The Urbanist Cult

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How come the affordable housing advocates here don't seem to know anything about housing? I get that they want public housing for all, but that is just a fantasy. They don't seem to understand that building homes costs a lot of money, lots and lots of money.

Yes, I understand that housing costs money. I want the city to spend it building homes for people who can't afford them. Why does that have to be a fantasy?

Because there isn't a bottomless pit of money to make that happen.

[Anonymous]

Why do some people think it’s the government’s responsibility to buy them stuff?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How come the affordable housing advocates here don't seem to know anything about housing? I get that they want public housing for all, but that is just a fantasy. They don't seem to understand that building homes costs a lot of money, lots and lots of money.

Yes, I understand that housing costs money. I want the city to spend it building homes for people who can't afford them. Why does that have to be a fantasy?

Because there isn't a bottomless pit of money to make that happen.

There is pretty much a bottomless pit of money -- the existing budget has plenty of money in it, and you could always raise taxes, too. Saying there isn't a bottomless pit of money to spend on housing for people who can't afford homes is really just saying you don't care enough about that problem to make it more of a priority, either by cutting an existing program to pay for it or raising taxes to pay for it. Which is fine, but rather than just hand-wringing and saying, "gee, we can't afford this," you should say, "I don't want to pay any more in taxes or fees to help guarantee people have somewhere to live."

[Anonymous]

1. Many homeless people are homeless because they are severely mentally ill. Give them an apartment and they will move out the next day or destroy it or become a hazard to their neighbors.

2. While every city should ensure that there are public housing resources for families and the working poor, cities don't have an obligation to ensure that people can live in any neighborhood they want.

3. Government's don't have limitless money. That's just dumb.

[Anonymous]

Today I learned that over the past decade, housing unit production in DC outpaced population growth. According to the YIMBY urbanist crowd, this should have led to lower prices and yet prices went up, up, up.

Honestly, we will be in a better world when these simpletons are ignored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Today I learned that over the past decade, housing unit production in DC outpaced population growth. According to the YIMBY urbanist crowd, this should have led to lower prices and yet prices went up, up, up.

Honestly, we will be in a better world when these simpletons are ignored.

Prices actually did go up in DC considerably more slowly than the national average, and considerably slower than other high cost cities. See:

https://realestatedecoded.com/case-shiller/

You can see in the second chart that adjusted for inflation, DC prices increased only modestly through 2019. You can also see from the first tables that we've had some of the slowest price appreciation over the past year. You can also see in the "Real Monthly Principal and Interest Price Index" that, once you adjust for both inflation *and* declining mortgage interest rates, DC has basically not gotten any more expensive at all for homeowners who take out mortgages, and it's cheaper to own in real terms than it was in the early 1990s or mid-2000s.

The demand curve slopes downward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today I learned that over the past decade, housing unit production in DC outpaced population growth. According to the YIMBY urbanist crowd, this should have led to lower prices and yet prices went up, up, up.

Honestly, we will be in a better world when these simpletons are ignored.

Prices actually did go up in DC considerably more slowly than the national average, and considerably slower than other high cost cities. See:

https://realestatedecoded.com/case-shiller/

You can see in the second chart that adjusted for inflation, DC prices increased only modestly through 2019. You can also see from the first tables that we've had some of the slowest price appreciation over the past year. You can also see in the "Real Monthly Principal and Interest Price Index" that, once you adjust for both inflation *and* declining mortgage interest rates, DC has basically not gotten any more expensive at all for homeowners who take out mortgages, and it's cheaper to own in real terms than it was in the early 1990s or mid-2000s.

The demand curve slopes downward.

And yet, they still went up by a lot. Never down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today I learned that over the past decade, housing unit production in DC outpaced population growth. According to the YIMBY urbanist crowd, this should have led to lower prices and yet prices went up, up, up.

Honestly, we will be in a better world when these simpletons are ignored.

