We need to build more: gentrification caused by blocking housing construction (not the opposite!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There isn’t a great gov’t example of completely fixing the problem.

But HUD and subsidized affordable housing DOES improve the situation.

But our housing shortage is so severe we need to try everything: build, rollback zoning, Section 8 subsidized housing, affordable rules, LIHTC subsidized housing.

We need to do everything. DC should be trying it all.

Do we have a housing shortage in America, or a shortage of very cheap housing in expensive neighborhoods? Just want to be clear

We have a housing shortage.

NP I don't think we do. I think people just want cheaper housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[

Can you give an example of govt intervention reducing housing prices so that it is affordable for all residents?

Huh? It's common in many other countries to have a social-housing program. In fact, even the US used to have a social-housing program for white people, but that came to an end with the prospect of having to extend it to black people, which apparently was an insupportable idea.

Stockholm has an awesome program just like you're describing, of course the wait time to get an apartment is 15 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

DC is a tiny city. Not everyone who works here HAS to live here. We are a tri-state, intertwined system. We also have people living in DC who work in MD and VA. We don't demand they provide more housing. With that being said, there are ample areas that could use a little development (looking over the Anacostia here). It could be done in a thoughtful mixed income way. There are also programs to help teachers etc. buy homes and keep long time homeowners in place (homestead act). I'm not sure why the hard-on for Ward 3. Seriously.

Also not what this is about.

Although it's true that the national housing shortage is also regional (including Virginia and Maryland) as well as local (DC).

If you think there should be more housing east of the Anacostia River, then you either need to work on providing market incentives for builders to build there, or you need to provide a funding source for non-profits to build non-market housing there, or both. Your desire for builders to put the new housing over there, away from you, won't make that happen. And neither will your desire to make it harder to builders to put new housing near you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[

Can you give an example of govt intervention reducing housing prices so that it is affordable for all residents?

Huh? It's common in many other countries to have a social-housing program. In fact, even the US used to have a social-housing program for white people, but that came to an end with the prospect of having to extend it to black people, which apparently was an insupportable idea.

Stockholm has an awesome program just like you're describing, of course the wait time to get an apartment is 15 years.

Citation please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There isn’t a great gov’t example of completely fixing the problem.

But HUD and subsidized affordable housing DOES improve the situation.

But our housing shortage is so severe we need to try everything: build, rollback zoning, Section 8 subsidized housing, affordable rules, LIHTC subsidized housing.

We need to do everything. DC should be trying it all.

Do we have a housing shortage in America, or a shortage of very cheap housing in expensive neighborhoods? Just want to be clear

You need to look at what makes a neighborhood expensive. In the DC area, its: quality public schools, proximity to metro, walkability, quality of housing stock, proximity to amenities (grocery stores and other convenient retail). Interestingly, crime and safety are not as correlative as you might think. Many of the most expensive neighborhoods in DC proper have a lot of crime (Shaw and Navy Yard being the two that come to mind fastest).

So you miss the point if you interpret this as just people wanting cheap housing in expensive neighborhoods. What's actually happening is that people want access to shared amenities, including taxpayer funded ones like schools, public transportation, and walk-friendly streetscaping. And even the ones that aren't public funded (decent houses, nearby grocery stores) are pretty basic needs.

So yes, there should be cheaper housing in our "expensive" neighborhoods, because you shouldn't have to be wealthy to gain access to some of this stuff. That's why people push for greater housing density, so that these amenities are genuinely shared among different socioeconomic classes.

And this applies in the city and in the suburbs. It's just easier to accomplish in the city where people don't fight density quite as much (they still fight it, but it's harder to argue against). But even in suburbs, we should have more socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods clustered around public goods and amenities. It would be more efficient AND more just.

There are half empty schools across the city. There are neighborhoods that desperately need supermarkets. Move there and the schools will fill up and the supermarkets will come. You know this, right?

