More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's rent vs buy calculators out there and the numbers are going to vary if you compare say an autoworker who had a lot of their net worth in a home bought in 1965 Detroit vs a government worker in 1965 Bethesda. In the end it comes down to you can't have housing both be a source of wealth growth for homeowners and something that everyone is going to be able to attain.

You might end up what we have now: strong political will to maintain high housing prices, vs the strong political will to build more housing.

I don’t live in Detroit. I live in Montgomery County. There is strong political will to build housing here. What there isn’t are developers who are willing to drive prices down. You have to get it through your head that developers hold almost all the sway over how much housing is produced here. Every market is different, so this doesn’t hold everywhere. Just here.

And for the 1965 government worker in Bethesda (or Wheaton or Silver Spring) was both attainable and a source of wealth. The idea that housing can’t be both has been driven by corporate landlords who want to limit housing choice so that they can fix prices.

[Anonymous]

Please tell me this is not (google Wheaton @ Georgia avenue) what they are planning. Hardly any greenspace and so cramped right up to the road

[Anonymous]

Why does Kristin Mink have a “land use planning guy” as quoted in a recent meeting? What have all these politicians planned with the planners? Good planning or what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's rent vs buy calculators out there and the numbers are going to vary if you compare say an autoworker who had a lot of their net worth in a home bought in 1965 Detroit vs a government worker in 1965 Bethesda. In the end it comes down to you can't have housing both be a source of wealth growth for homeowners and something that everyone is going to be able to attain.

You might end up what we have now: strong political will to maintain high housing prices, vs the strong political will to build more housing.

I don’t live in Detroit. I live in Montgomery County. There is strong political will to build housing here. What there isn’t are developers who are willing to drive prices down. You have to get it through your head that developers hold almost all the sway over how much housing is produced here. Every market is different, so this doesn’t hold everywhere. Just here.

And for the 1965 government worker in Bethesda (or Wheaton or Silver Spring) was both attainable and a source of wealth. The idea that housing can’t be both has been driven by corporate landlords who want to limit housing choice so that they can fix prices.

I live in Bethesda and bought my modest home from a retired government workers who purchased in the 80s. One was SES and the other a GS15. It’s always been expensive and never attained for the average government worker. That’s what Silver Spring is for.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All you NIMBYs sure do like complaining (and seem to think most people agree with you, for some reason?)

You all keep yappin' about "community engagement" and "letting your voice be heard". Well guess what, we did all that! It was called the elections. And they have consequences. Get over it, the state is moving forward.

If you wanna live in a farm, go buy a farm lol.

So just lay back and enjoy it?

Was this your advice during Trump’s years in office?

This is also dishonest because this policy does force people to leave there homes by increasing the assessed value of property to the point that many can no longer afford to pay the property taxes. You guys are absolutely try to force people to leave their homes by making the property taxes unaffordable, so don’t lie about your motives to force everyone to live in “environmentally friendly” Soviet style apartment complexes.

Could you provide an example of a Soviet style apartment complex in Montgomery County, please? Since the Planning Department keeps trying to force everyone into them, there must be at least one such building in Montgomery County. But where? I haven't seen any. What haven't I seen?

One of the things that has been in little dispute, even within Planning, was that the architectural and aesthetic quality of high-rise and multi-family dwellings in the county has traditionally been very poor. You seem to be someone who just argues out of ignorance just for the sake of arguing.

The poster who said

You guys are absolutely try to force people to leave their homes by making the property taxes unaffordable, so don’t lie about your motives to force everyone to live in “environmentally friendly” Soviet style apartment complexes.

is commenting about aesthetic/architectural quality? How about that.

Have you seen the aesthetic/architectural quality of the houses in the University Boulevard corridor? It's cookie cutter, mass-produced, tract housing. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

There is absolutely everything wrong with mass-produced tract apartments housing. It destroys the American dream by creating a nation of renters and landed gentry. Policies that push people to live in low-quality apartments complexes will cause the middle class to lose opportunities to establish generational wealth and financial stability.

So to be clear:

mass-produced tract houses inhabited by landed gentry are good
mass-produced tract apartment buildings inhabited by renters are bad

Is that what you're saying, yes?