Prices actually did go up in DC considerably more slowly than the national average, and considerably slower than other high cost cities. See:

https://realestatedecoded.com/case-shiller/

You can see in the second chart that adjusted for inflation, DC prices increased only modestly through 2019. You can also see from the first tables that we've had some of the slowest price appreciation over the past year. You can also see in the "Real Monthly Principal and Interest Price Index" that, once you adjust for both inflation *and* declining mortgage interest rates, DC has basically not gotten any more expensive at all for homeowners who take out mortgages, and it's cheaper to own in real terms than it was in the early 1990s or mid-2000s.

The demand curve slopes downward.

And yet, they still went up by a lot. Never down.

To be clear, we are talking about renting, not owning because that was the bulk of housing production and DC has traditionally been in the top 10 most expensive cities to rent in America for the last decade and in some surveys in the top 5. Building more did not make it cheaper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today I learned that over the past decade, housing unit production in DC outpaced population growth. According to the YIMBY urbanist crowd, this should have led to lower prices and yet prices went up, up, up.

Honestly, we will be in a better world when these simpletons are ignored.

Prices actually did go up in DC considerably more slowly than the national average, and considerably slower than other high cost cities. See:

https://realestatedecoded.com/case-shiller/

You can see in the second chart that adjusted for inflation, DC prices increased only modestly through 2019. You can also see from the first tables that we've had some of the slowest price appreciation over the past year. You can also see in the "Real Monthly Principal and Interest Price Index" that, once you adjust for both inflation *and* declining mortgage interest rates, DC has basically not gotten any more expensive at all for homeowners who take out mortgages, and it's cheaper to own in real terms than it was in the early 1990s or mid-2000s.

The demand curve slopes downward.

And yet, they still went up by a lot. Never down.

To be clear, we are talking about renting, not owning because that was the bulk of housing production and DC has traditionally been in the top 10 most expensive cities to rent in America for the last decade and in some surveys in the top 5. Building more did not make it cheaper.

The best data that I could find on this comes from the Zillow Observed Rent Index, which has monthly data going back to 2014. I compared the data over the six-year period from January 2014 to January 2020 to exclude the effects of the pandemic. Over this period, DC rents grew by an average of 2.01% per year, less than half the national average rental growth rate of 4.18%. In fact, of the 50 largest metro areas in the data, only 4 (Baltimore, Virginia Beach, Oklahoma City, and New Orleans) had slower rental price growth than DC, and none of those are exactly hotbeds of economic growth and opportunity like DC. Except for Baltimore, every single one of the top 30 markets had rental price growth that was at least 1/2 a percentage point faster than DC.

https://www.zillow.com/research/data/

Was it enough to make rents go down? No. But rents in the DC metro barely increased faster than inflation, unlike virtually every other major metro. Increasing the supply by building housing works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today I learned that over the past decade, housing unit production in DC outpaced population growth. According to the YIMBY urbanist crowd, this should have led to lower prices and yet prices went up, up, up.

Honestly, we will be in a better world when these simpletons are ignored.

Prices actually did go up in DC considerably more slowly than the national average, and considerably slower than other high cost cities. See:

https://realestatedecoded.com/case-shiller/

You can see in the second chart that adjusted for inflation, DC prices increased only modestly through 2019. You can also see from the first tables that we've had some of the slowest price appreciation over the past year. You can also see in the "Real Monthly Principal and Interest Price Index" that, once you adjust for both inflation *and* declining mortgage interest rates, DC has basically not gotten any more expensive at all for homeowners who take out mortgages, and it's cheaper to own in real terms than it was in the early 1990s or mid-2000s.

The demand curve slopes downward.

And yet, they still went up by a lot. Never down.

To be clear, we are talking about renting, not owning because that was the bulk of housing production and DC has traditionally been in the top 10 most expensive cities to rent in America for the last decade and in some surveys in the top 5. Building more did not make it cheaper.

