and ugly condo developments can take a hike.

You want to know what white privilege looks like? This is what white privilege looks like.

it's really mostly liberal male urban planners who are perplexed why the real world doesn't work like their utopian urban planning textbooks

David Albert having a SFH in the city make their heads explode too

We restrict supply, we get high prices. Works exactly like my econ textbooks said.

And there is nothing wrong with a person buying a SFH in the city. Its pushing for policies that privilege that, or otherwise interfere with good solutions, that is the problem. Its about policies, not about private choices.

Also the attacks on individuals, esp on DA, here in an anon forum, are repulsive.

Actually economists say adding to the housing stock would not reduce prices (things are more complicated than you suggest). For example, here is a paper by Federal Reserve economists: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2018035pap.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
An area is expensive because lots of people want to live there. Some people get shut out because of the prices are too high. If you create more housing in the area -- enough to actually affect the prices -- more people will show up to buy them, including all those people who had been shut out. That will bid up prices. So prices won't actually go down -- this might go up beyond what they would have otherwise been, and you'll just have more people all trying to live in the same area.

So lets say the amount of housing in the District doubled. Instead of housing for 750k people you have housing for 1.5 million. Lets say prices/rents for apts/condos drop by 5%.

Are there 750k people currently living in the rest of the metro area who would move to DC (to apts/condos) because its now 5% cheaper than it was? I mean lots of people living in the suburbs work in the suburbs, and are going to need a huge discount to reverse commute. Some work in DC, but don't want to live in a condo or apt.

Maybe there are 750k people who live in the suburbs, who either already live in apts/condos or would be interested in doing so, and who work in DC. But even among those, there are plenty who just like the suburbs more.

Now maybe if rents/prices went down by 20%. you would get more. That only shows there are limits to the rent/price decrease. Its VERY unlikely there would be no price decrease - because that implies all the new units would be filled even if prices/rents only went down by one percent say.

Doubled? Why don't we just say it grows by a million percent? The housing stock won't double in the next 100 years.

[Anonymous]

Not everyone can live in DuPont Circle. Sorry!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You make it sound like most people prefer to live in 30-story towers and it's all by choice and that's how most of the world lives.

Most people, given a choice of a brand new 3000 sq foot unit in a hirise, and the same 3000 sq foot unit on the ground (no elevator trip needed) and with their own yard, all in the same location would prefer the latter sure (though a few would prefer the view).

But its banal.

Life is full of tradeoffs. Tradeoffs on location - which include both commute length, commute mode options, access to amenities, etc. And age and quality of units.

In DC (this is a DC area forum, and OP asked about DC) the tradeoffs are significant enough that MANY people take the multifamily choice. Not only in the District, but in the inner suburbs as well, and some do further out (new pricey high rise apts in Tysons appear to be doing pretty well).

Some upper middle class families with school age kids even pick them - in DC west of the park, in North Arlington, and in Falls Church, most notably.

More people would pick them if they were not as expenive as they are. They would be less expensive if there were fewer constraints on constructing them. Given that that would expand the range of choices to people, and ALSO benefit society, we should, as far as possible, relax those constraints.

I am not sure what problem you have with the above. You can go on with abstract discussions of human nature, or granular discussions of migration patterns from NYC, but they do not change what I have said above.

There is no height restriction in VA and some parts of DC, or am I missing something? Why aren't we seeing all these apartments being built if there is such demand?

Why are we not seeing many families living in DC apartments even though they had existed for decades and are still cheaper overall than SFH/TH living?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Actually economists say adding to the housing stock would not reduce prices (things are more complicated than you suggest). For example, here is a paper by Federal Reserve economists: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2018035pap.pdf

For the nth time, that paper does not say what you're saying it says.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not everyone can live in DuPont Circle. Sorry!