No, I am saying that this "missing middle" housing agenda that encourages the replacement of SFH with multifamily rental properties will be detrimental to the American middle class. The rentals will be owned by wealthy investor groups rather than middle class families . This is not the correct way to promote affordable housing and enhance financial stalbility for middle class households. I do not support eliminating single family zoning, I think it would be better to reduce minimum lot sizes for single family houses close to transit corridors, allow for assemblage development at slightly higher density level than SFH when creating owner-occupied townhome communities. The missing middle housing proposal incentivizes investor owned multiplex buildings while harming middle class residents in MOCO.

So what you're saying is: rental housing is bad for for the American middle class and therefore government policy should discourage it.

That seems problematic.

DP. So what you're doing is casting PP's thoughts in an incomplete and one-sided way so as to create a strawman argument. Those seem to be all that the YIMBY folks bother to create.

Yes, rental housing is bad for the middle class prosperity and financial security. This MM proposal that creates incentive to replace SFH with small plex buildings will threaten the primary form of financial security/wealth accumulation for middle class households. It will effectively push them out of the housing market by driving up the price of SFH, so they will end up renting instead. This zoning policy will worsen wealth inequality and make it more difficult for everyone outside of the most affluent households to own a home. The new plex units will be primarily investor owned, most of them will not provide ownership opportunities. Without homeownership there is no middle class in the US.

The primary purpose of housing is housing, not financial security/wealth accumulation for middle class households.

Financial security and housing security go hand in hand. There is considerable value in locking in your monthly housing cost. Any appreciation is a bonus. Since buying five years ago, my monthly housing cost has increased less each year than it did when I rented. When I back out principal from PITI, it’s nearly flat.

Diluted ownership is also better for the market than concentrated ownership. Concentrated ownership enabled the price fixing schemes that many big landlords participated in and have subsequently settled. You don’t read much about these on YIMBY blogs, but there’s no question that they drove rents higher. It’s no coincidence that rents fell (or at least didn’t increase as fast) at buildings across the county once attorneys general started suing big landlords for colluding a couple years ago.

We should really focus on making ownership more accessible, whether it’s condos in a high rise, townhouses, duplexes, or detached single family houses. Enabling financial certainty for more people and diluting ownership are both good economic policies.

Enabling home ownership via fixed rate 30 year mortgages is, I think, a recent and American policy choice. At best it's a good forced savings vehicle. It does, as you mention, "set" housing costs but at the cost of people bearing the risk of a significant part of their net worth being in a single fixed depreciating asset -- not very a diverse or liquid way to hold wealth. Trouble getting insurance? Live in a declining rust belt city? Need to move for a new job? Tough luck.

What makes them not depreciating assets lately? That there's not enough of them. So yes, making ownership (or even other housing options) more accessible is good. But it's in tension with the goal of providing financial security via encouraging people to put a lot of their wealth in that one asset.

What makes them not depreciate is the scarcity of land. The 30-year fixed is a uniquely American policy choice, but it’s in practice tougher for condos. That would be a good thing to fix.

The land doesn't depreciate. The structures on the land do. What keeps that from happening (pricewise, the assets still need upkeep, of course) to a lot of places is the lack of other housing options. Not land.

Of course the structures depreciate. Happily the appreciation of the land generally outpaces the depreciation of the structure. Lots in East Bethesda go for more than $1 million now, far more than the land plus structure cost when the seller purchased it decades ago.

You make a fair point about the forced savings of repaying principal, but locking in housing costs in prior year dollars leaves more money for investment in later years. If, for example, you bought in 2004, you’re paying 2004 housing costs using 2024 dollars. That leaves a lot of money for investment in riskier assets, which is where the real wealth accumulation comes. Someone who rented for those 20 years would have likely seen rents increase faster than wages, and they’d have less money to invest (as a percentage of overall earnings) than they did 20 years ago.

In short, owner occupancy is good for individuals and it’s good for housing markets. It’s bad for corporate landlords because they lose pricing power. YIMBYs are hostile to owner occupancy because it’s bad for the corporate landlords who established the YIMBY doctrine.