I am PP, and yes, I know this. I live in a neighborhood that when we moved here, desperately needed a supermarket (now it has 5). My kid attends a school that was struggling when we moved here and never had a waitlist, and now is hard to get into. I know. That's not the point.

The point is: now only wealthy people can move to this neighborhood. It's no longer possible for people at my income level to move here, even to rent. This neighborhood needs... affordable housing. And I am more than fine with that impacting my housing values, because it would also enable me to, say, move my growing family to a larger home in the neighborhood where we currently live, something that is not possible at the moment. We need more housing!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There isn’t a great gov’t example of completely fixing the problem.

But HUD and subsidized affordable housing DOES improve the situation.

But our housing shortage is so severe we need to try everything: build, rollback zoning, Section 8 subsidized housing, affordable rules, LIHTC subsidized housing.

We need to do everything. DC should be trying it all.

Do we have a housing shortage in America, or a shortage of very cheap housing in expensive neighborhoods? Just want to be clear

You need to look at what makes a neighborhood expensive. In the DC area, its: quality public schools, proximity to metro, walkability, quality of housing stock, proximity to amenities (grocery stores and other convenient retail). Interestingly, crime and safety are not as correlative as you might think. Many of the most expensive neighborhoods in DC proper have a lot of crime (Shaw and Navy Yard being the two that come to mind fastest).

So you miss the point if you interpret this as just people wanting cheap housing in expensive neighborhoods. What's actually happening is that people want access to shared amenities, including taxpayer funded ones like schools, public transportation, and walk-friendly streetscaping. And even the ones that aren't public funded (decent houses, nearby grocery stores) are pretty basic needs.

So yes, there should be cheaper housing in our "expensive" neighborhoods, because you shouldn't have to be wealthy to gain access to some of this stuff. That's why people push for greater housing density, so that these amenities are genuinely shared among different socioeconomic classes.

And this applies in the city and in the suburbs. It's just easier to accomplish in the city where people don't fight density quite as much (they still fight it, but it's harder to argue against). But even in suburbs, we should have more socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods clustered around public goods and amenities. It would be more efficient AND more just.

Is it impossible to build this stuff in the communities that deserve it and want it?

Why can't Anacostia have these things? Seems easier than building a lot of "cheap" housing in other areas and then asking those people to move from their homes.

You have to do both, actually. Otherwise, what happens is that the capital investment in neighborhoods like Anacostia leads to an influx of, first, young professionals, and then wealthier people. The people who currently live there start getting priced out, the nature of the neighborhood changes, and then the COL goes way up. And while, yes, you now have another nice neighborhood for wealthy people to live in, you still have nowhere for middle and working class families to live.

So you have to intentionally build and invest in affordable housing. You need somewhere for people who make under 100k a year to live, and you need this places to not be segregated because that leads to slumlords and concentrations of crime.

Sorry, but you can't get around it. If you sort people by socioeconomic status, you will inevitably wind up with resource hoarding among the wealthiest residents. You can't go build some working class utopia in a segregated part of town, because the minute it looks appealing at all, the wealthy will come in and take it.

The current alternative is affordable units in market rate building, great if you're lucky enough to get one of those units, but worthless to the vast majority. You can up the percentage of subsidized units, but that's going to drive down the price of the market rate until and lead to the kind of concentrated poverty you're trying to avoid. I say poverty because most of these schemes aren't aimed at middle class, they're aimed at the working poor and the middle class is just moving ever further out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[

Can you give an example of govt intervention reducing housing prices so that it is affordable for all residents?

Huh? It's common in many other countries to have a social-housing program. In fact, even the US used to have a social-housing program for white people, but that came to an end with the prospect of having to extend it to black people, which apparently was an insupportable idea.

Stockholm has an awesome program just like you're describing, of course the wait time to get an apartment is 15 years.