The best data that I could find on this comes from the Zillow Observed Rent Index, which has monthly data going back to 2014. I compared the data over the six-year period from January 2014 to January 2020 to exclude the effects of the pandemic. Over this period, DC rents grew by an average of 2.01% per year, less than half the national average rental growth rate of 4.18%. In fact, of the 50 largest metro areas in the data, only 4 (Baltimore, Virginia Beach, Oklahoma City, and New Orleans) had slower rental price growth than DC, and none of those are exactly hotbeds of economic growth and opportunity like DC. Except for Baltimore, every single one of the top 30 markets had rental price growth that was at least 1/2 a percentage point faster than DC.

https://www.zillow.com/research/data/

Was it enough to make rents go down? No. But rents in the DC metro barely increased faster than inflation, unlike virtually every other major metro. Increasing the supply by building housing works.

And this is why developers are nervous about the DC market and why we saw new starts on rentals slow before the pandemic. It had nothing to do with zoning or NIMBYs. It had everything to do with rent increases being weaker than expected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today I learned that over the past decade, housing unit production in DC outpaced population growth. According to the YIMBY urbanist crowd, this should have led to lower prices and yet prices went up, up, up.

Honestly, we will be in a better world when these simpletons are ignored.

Prices actually did go up in DC considerably more slowly than the national average, and considerably slower than other high cost cities. See:

https://realestatedecoded.com/case-shiller/

You can see in the second chart that adjusted for inflation, DC prices increased only modestly through 2019. You can also see from the first tables that we've had some of the slowest price appreciation over the past year. You can also see in the "Real Monthly Principal and Interest Price Index" that, once you adjust for both inflation *and* declining mortgage interest rates, DC has basically not gotten any more expensive at all for homeowners who take out mortgages, and it's cheaper to own in real terms than it was in the early 1990s or mid-2000s.

The demand curve slopes downward.

And yet, they still went up by a lot. Never down.

To be clear, we are talking about renting, not owning because that was the bulk of housing production and DC has traditionally been in the top 10 most expensive cities to rent in America for the last decade and in some surveys in the top 5. Building more did not make it cheaper.

The best data that I could find on this comes from the Zillow Observed Rent Index, which has monthly data going back to 2014. I compared the data over the six-year period from January 2014 to January 2020 to exclude the effects of the pandemic. Over this period, DC rents grew by an average of 2.01% per year, less than half the national average rental growth rate of 4.18%. In fact, of the 50 largest metro areas in the data, only 4 (Baltimore, Virginia Beach, Oklahoma City, and New Orleans) had slower rental price growth than DC, and none of those are exactly hotbeds of economic growth and opportunity like DC. Except for Baltimore, every single one of the top 30 markets had rental price growth that was at least 1/2 a percentage point faster than DC.

https://www.zillow.com/research/data/

Was it enough to make rents go down? No. But rents in the DC metro barely increased faster than inflation, unlike virtually every other major metro. Increasing the supply by building housing works.

Okay. So then the GGW, YIMBY crowd has been lying for the last decade about housing costs?

People cannot have it both ways here. You’re saying that it’s worked. They themselves are saying that it’s not worked. You’re telling me they’re wrong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today I learned that over the past decade, housing unit production in DC outpaced population growth. According to the YIMBY urbanist crowd, this should have led to lower prices and yet prices went up, up, up.

Honestly, we will be in a better world when these simpletons are ignored.

Prices actually did go up in DC considerably more slowly than the national average, and considerably slower than other high cost cities. See:

https://realestatedecoded.com/case-shiller/

You can see in the second chart that adjusted for inflation, DC prices increased only modestly through 2019. You can also see from the first tables that we've had some of the slowest price appreciation over the past year. You can also see in the "Real Monthly Principal and Interest Price Index" that, once you adjust for both inflation *and* declining mortgage interest rates, DC has basically not gotten any more expensive at all for homeowners who take out mortgages, and it's cheaper to own in real terms than it was in the early 1990s or mid-2000s.