Yes this is so true, YIMBYs pretend to be advocates for social justice, but their policies will do destroy minority middle class wealth and increase the racial wealth gap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's rent vs buy calculators out there and the numbers are going to vary if you compare say an autoworker who had a lot of their net worth in a home bought in 1965 Detroit vs a government worker in 1965 Bethesda. In the end it comes down to you can't have housing both be a source of wealth growth for homeowners and something that everyone is going to be able to attain.

You might end up what we have now: strong political will to maintain high housing prices, vs the strong political will to build more housing.

I don’t live in Detroit. I live in Montgomery County. There is strong political will to build housing here. What there isn’t are developers who are willing to drive prices down. You have to get it through your head that developers hold almost all the sway over how much housing is produced here. Every market is different, so this doesn’t hold everywhere. Just here.

And for the 1965 government worker in Bethesda (or Wheaton or Silver Spring) was both attainable and a source of wealth. The idea that housing can’t be both has been driven by corporate landlords who want to limit housing choice so that they can fix prices.

Yes buying in (some) suburbs in 1965 was attainable and allowed tremendous wealth gains. Those gains come exactly from that housing now not being as attainable to someone in the same SES those 1960's buyers had when they bought. Thus, building more housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's rent vs buy calculators out there and the numbers are going to vary if you compare say an autoworker who had a lot of their net worth in a home bought in 1965 Detroit vs a government worker in 1965 Bethesda. In the end it comes down to you can't have housing both be a source of wealth growth for homeowners and something that everyone is going to be able to attain.

You might end up what we have now: strong political will to maintain high housing prices, vs the strong political will to build more housing.

I don’t live in Detroit. I live in Montgomery County. There is strong political will to build housing here. What there isn’t are developers who are willing to drive prices down. You have to get it through your head that developers hold almost all the sway over how much housing is produced here. Every market is different, so this doesn’t hold everywhere. Just here.

And for the 1965 government worker in Bethesda (or Wheaton or Silver Spring) was both attainable and a source of wealth. The idea that housing can’t be both has been driven by corporate landlords who want to limit housing choice so that they can fix prices.

Yes buying in (some) suburbs in 1965 was attainable and allowed tremendous wealth gains. Those gains come exactly from that housing now not being as attainable to someone in the same SES those 1960's buyers had when they bought. Thus, building more housing.

This is just fundamentally untrue. Go and take a look at the Case-Schiller Index. Housing has not historically been guaranteed to always go up and create wealth.

People purchased housing mainly for non-economic reasons and during the 60s in particular, as people started fleeing cities, they purchased housing to buy into stability and stability peace of mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All you NIMBYs sure do like complaining (and seem to think most people agree with you, for some reason?)

You all keep yappin' about "community engagement" and "letting your voice be heard". Well guess what, we did all that! It was called the elections. And they have consequences. Get over it, the state is moving forward.

If you wanna live in a farm, go buy a farm lol.

So just lay back and enjoy it?

Was this your advice during Trump’s years in office?

This is also dishonest because this policy does force people to leave there homes by increasing the assessed value of property to the point that many can no longer afford to pay the property taxes. You guys are absolutely try to force people to leave their homes by making the property taxes unaffordable, so don’t lie about your motives to force everyone to live in “environmentally friendly” Soviet style apartment complexes.

Could you provide an example of a Soviet style apartment complex in Montgomery County, please? Since the Planning Department keeps trying to force everyone into them, there must be at least one such building in Montgomery County. But where? I haven't seen any. What haven't I seen?

One of the things that has been in little dispute, even within Planning, was that the architectural and aesthetic quality of high-rise and multi-family dwellings in the county has traditionally been very poor. You seem to be someone who just argues out of ignorance just for the sake of arguing.

The poster who said

You guys are absolutely try to force people to leave their homes by making the property taxes unaffordable, so don’t lie about your motives to force everyone to live in “environmentally friendly” Soviet style apartment complexes.

is commenting about aesthetic/architectural quality? How about that.