Citation please.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20160517-this-is-one-city-where-youll-never-find-a-home

https://qz.com/264418/why-its-nearly-impossible-to-rent-an-apartment-in-stockholm/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There isn’t a great gov’t example of completely fixing the problem.

But HUD and subsidized affordable housing DOES improve the situation.

But our housing shortage is so severe we need to try everything: build, rollback zoning, Section 8 subsidized housing, affordable rules, LIHTC subsidized housing.

We need to do everything. DC should be trying it all.

Do we have a housing shortage in America, or a shortage of very cheap housing in expensive neighborhoods? Just want to be clear

We have a housing shortage.

NP I don't think we do. I think people just want cheaper housing.

Your opinion nowithstanding, the facts show that we do. Look at housing starts vs population growth over the last few decades. And yes, people want cheaper housing, because a large fraction of households currently find it very difficult to afford housing, because housing is expensive, because we don't have enough of it, BECAUSE THERE IS A HOUSING SHORTAGE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[

Can you give an example of govt intervention reducing housing prices so that it is affordable for all residents?

Huh? It's common in many other countries to have a social-housing program. In fact, even the US used to have a social-housing program for white people, but that came to an end with the prospect of having to extend it to black people, which apparently was an insupportable idea.

Stockholm has an awesome program just like you're describing, of course the wait time to get an apartment is 15 years.

Citation please.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20160517-this-is-one-city-where-youll-never-find-a-home

https://qz.com/264418/why-its-nearly-impossible-to-rent-an-apartment-in-stockholm/

Did you miss this part?

"Due to Stockholm’s infamously strict housing market,"

In other words, Stockholm also has a housing shortage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[

Can you give an example of govt intervention reducing housing prices so that it is affordable for all residents?

Huh? It's common in many other countries to have a social-housing program. In fact, even the US used to have a social-housing program for white people, but that came to an end with the prospect of having to extend it to black people, which apparently was an insupportable idea.

Stockholm has an awesome program just like you're describing, of course the wait time to get an apartment is 15 years.

Citation please.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20160517-this-is-one-city-where-youll-never-find-a-home

https://qz.com/264418/why-its-nearly-impossible-to-rent-an-apartment-in-stockholm/

Did you miss this part?

"Due to Stockholm’s infamously strict housing market,"

In other words, Stockholm also has a housing shortage.

when price is not a factor, that is what happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There isn’t a great gov’t example of completely fixing the problem.

But HUD and subsidized affordable housing DOES improve the situation.

But our housing shortage is so severe we need to try everything: build, rollback zoning, Section 8 subsidized housing, affordable rules, LIHTC subsidized housing.

We need to do everything. DC should be trying it all.

Do we have a housing shortage in America, or a shortage of very cheap housing in expensive neighborhoods? Just want to be clear

You need to look at what makes a neighborhood expensive. In the DC area, its: quality public schools, proximity to metro, walkability, quality of housing stock, proximity to amenities (grocery stores and other convenient retail). Interestingly, crime and safety are not as correlative as you might think. Many of the most expensive neighborhoods in DC proper have a lot of crime (Shaw and Navy Yard being the two that come to mind fastest).

So you miss the point if you interpret this as just people wanting cheap housing in expensive neighborhoods. What's actually happening is that people want access to shared amenities, including taxpayer funded ones like schools, public transportation, and walk-friendly streetscaping. And even the ones that aren't public funded (decent houses, nearby grocery stores) are pretty basic needs.

So yes, there should be cheaper housing in our "expensive" neighborhoods, because you shouldn't have to be wealthy to gain access to some of this stuff. That's why people push for greater housing density, so that these amenities are genuinely shared among different socioeconomic classes.

And this applies in the city and in the suburbs. It's just easier to accomplish in the city where people don't fight density quite as much (they still fight it, but it's harder to argue against). But even in suburbs, we should have more socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods clustered around public goods and amenities. It would be more efficient AND more just.

Is it impossible to build this stuff in the communities that deserve it and want it?