The demand curve slopes downward.

And yet, they still went up by a lot. Never down.

To be clear, we are talking about renting, not owning because that was the bulk of housing production and DC has traditionally been in the top 10 most expensive cities to rent in America for the last decade and in some surveys in the top 5. Building more did not make it cheaper.

The best data that I could find on this comes from the Zillow Observed Rent Index, which has monthly data going back to 2014. I compared the data over the six-year period from January 2014 to January 2020 to exclude the effects of the pandemic. Over this period, DC rents grew by an average of 2.01% per year, less than half the national average rental growth rate of 4.18%. In fact, of the 50 largest metro areas in the data, only 4 (Baltimore, Virginia Beach, Oklahoma City, and New Orleans) had slower rental price growth than DC, and none of those are exactly hotbeds of economic growth and opportunity like DC. Except for Baltimore, every single one of the top 30 markets had rental price growth that was at least 1/2 a percentage point faster than DC.

https://www.zillow.com/research/data/

Was it enough to make rents go down? No. But rents in the DC metro barely increased faster than inflation, unlike virtually every other major metro. Increasing the supply by building housing works.

Okay. So then the GGW, YIMBY crowd has been lying for the last decade about housing costs?

People cannot have it both ways here. You’re saying that it’s worked. They themselves are saying that it’s not worked. You’re telling me they’re wrong?

I really don't see the logical inconsistency. Increasing supply puts downward pressure on prices. Population growth, demographics and changing preferences put upward pressure on prices, especially for increasingly desirable ways of living for which the supply of housing is inelastic (e.g. rowhouses in gentrifying close-in neighborhoods).

This region built more housing than most places, so its prices and rents went up more slowly than most other cities. Increasing the housing supply does work. But, prices still went up on an inflation adjusted basis because we didn't build enough to overcome the demand side forces that are pushing prices up. And, prices for the most inelastically supplied types of housing still went up quite fast, because we don't really build those types of housing anymore and so couldn't blunt the increase in demand. The types of housing we do build are seen as imperfect substitutes.

The build more strategy works to depress average prices across the metro. If your goal is to keep rents stable after inflation, we didn't quite build enough to get there, though we got much closer than most. We certainly didn't build enough to make rents appreciably cheaper, which is the stated goal of many. But, if your goal is to keep real costs stable for certain well-liked ways of living, then that is much harder. It requires significant regulatory reform to allow or mandate more of the types of housing that is desired. Compounding that is that some things simply can't be replicated because close-in land is inherently scarce. It is essentially impossible to build enough close-in single-family homes to make them cheaper for this reason. Any changes that affect the supply side of these homes like removing single family zoning will probably only make them more expensive. What we can do is make the substitutes more affordable (through construction) and more attractive through things like improved transit access, more walkable neighborhood layouts, and more commercial amenities. That's what most self-proclaimed "urbanists" are advocating for.

Where's the logical inconsistency?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today I learned that over the past decade, housing unit production in DC outpaced population growth. According to the YIMBY urbanist crowd, this should have led to lower prices and yet prices went up, up, up.

Honestly, we will be in a better world when these simpletons are ignored.

Prices actually did go up in DC considerably more slowly than the national average, and considerably slower than other high cost cities. See:

https://realestatedecoded.com/case-shiller/

You can see in the second chart that adjusted for inflation, DC prices increased only modestly through 2019. You can also see from the first tables that we've had some of the slowest price appreciation over the past year. You can also see in the "Real Monthly Principal and Interest Price Index" that, once you adjust for both inflation *and* declining mortgage interest rates, DC has basically not gotten any more expensive at all for homeowners who take out mortgages, and it's cheaper to own in real terms than it was in the early 1990s or mid-2000s.

The demand curve slopes downward.

And yet, they still went up by a lot. Never down.