Have you seen the aesthetic/architectural quality of the houses in the University Boulevard corridor? It's cookie cutter, mass-produced, tract housing. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

There is absolutely everything wrong with mass-produced tract apartments housing. It destroys the American dream by creating a nation of renters and landed gentry. Policies that push people to live in low-quality apartments complexes will cause the middle class to lose opportunities to establish generational wealth and financial stability.

So to be clear:

mass-produced tract houses inhabited by landed gentry are good
mass-produced tract apartment buildings inhabited by renters are bad

Is that what you're saying, yes?

No, I am saying that this "missing middle" housing agenda that encourages the replacement of SFH with multifamily rental properties will be detrimental to the American middle class. The rentals will be owned by wealthy investor groups rather than middle class families . This is not the correct way to promote affordable housing and enhance financial stalbility for middle class households. I do not support eliminating single family zoning, I think it would be better to reduce minimum lot sizes for single family houses close to transit corridors, allow for assemblage development at slightly higher density level than SFH when creating owner-occupied townhome communities. The missing middle housing proposal incentivizes investor owned multiplex buildings while harming middle class residents in MOCO.

So what you're saying is: rental housing is bad for for the American middle class and therefore government policy should discourage it.

That seems problematic.

DP. So what you're doing is casting PP's thoughts in an incomplete and one-sided way so as to create a strawman argument. Those seem to be all that the YIMBY folks bother to create.

Yes, rental housing is bad for the middle class prosperity and financial security. This MM proposal that creates incentive to replace SFH with small plex buildings will threaten the primary form of financial security/wealth accumulation for middle class households. It will effectively push them out of the housing market by driving up the price of SFH, so they will end up renting instead. This zoning policy will worsen wealth inequality and make it more difficult for everyone outside of the most affluent households to own a home. The new plex units will be primarily investor owned, most of them will not provide ownership opportunities. Without homeownership there is no middle class in the US.

The primary purpose of housing is housing, not financial security/wealth accumulation for middle class households.

Financial security and housing security go hand in hand. There is considerable value in locking in your monthly housing cost. Any appreciation is a bonus. Since buying five years ago, my monthly housing cost has increased less each year than it did when I rented. When I back out principal from PITI, it’s nearly flat.

Diluted ownership is also better for the market than concentrated ownership. Concentrated ownership enabled the price fixing schemes that many big landlords participated in and have subsequently settled. You don’t read much about these on YIMBY blogs, but there’s no question that they drove rents higher. It’s no coincidence that rents fell (or at least didn’t increase as fast) at buildings across the county once attorneys general started suing big landlords for colluding a couple years ago.

We should really focus on making ownership more accessible, whether it’s condos in a high rise, townhouses, duplexes, or detached single family houses. Enabling financial certainty for more people and diluting ownership are both good economic policies.

Enabling home ownership via fixed rate 30 year mortgages is, I think, a recent and American policy choice. At best it's a good forced savings vehicle. It does, as you mention, "set" housing costs but at the cost of people bearing the risk of a significant part of their net worth being in a single fixed depreciating asset -- not very a diverse or liquid way to hold wealth. Trouble getting insurance? Live in a declining rust belt city? Need to move for a new job? Tough luck.

What makes them not depreciating assets lately? That there's not enough of them. So yes, making ownership (or even other housing options) more accessible is good. But it's in tension with the goal of providing financial security via encouraging people to put a lot of their wealth in that one asset.

What makes them not depreciate is the scarcity of land. The 30-year fixed is a uniquely American policy choice, but it’s in practice tougher for condos. That would be a good thing to fix.

The land doesn't depreciate. The structures on the land do. What keeps that from happening (pricewise, the assets still need upkeep, of course) to a lot of places is the lack of other housing options. Not land.

Of course the structures depreciate. Happily the appreciation of the land generally outpaces the depreciation of the structure. Lots in East Bethesda go for more than $1 million now, far more than the land plus structure cost when the seller purchased it decades ago.

You make a fair point about the forced savings of repaying principal, but locking in housing costs in prior year dollars leaves more money for investment in later years. If, for example, you bought in 2004, you’re paying 2004 housing costs using 2024 dollars. That leaves a lot of money for investment in riskier assets, which is where the real wealth accumulation comes. Someone who rented for those 20 years would have likely seen rents increase faster than wages, and they’d have less money to invest (as a percentage of overall earnings) than they did 20 years ago.