Exactly, all I see is anguish that someone cannot afford the type of housing or neighborhood for the same price as where they have to resort to living now, obviously not satisfied with their options. I don't see millions descending upon DC in search of homes and whoever lives here or comes and goes seems to find place to live according to the budget. My working class family managed to buy homes in South Arlington and Silver Spring and further out burbs to get nicer homes, they are not rich or even professionals. My wealthier friends all own decent homes in NWDC, Mclean, Bethesda, GF, Clarendon. My poor cousin lives in a garden apartment zoned for Longfellow, because that's all she can afford and because she is dead set on her kid going there, but she is not homeless and doesn't have to resort to living in unsafe area. My DINK friends rent a luxury condo in trendy part of DC and my disabled low income relative lives in an apartment in NWDC. Where is the crisis other than people with LMC budget wanting to live UMC lifestyle?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole debate boils down to the frustrated expectations of 30-year old white guys.

It's always some guy who moved to Washington from Pennsylvania. Back home, he grew up in a big house in a nice neighborhood. His parents made a lot of money. He studied hard and went to a good school and then moved here.

But he went into a profession that pays peanuts and he realized he's never going to be able to afford a place like where he grew up. He has champagne taste and a beer budget. Now he is lobbying politicians to fix everything for him, to make things more like they were back home. He wants them to change the zoning laws to create more units so that he can live in neighborhoods he'd otherwise never be able to afford and so he doesn't have to have long commutes or worry about crime. All the people worried about shady real estate developers and overcrowded schools and disappearing green space and ugly condo developments can take a hike.

You want to know what white privilege looks like? This is what white privilege looks like.

it's really mostly liberal male urban planners who are perplexed why the real world doesn't work like their utopian urban planning textbooks

David Albert having a SFH in the city make their heads explode too

We restrict supply, we get high prices. Works exactly like my econ textbooks said.

And there is nothing wrong with a person buying a SFH in the city. Its pushing for policies that privilege that, or otherwise interfere with good solutions, that is the problem. Its about policies, not about private choices.

Also the attacks on individuals, esp on DA, here in an anon forum, are repulsive.

Actually economists say adding to the housing stock would not reduce prices (things are more complicated than you suggest). For example, here is a paper by Federal Reserve economists: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2018035pap.pdf

I admit I didn’t read the entire thing but the paper appears to be talking about rental prices not responding well to supply increases. Not the market for SFHs.

“We find that the rent elasticity is low, and thus marginal reductions in supply constraints [e.g labor shortages, land use regulations] alone are unlikely to meaningfully reduce rent burdens. The reason for this result appears to be that rental rates are more closely determined by the level of amenities in a neighborhood—as in a Rosen-Roback spatial equilibrium framework—than by the supply of housing.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not everyone can live in DuPont Circle. Sorry!

Exactly, all I see is anguish that someone cannot afford the type of housing or neighborhood for the same price as where they have to resort to living now, obviously not satisfied with their options. I don't see millions descending upon DC in search of homes and whoever lives here or comes and goes seems to find place to live according to the budget. My working class family managed to buy homes in South Arlington and Silver Spring and further out burbs to get nicer homes, they are not rich or even professionals. My wealthier friends all own decent homes in NWDC, Mclean, Bethesda, GF, Clarendon. My poor cousin lives in a garden apartment zoned for Longfellow, because that's all she can afford and because she is dead set on her kid going there, but she is not homeless and doesn't have to resort to living in unsafe area. My DINK friends rent a luxury condo in trendy part of DC and my disabled low income relative lives in an apartment in NWDC. Where is the crisis other than people with LMC budget wanting to live UMC lifestyle?

Well, there's the fact that since 2010, the inner region's population has increased by 7%, but the number of housing units has only increased by 3%, and vacancy rates are low.

There's also the fact that almost half of renters and a quarter of homeowners in the inner region pay 30% or more of their income on housing, and 23% of renters and 10% of homeowners pay 50% or more.

But everyone you know is is housed and happy, so it must just be that people are upset that they can't all live in 3-story rowhouses two blocks from Dupont Circle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
There is no height restriction in VA and some parts of DC, or am I missing something? Why aren't we seeing all these apartments being built if there is such demand?

Why are we not seeing many families living in DC apartments even though they had existed for decades and are still cheaper overall than SFH/TH living?

1. There are height restrictions in EVERY part of DC. There are local height restrictions in almost every suburb, except Tysons.