Why can't Anacostia have these things? Seems easier than building a lot of "cheap" housing in other areas and then asking those people to move from their homes.

You have to do both, actually. Otherwise, what happens is that the capital investment in neighborhoods like Anacostia leads to an influx of, first, young professionals, and then wealthier people. The people who currently live there start getting priced out, the nature of the neighborhood changes, and then the COL goes way up. And while, yes, you now have another nice neighborhood for wealthy people to live in, you still have nowhere for middle and working class families to live.

So you have to intentionally build and invest in affordable housing. You need somewhere for people who make under 100k a year to live, and you need this places to not be segregated because that leads to slumlords and concentrations of crime.

Sorry, but you can't get around it. If you sort people by socioeconomic status, you will inevitably wind up with resource hoarding among the wealthiest residents. You can't go build some working class utopia in a segregated part of town, because the minute it looks appealing at all, the wealthy will come in and take it.

It's called transitional neighborhoods and planning them smartly--with mixed income housing, tenant buyouts of redeveloped apartment buildings, tax breaks for teachers and police, homestead act. DC has plenty, and Anacostia could be one more. There is no way to stop people from selling their homes if the price rises--that's a choice, but you can certainly have rent control units and ways to make it affordable to stay (homestead act again).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There isn’t a great gov’t example of completely fixing the problem.

But HUD and subsidized affordable housing DOES improve the situation.

But our housing shortage is so severe we need to try everything: build, rollback zoning, Section 8 subsidized housing, affordable rules, LIHTC subsidized housing.

We need to do everything. DC should be trying it all.

Do we have a housing shortage in America, or a shortage of very cheap housing in expensive neighborhoods? Just want to be clear

You need to look at what makes a neighborhood expensive. In the DC area, its: quality public schools, proximity to metro, walkability, quality of housing stock, proximity to amenities (grocery stores and other convenient retail). Interestingly, crime and safety are not as correlative as you might think. Many of the most expensive neighborhoods in DC proper have a lot of crime (Shaw and Navy Yard being the two that come to mind fastest).

So you miss the point if you interpret this as just people wanting cheap housing in expensive neighborhoods. What's actually happening is that people want access to shared amenities, including taxpayer funded ones like schools, public transportation, and walk-friendly streetscaping. And even the ones that aren't public funded (decent houses, nearby grocery stores) are pretty basic needs.

So yes, there should be cheaper housing in our "expensive" neighborhoods, because you shouldn't have to be wealthy to gain access to some of this stuff. That's why people push for greater housing density, so that these amenities are genuinely shared among different socioeconomic classes.

And this applies in the city and in the suburbs. It's just easier to accomplish in the city where people don't fight density quite as much (they still fight it, but it's harder to argue against). But even in suburbs, we should have more socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods clustered around public goods and amenities. It would be more efficient AND more just.

There are half empty schools across the city. There are neighborhoods that desperately need supermarkets. Move there and the schools will fill up and the supermarkets will come. You know this, right?

I am PP, and yes, I know this. I live in a neighborhood that when we moved here, desperately needed a supermarket (now it has 5). My kid attends a school that was struggling when we moved here and never had a waitlist, and now is hard to get into. I know. That's not the point.

The point is: now only wealthy people can move to this neighborhood. It's no longer possible for people at my income level to move here, even to rent. This neighborhood needs... affordable housing. And I am more than fine with that impacting my housing values, because it would also enable me to, say, move my growing family to a larger home in the neighborhood where we currently live, something that is not possible at the moment. We need more housing!

GGW thinks large, family homes in the city are the ultimate enemy. Please keep up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

GGW thinks large, family homes in the city are the ultimate enemy. Please keep up.

No, GGW thinks (to the extent that a blog with lots of contributors can have one opinion) that ZONING that REQUIRES LARGE ONE-HOUSEHOLD DWELLING UNITS AND DOES NOT ALLOW ANYTHING ELSE is the ultimate enemy.