In short, owner occupancy is good for individuals and it’s good for housing markets. It’s bad for corporate landlords because they lose pricing power. YIMBYs are hostile to owner occupancy because it’s bad for the corporate landlords who established the YIMBY doctrine.

Yes this is so true, YIMBYs pretend to be advocates for social justice, but their policies will do destroy minority middle class wealth and increase the racial wealth gap.

Supply side policies that anchor YIMBYism always make the wealth gap worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's rent vs buy calculators out there and the numbers are going to vary if you compare say an autoworker who had a lot of their net worth in a home bought in 1965 Detroit vs a government worker in 1965 Bethesda. In the end it comes down to you can't have housing both be a source of wealth growth for homeowners and something that everyone is going to be able to attain.

You might end up what we have now: strong political will to maintain high housing prices, vs the strong political will to build more housing.

I don’t live in Detroit. I live in Montgomery County. There is strong political will to build housing here. What there isn’t are developers who are willing to drive prices down. You have to get it through your head that developers hold almost all the sway over how much housing is produced here. Every market is different, so this doesn’t hold everywhere. Just here.

And for the 1965 government worker in Bethesda (or Wheaton or Silver Spring) was both attainable and a source of wealth. The idea that housing can’t be both has been driven by corporate landlords who want to limit housing choice so that they can fix prices.

Yes buying in (some) suburbs in 1965 was attainable and allowed tremendous wealth gains. Those gains come exactly from that housing now not being as attainable to someone in the same SES those 1960's buyers had when they bought. Thus, building more housing.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to build housing like this now because the YIMBYs’ compact growth policies have either made it economically infeasible or outright illegal. Greenfield development puts downward pressure on prices but YIMBYs deride it as sprawl, thus limiting housing options and giving corporate landlords more and more control over pricing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's rent vs buy calculators out there and the numbers are going to vary if you compare say an autoworker who had a lot of their net worth in a home bought in 1965 Detroit vs a government worker in 1965 Bethesda. In the end it comes down to you can't have housing both be a source of wealth growth for homeowners and something that everyone is going to be able to attain.

You might end up what we have now: strong political will to maintain high housing prices, vs the strong political will to build more housing.

I don’t live in Detroit. I live in Montgomery County. There is strong political will to build housing here. What there isn’t are developers who are willing to drive prices down. You have to get it through your head that developers hold almost all the sway over how much housing is produced here. Every market is different, so this doesn’t hold everywhere. Just here.

And for the 1965 government worker in Bethesda (or Wheaton or Silver Spring) was both attainable and a source of wealth. The idea that housing can’t be both has been driven by corporate landlords who want to limit housing choice so that they can fix prices.

Yes buying in (some) suburbs in 1965 was attainable and allowed tremendous wealth gains. Those gains come exactly from that housing now not being as attainable to someone in the same SES those 1960's buyers had when they bought. Thus, building more housing.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to build housing like this now because the YIMBYs’ compact growth policies have either made it economically infeasible or outright illegal. Greenfield development puts downward pressure on prices but YIMBYs deride it as sprawl, thus limiting housing options and giving corporate landlords more and more control over pricing.

Really good point we should be thinking about liberalizing building modes rather than restricting them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's rent vs buy calculators out there and the numbers are going to vary if you compare say an autoworker who had a lot of their net worth in a home bought in 1965 Detroit vs a government worker in 1965 Bethesda. In the end it comes down to you can't have housing both be a source of wealth growth for homeowners and something that everyone is going to be able to attain.

You might end up what we have now: strong political will to maintain high housing prices, vs the strong political will to build more housing.

I don’t live in Detroit. I live in Montgomery County. There is strong political will to build housing here. What there isn’t are developers who are willing to drive prices down. You have to get it through your head that developers hold almost all the sway over how much housing is produced here. Every market is different, so this doesn’t hold everywhere. Just here.