2. Height restrictiins are not the only zoning restriction. There are Floor Area Ration restrictions, which also limit density

3. There are parking minimums that impact cost and density

4. There are huge areas where nothing other than a detached SFH is legal

5. There are historic preservation rules - not just to prevent tearing down of actual historic properties, but that are used to regulate the appearance of any new building in an historic district - these can be and have been used by development opponents to tie up new developments in red tape, leading to delays and added costs.

Despite these, there are lots of new apts/condos being built in the greater DC region. But not as many as there would be if we addressed the above.

And as noted, quite a few families live in apts/condos in the DC region. In upper NW of course, some EOTP, some in North Arlington, and enough in the City of Falls Church that it created a debate over development and school capacity. (this is NOT even looking at working class families living in apts)

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous
Now maybe if rents/prices went down by 20%. you would get more. That only shows there are limits to the rent/price decrease. Its VERY unlikely there would be no price decrease - because that implies all the new units would be filled even if prices/rents only went down by one percent say.

Doubled? Why don't we just say it grows by a million percent? The housing stock won't double in the next 100 years.

it just makes the arithmetic simpler than if I said "grows by 25%" The same principle applies at smaller increments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not everyone can live in DuPont Circle. Sorry!

Exactly, all I see is anguish that someone cannot afford the type of housing or neighborhood for the same price as where they have to resort to living now, obviously not satisfied with their options. I don't see millions descending upon DC in search of homes and whoever lives here or comes and goes seems to find place to live according to the budget. My working class family managed to buy homes in South Arlington and Silver Spring and further out burbs to get nicer homes, they are not rich or even professionals. My wealthier friends all own decent homes in NWDC, Mclean, Bethesda, GF, Clarendon. My poor cousin lives in a garden apartment zoned for Longfellow, because that's all she can afford and because she is dead set on her kid going there, but she is not homeless and doesn't have to resort to living in unsafe area. My DINK friends rent a luxury condo in trendy part of DC and my disabled low income relative lives in an apartment in NWDC. Where is the crisis other than people with LMC budget wanting to live UMC lifestyle?

Working people being homeless is weird criteria for a housing crisis.

Too many middle and working class people spend too much of their income on housing, which also hurts the rest of the economy (though its good for landlords, I guess)

Too many people are in inadequate or substandard housing.

And too many people have unnecessarily long commutes - leading to harm to the physical and mental health and financial well being, adding congestion to our roads (at signficant financial cost to local govts), and at harm to our regional and planetary environment.

And this is despite the existence of new supply, both market rate and committed affordable, thanks to the efforts of planners, urbanists, and housing advocates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole debate boils down to the frustrated expectations of 30-year old white guys.

It's always some guy who moved to Washington from Pennsylvania. Back home, he grew up in a big house in a nice neighborhood. His parents made a lot of money. He studied hard and went to a good school and then moved here.

But he went into a profession that pays peanuts and he realized he's never going to be able to afford a place like where he grew up. He has champagne taste and a beer budget. Now he is lobbying politicians to fix everything for him, to make things more like they were back home. He wants them to change the zoning laws to create more units so that he can live in neighborhoods he'd otherwise never be able to afford and so he doesn't have to have long commutes or worry about crime. All the people worried about shady real estate developers and overcrowded schools and disappearing green space and ugly condo developments can take a hike.

You want to know what white privilege looks like? This is what white privilege looks like.

it's really mostly liberal male urban planners who are perplexed why the real world doesn't work like their utopian urban planning textbooks

David Albert having a SFH in the city make their heads explode too

We restrict supply, we get high prices. Works exactly like my econ textbooks said.

And there is nothing wrong with a person buying a SFH in the city. Its pushing for policies that privilege that, or otherwise interfere with good solutions, that is the problem. Its about policies, not about private choices.

Also the attacks on individuals, esp on DA, here in an anon forum, are repulsive.

Actually economists say adding to the housing stock would not reduce prices (things are more complicated than you suggest). For example, here is a paper by Federal Reserve economists: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2018035pap.pdf

I admit I didn’t read the entire thing but the paper appears to be talking about rental prices not responding well to supply increases. Not the market for SFHs.

“We find that the rent elasticity is low, and thus marginal reductions in supply constraints [e.g labor shortages, land use regulations] alone are unlikely to meaningfully reduce rent burdens. The reason for this result appears to be that rental rates are more closely determined by the level of amenities in a neighborhood—as in a Rosen-Roback spatial equilibrium framework—than by the supply of housing.”