With good reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[

Can you give an example of govt intervention reducing housing prices so that it is affordable for all residents?

Huh? It's common in many other countries to have a social-housing program. In fact, even the US used to have a social-housing program for white people, but that came to an end with the prospect of having to extend it to black people, which apparently was an insupportable idea.

Stockholm has an awesome program just like you're describing, of course the wait time to get an apartment is 15 years.

Citation please.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20160517-this-is-one-city-where-youll-never-find-a-home

https://qz.com/264418/why-its-nearly-impossible-to-rent-an-apartment-in-stockholm/

Did you miss this part?

"Due to Stockholm’s infamously strict housing market,"

In other words, Stockholm also has a housing shortage.

when price is not a factor, that is what happens.

Wait, what? Affordable housing prices cause housing shortages? How does that work, exactly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There isn’t a great gov’t example of completely fixing the problem.

But HUD and subsidized affordable housing DOES improve the situation.

But our housing shortage is so severe we need to try everything: build, rollback zoning, Section 8 subsidized housing, affordable rules, LIHTC subsidized housing.

We need to do everything. DC should be trying it all.

Do we have a housing shortage in America, or a shortage of very cheap housing in expensive neighborhoods? Just want to be clear

You need to look at what makes a neighborhood expensive. In the DC area, its: quality public schools, proximity to metro, walkability, quality of housing stock, proximity to amenities (grocery stores and other convenient retail). Interestingly, crime and safety are not as correlative as you might think. Many of the most expensive neighborhoods in DC proper have a lot of crime (Shaw and Navy Yard being the two that come to mind fastest).

So you miss the point if you interpret this as just people wanting cheap housing in expensive neighborhoods. What's actually happening is that people want access to shared amenities, including taxpayer funded ones like schools, public transportation, and walk-friendly streetscaping. And even the ones that aren't public funded (decent houses, nearby grocery stores) are pretty basic needs.

So yes, there should be cheaper housing in our "expensive" neighborhoods, because you shouldn't have to be wealthy to gain access to some of this stuff. That's why people push for greater housing density, so that these amenities are genuinely shared among different socioeconomic classes.

And this applies in the city and in the suburbs. It's just easier to accomplish in the city where people don't fight density quite as much (they still fight it, but it's harder to argue against). But even in suburbs, we should have more socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods clustered around public goods and amenities. It would be more efficient AND more just.

Is it impossible to build this stuff in the communities that deserve it and want it?

Why can't Anacostia have these things? Seems easier than building a lot of "cheap" housing in other areas and then asking those people to move from their homes.

You have to do both, actually. Otherwise, what happens is that the capital investment in neighborhoods like Anacostia leads to an influx of, first, young professionals, and then wealthier people. The people who currently live there start getting priced out, the nature of the neighborhood changes, and then the COL goes way up. And while, yes, you now have another nice neighborhood for wealthy people to live in, you still have nowhere for middle and working class families to live.

So you have to intentionally build and invest in affordable housing. You need somewhere for people who make under 100k a year to live, and you need this places to not be segregated because that leads to slumlords and concentrations of crime.

Sorry, but you can't get around it. If you sort people by socioeconomic status, you will inevitably wind up with resource hoarding among the wealthiest residents. You can't go build some working class utopia in a segregated part of town, because the minute it looks appealing at all, the wealthy will come in and take it.

It's called transitional neighborhoods and planning them smartly--with mixed income housing, tenant buyouts of redeveloped apartment buildings, tax breaks for teachers and police, homestead act. DC has plenty, and Anacostia could be one more. There is no way to stop people from selling their homes if the price rises--that's a choice, but you can certainly have rent control units and ways to make it affordable to stay (homestead act again).

sure, but don't be shocked when developers don't want to be saddled with rent control and choose to either build luxury or not at all and don't be surprised when building owners have no incentive to make improvements because there's no point with rent control