And for the 1965 government worker in Bethesda (or Wheaton or Silver Spring) was both attainable and a source of wealth. The idea that housing can’t be both has been driven by corporate landlords who want to limit housing choice so that they can fix prices.

Yes buying in (some) suburbs in 1965 was attainable and allowed tremendous wealth gains. Those gains come exactly from that housing now not being as attainable to someone in the same SES those 1960's buyers had when they bought. Thus, building more housing.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to build housing like this now because the YIMBYs’ compact growth policies have either made it economically infeasible or outright illegal. Greenfield development puts downward pressure on prices but YIMBYs deride it as sprawl, thus limiting housing options and giving corporate landlords more and more control over pricing.

It literally is sprawl. Whether you support it or oppose it, it's sprawl.

If what you want is housing built on land that was a farm field last year, then yes, compact growth will limit that housing option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's rent vs buy calculators out there and the numbers are going to vary if you compare say an autoworker who had a lot of their net worth in a home bought in 1965 Detroit vs a government worker in 1965 Bethesda. In the end it comes down to you can't have housing both be a source of wealth growth for homeowners and something that everyone is going to be able to attain.

You might end up what we have now: strong political will to maintain high housing prices, vs the strong political will to build more housing.

I don’t live in Detroit. I live in Montgomery County. There is strong political will to build housing here. What there isn’t are developers who are willing to drive prices down. You have to get it through your head that developers hold almost all the sway over how much housing is produced here. Every market is different, so this doesn’t hold everywhere. Just here.

And for the 1965 government worker in Bethesda (or Wheaton or Silver Spring) was both attainable and a source of wealth. The idea that housing can’t be both has been driven by corporate landlords who want to limit housing choice so that they can fix prices.

Yes buying in (some) suburbs in 1965 was attainable and allowed tremendous wealth gains. Those gains come exactly from that housing now not being as attainable to someone in the same SES those 1960's buyers had when they bought. Thus, building more housing.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to build housing like this now because the YIMBYs’ compact growth policies have either made it economically infeasible or outright illegal. Greenfield development puts downward pressure on prices but YIMBYs deride it as sprawl, thus limiting housing options and giving corporate landlords more and more control over pricing.

It literally is sprawl. Whether you support it or oppose it, it's sprawl.

If what you want is housing built on land that was a farm field last year, then yes, compact growth will limit that housing option.

No, it is literally housing. Chevy Chase, Silver Spring, Wheaton, Bethesda, Olney — literally every activity center — was once sprawl. I want affordable housing. Limiting the places we can put housing drives up prices for everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's rent vs buy calculators out there and the numbers are going to vary if you compare say an autoworker who had a lot of their net worth in a home bought in 1965 Detroit vs a government worker in 1965 Bethesda. In the end it comes down to you can't have housing both be a source of wealth growth for homeowners and something that everyone is going to be able to attain.

You might end up what we have now: strong political will to maintain high housing prices, vs the strong political will to build more housing.

I don’t live in Detroit. I live in Montgomery County. There is strong political will to build housing here. What there isn’t are developers who are willing to drive prices down. You have to get it through your head that developers hold almost all the sway over how much housing is produced here. Every market is different, so this doesn’t hold everywhere. Just here.

And for the 1965 government worker in Bethesda (or Wheaton or Silver Spring) was both attainable and a source of wealth. The idea that housing can’t be both has been driven by corporate landlords who want to limit housing choice so that they can fix prices.

Yes buying in (some) suburbs in 1965 was attainable and allowed tremendous wealth gains. Those gains come exactly from that housing now not being as attainable to someone in the same SES those 1960's buyers had when they bought. Thus, building more housing.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to build housing like this now because the YIMBYs’ compact growth policies have either made it economically infeasible or outright illegal. Greenfield development puts downward pressure on prices but YIMBYs deride it as sprawl, thus limiting housing options and giving corporate landlords more and more control over pricing.

It literally is sprawl. Whether you support it or oppose it, it's sprawl.

If what you want is housing built on land that was a farm field last year, then yes, compact growth will limit that housing option.