In economics, the term rent does not refer to rental prices.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not everyone can live in DuPont Circle. Sorry!

More people could live there than do, and the same is true for plenty of other close in, transit served places. Dupont circle is served by a metro station that was NOT built by locals who currently live there, why shouldn't we leverage it further? And its walking distance to the White House and gads of jobs, why shouldn't we have more people living walking distance to work?

And we wouldn't do this only at Dupont, but at lots and lots of close in and metro served locations. Everyone can and should have more and better housing choices than they do now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole debate boils down to the frustrated expectations of 30-year old white guys.

It's always some guy who moved to Washington from Pennsylvania. Back home, he grew up in a big house in a nice neighborhood. His parents made a lot of money. He studied hard and went to a good school and then moved here.

But he went into a profession that pays peanuts and he realized he's never going to be able to afford a place like where he grew up. He has champagne taste and a beer budget. Now he is lobbying politicians to fix everything for him, to make things more like they were back home. He wants them to change the zoning laws to create more units so that he can live in neighborhoods he'd otherwise never be able to afford and so he doesn't have to have long commutes or worry about crime. All the people worried about shady real estate developers and overcrowded schools and disappearing green space and ugly condo developments can take a hike.

You want to know what white privilege looks like? This is what white privilege looks like.

it's really mostly liberal male urban planners who are perplexed why the real world doesn't work like their utopian urban planning textbooks

David Albert having a SFH in the city make their heads explode too

We restrict supply, we get high prices. Works exactly like my econ textbooks said.

And there is nothing wrong with a person buying a SFH in the city. Its pushing for policies that privilege that, or otherwise interfere with good solutions, that is the problem. Its about policies, not about private choices.

Also the attacks on individuals, esp on DA, here in an anon forum, are repulsive.

Actually economists say adding to the housing stock would not reduce prices (things are more complicated than you suggest). For example, here is a paper by Federal Reserve economists: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2018035pap.pdf

I admit I didn’t read the entire thing but the paper appears to be talking about rental prices not responding well to supply increases. Not the market for SFHs.

“We find that the rent elasticity is low, and thus marginal reductions in supply constraints [e.g labor shortages, land use regulations] alone are unlikely to meaningfully reduce rent burdens. The reason for this result appears to be that rental rates are more closely determined by the level of amenities in a neighborhood—as in a Rosen-Roback spatial equilibrium framework—than by the supply of housing.”

In economics, the term rent does not refer to rental prices.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent

But rent burdens and rental rates are not terms associated with "economic rents" here I think they mean actual apt rents.

Anyway, thats not the point - this article has been shown to be based on not only small additions to supply, but on a modeled approach that, while interesting, does not necessarily reflect empirical reality.

NIMBYs have a tendency to repost, again and again, any academic paper that appears to support them and to ignore the rest of the economic literature. In the case of the Freemark paper, they did that even after the paper's author said his paper was being misused.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole debate boils down to the frustrated expectations of 30-year old white guys.


All the people worried about shady real estate developers and overcrowded schools and disappearing green space and ugly condo developments can take a hike.

No. There are people of a range of ages, of different races, of different genders and orientations who are concerned about this.

The NIMBYs though are mostly old white people afraid of change.

DC can build more schools and lots of its schools have excess capacity (perhaps PP is signaling they live in upper Ward 3).

No new developments happen on parks, and private green space is not a park. Many new developments create more useable open space.

Plenty of old buildings are ugly, and new ones that are not.

Developers are no more shady than any other business, nor more shady than the developers who build the preciouse detached SFHs generations ago. Certainly no more shady than people who speculate in existing housing, who benefit when supply is limited.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of shady real estate developers.

They face very little government oversight because the city is overwhelmed by the number of developments. Not surprisingly, it's like the Wild West. They ignore building codes. There's been cases of developers removing load-bearing walls and never replacing them. Developers ignore what's allowed on permits. They damage neighbors' homes.

It's hard to discipline them because they treat fines like the cost of doing business or they dare homeowners to take them to court knowing most don't have the ability to hire lawyers for years or they disappear.