To be clear, we are talking about renting, not owning because that was the bulk of housing production and DC has traditionally been in the top 10 most expensive cities to rent in America for the last decade and in some surveys in the top 5. Building more did not make it cheaper.

The best data that I could find on this comes from the Zillow Observed Rent Index, which has monthly data going back to 2014. I compared the data over the six-year period from January 2014 to January 2020 to exclude the effects of the pandemic. Over this period, DC rents grew by an average of 2.01% per year, less than half the national average rental growth rate of 4.18%. In fact, of the 50 largest metro areas in the data, only 4 (Baltimore, Virginia Beach, Oklahoma City, and New Orleans) had slower rental price growth than DC, and none of those are exactly hotbeds of economic growth and opportunity like DC. Except for Baltimore, every single one of the top 30 markets had rental price growth that was at least 1/2 a percentage point faster than DC.

https://www.zillow.com/research/data/

Was it enough to make rents go down? No. But rents in the DC metro barely increased faster than inflation, unlike virtually every other major metro. Increasing the supply by building housing works.

Okay. So then the GGW, YIMBY crowd has been lying for the last decade about housing costs?

People cannot have it both ways here. You’re saying that it’s worked. They themselves are saying that it’s not worked. You’re telling me they’re wrong?

I really don't see the logical inconsistency. Increasing supply puts downward pressure on prices. Population growth, demographics and changing preferences put upward pressure on prices, especially for increasingly desirable ways of living for which the supply of housing is inelastic (e.g. rowhouses in gentrifying close-in neighborhoods).

This region built more housing than most places, so its prices and rents went up more slowly than most other cities. Increasing the housing supply does work. But, prices still went up on an inflation adjusted basis because we didn't build enough to overcome the demand side forces that are pushing prices up. And, prices for the most inelastically supplied types of housing still went up quite fast, because we don't really build those types of housing anymore and so couldn't blunt the increase in demand. The types of housing we do build are seen as imperfect substitutes.

The build more strategy works to depress average prices across the metro. If your goal is to keep rents stable after inflation, we didn't quite build enough to get there, though we got much closer than most. We certainly didn't build enough to make rents appreciably cheaper, which is the stated goal of many. But, if your goal is to keep real costs stable for certain well-liked ways of living, then that is much harder. It requires significant regulatory reform to allow or mandate more of the types of housing that is desired. Compounding that is that some things simply can't be replicated because close-in land is inherently scarce. It is essentially impossible to build enough close-in single-family homes to make them cheaper for this reason. Any changes that affect the supply side of these homes like removing single family zoning will probably only make them more expensive. What we can do is make the substitutes more affordable (through construction) and more attractive through things like improved transit access, more walkable neighborhood layouts, and more commercial amenities. That's what most self-proclaimed "urbanists" are advocating for.

Where's the logical inconsistency?

So are they telling the truth or lying when they say that zoning is preventing housing from being built?

[Anonymous]

The Washington Post: D.C. misused nearly $82 million meant to provide housing to the city's poorest residents, IG says.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/10/01/dc-inspector-general-affordable-housing/

According to the article,

“ The Office of Inspector General found that D.C. officials could not guarantee that 88 percent of 209 development deals backed by D.C. loans specifically created to underwrite affordable-housing projects — to the tune of nearly $795 million in public funds — actually built or preserved affordable housing units.”

“ In several cases, the report stated, D.C. overpaid developers beyond what had been requested in project proposals and without seeing the number of affordable housing units in those buildings increase accordingly. This overpayment, the OIG found, resulted in a loss of more than $14 million in fiscal 2020.”

Mayor Bowser and her planning office sold the recent Comprehensive Plan amendments and the significant increases in density in DC neighborhoods under the Future Land Use Map (FLUM) as somehow creating incentives for affordable housing. But of course, it was all about doing regulatory favors to create windfall profits opportunities for her developer friends, not about building affordable housing. As the IG report makes clear, the DC government can’t even get much affordable housing when it gives away taxpayer money, not just regulatory benefits, to its favored developers. It's corrupt and shameful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today I learned that over the past decade, housing unit production in DC outpaced population growth. According to the YIMBY urbanist crowd, this should have led to lower prices and yet prices went up, up, up.