No, it is literally housing. Chevy Chase, Silver Spring, Wheaton, Bethesda, Olney — literally every activity center — was once sprawl. I want affordable housing. Limiting the places we can put housing drives up prices for everything.

What’s weird to me is that these same YIMBYs cite the 60s or other time periods when supposedly housing was plentiful and affordable but do not make the link with the availability of greenfield development driving supply. Additionally, I don’t think there is an example in the world where infill development driving supply has meaningfully reduced housing costs. They like to talk a lot about Japan, but it’s one of the most expensive places in the world to live and apartments are microscopic in size.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's rent vs buy calculators out there and the numbers are going to vary if you compare say an autoworker who had a lot of their net worth in a home bought in 1965 Detroit vs a government worker in 1965 Bethesda. In the end it comes down to you can't have housing both be a source of wealth growth for homeowners and something that everyone is going to be able to attain.

You might end up what we have now: strong political will to maintain high housing prices, vs the strong political will to build more housing.

I don’t live in Detroit. I live in Montgomery County. There is strong political will to build housing here. What there isn’t are developers who are willing to drive prices down. You have to get it through your head that developers hold almost all the sway over how much housing is produced here. Every market is different, so this doesn’t hold everywhere. Just here.

And for the 1965 government worker in Bethesda (or Wheaton or Silver Spring) was both attainable and a source of wealth. The idea that housing can’t be both has been driven by corporate landlords who want to limit housing choice so that they can fix prices.

Yes buying in (some) suburbs in 1965 was attainable and allowed tremendous wealth gains. Those gains come exactly from that housing now not being as attainable to someone in the same SES those 1960's buyers had when they bought. Thus, building more housing.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to build housing like this now because the YIMBYs’ compact growth policies have either made it economically infeasible or outright illegal. Greenfield development puts downward pressure on prices but YIMBYs deride it as sprawl, thus limiting housing options and giving corporate landlords more and more control over pricing.

It literally is sprawl. Whether you support it or oppose it, it's sprawl.

If what you want is housing built on land that was a farm field last year, then yes, compact growth will limit that housing option.

This is hilarious. The Montgomery County Ag Reserve is a total failure that barely grows anything. Average farm revenue is $75k. It is mostly millionaires LARPing as agriculturalists. And in exchange for that and to provide some few dozen DC based cycling fanatics a place for recreation, you would deny the ability to provide high quality, low cost housing supply that is the only demonstrated model of delivering affordability for middle class households and long term returns to build wealth which is what you claim to care about but actually don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's rent vs buy calculators out there and the numbers are going to vary if you compare say an autoworker who had a lot of their net worth in a home bought in 1965 Detroit vs a government worker in 1965 Bethesda. In the end it comes down to you can't have housing both be a source of wealth growth for homeowners and something that everyone is going to be able to attain.

You might end up what we have now: strong political will to maintain high housing prices, vs the strong political will to build more housing.

I don’t live in Detroit. I live in Montgomery County. There is strong political will to build housing here. What there isn’t are developers who are willing to drive prices down. You have to get it through your head that developers hold almost all the sway over how much housing is produced here. Every market is different, so this doesn’t hold everywhere. Just here.

And for the 1965 government worker in Bethesda (or Wheaton or Silver Spring) was both attainable and a source of wealth. The idea that housing can’t be both has been driven by corporate landlords who want to limit housing choice so that they can fix prices.

Yes buying in (some) suburbs in 1965 was attainable and allowed tremendous wealth gains. Those gains come exactly from that housing now not being as attainable to someone in the same SES those 1960's buyers had when they bought. Thus, building more housing.

This is just fundamentally untrue. Go and take a look at the Case-Schiller Index. Housing has not historically been guaranteed to always go up and create wealth.

People purchased housing mainly for non-economic reasons and during the 60s in particular, as people started fleeing cities, they purchased housing to buy into stability and stability peace of mind.

It is true it is not a guarantee. And it is true that people purchased for non-economic reasons in the 60's etc... But then somewhere a switch flipped, people saw that case-schiller through its history is still trending up (even when off peak) and started the self-reinforcing belief that housing is some secret to wealth. Which is not really compatible with the attainable goal.