Honestly, we will be in a better world when these simpletons are ignored.

Prices actually did go up in DC considerably more slowly than the national average, and considerably slower than other high cost cities. See:

https://realestatedecoded.com/case-shiller/

You can see in the second chart that adjusted for inflation, DC prices increased only modestly through 2019. You can also see from the first tables that we've had some of the slowest price appreciation over the past year. You can also see in the "Real Monthly Principal and Interest Price Index" that, once you adjust for both inflation *and* declining mortgage interest rates, DC has basically not gotten any more expensive at all for homeowners who take out mortgages, and it's cheaper to own in real terms than it was in the early 1990s or mid-2000s.

The demand curve slopes downward.

And yet, they still went up by a lot. Never down.

To be clear, we are talking about renting, not owning because that was the bulk of housing production and DC has traditionally been in the top 10 most expensive cities to rent in America for the last decade and in some surveys in the top 5. Building more did not make it cheaper.

The best data that I could find on this comes from the Zillow Observed Rent Index, which has monthly data going back to 2014. I compared the data over the six-year period from January 2014 to January 2020 to exclude the effects of the pandemic. Over this period, DC rents grew by an average of 2.01% per year, less than half the national average rental growth rate of 4.18%. In fact, of the 50 largest metro areas in the data, only 4 (Baltimore, Virginia Beach, Oklahoma City, and New Orleans) had slower rental price growth than DC, and none of those are exactly hotbeds of economic growth and opportunity like DC. Except for Baltimore, every single one of the top 30 markets had rental price growth that was at least 1/2 a percentage point faster than DC.

https://www.zillow.com/research/data/

Was it enough to make rents go down? No. But rents in the DC metro barely increased faster than inflation, unlike virtually every other major metro. Increasing the supply by building housing works.

Okay. So then the GGW, YIMBY crowd has been lying for the last decade about housing costs?

People cannot have it both ways here. You’re saying that it’s worked. They themselves are saying that it’s not worked. You’re telling me they’re wrong?

I really don't see the logical inconsistency. Increasing supply puts downward pressure on prices. Population growth, demographics and changing preferences put upward pressure on prices, especially for increasingly desirable ways of living for which the supply of housing is inelastic (e.g. rowhouses in gentrifying close-in neighborhoods).

This region built more housing than most places, so its prices and rents went up more slowly than most other cities. Increasing the housing supply does work. But, prices still went up on an inflation adjusted basis because we didn't build enough to overcome the demand side forces that are pushing prices up. And, prices for the most inelastically supplied types of housing still went up quite fast, because we don't really build those types of housing anymore and so couldn't blunt the increase in demand. The types of housing we do build are seen as imperfect substitutes.

The build more strategy works to depress average prices across the metro. If your goal is to keep rents stable after inflation, we didn't quite build enough to get there, though we got much closer than most. We certainly didn't build enough to make rents appreciably cheaper, which is the stated goal of many. But, if your goal is to keep real costs stable for certain well-liked ways of living, then that is much harder. It requires significant regulatory reform to allow or mandate more of the types of housing that is desired. Compounding that is that some things simply can't be replicated because close-in land is inherently scarce. It is essentially impossible to build enough close-in single-family homes to make them cheaper for this reason. Any changes that affect the supply side of these homes like removing single family zoning will probably only make them more expensive. What we can do is make the substitutes more affordable (through construction) and more attractive through things like improved transit access, more walkable neighborhood layouts, and more commercial amenities. That's what most self-proclaimed "urbanists" are advocating for.

Where's the logical inconsistency?

So are they telling the truth or lying when they say that zoning is preventing housing from being built?

Current zoning puts an artificial limit in what could have been built or what might be built in the future.