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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I lean Republican or right on most issues but would love to see missing middle housing in Virginia.

Even though the region has natural beauty living in Virginia felt like living in a massive office park with senseless sprawl, below average transit/transportation, relatively low amounts of public greenspace.

Very underwhelming area considered Arlington is 1 mile outside of the capital of the most powerful nation on Earth.[/quote]

+1. I wish we could cut through partisan noise and have a coalition of people who see that dense housing and urban development are a good thing. There are some philosophical differences about the role of government (central planning of development vs more organic) but you and me both see that the NIMBY mindset is not working. [/quote]

Why do people assume that increasingly density will lead to lower housing prices? DC has been getting more dense for decades. No one tears down a condo building to build a single family home. It would seem that, as supply goes up, so does demand, which means prices just keep going up. [/quote]

Increasing supply won’t lower housing prices.

But increasing supply of housing options that are less expensive than $$$$ SFHs increases the supply of less expensive options. Duh. 
[/quote]

I think you're missing the point. Increase them all you want. It doesnt mean they're going to remain less expensive. It could make them much more expensive.

Think of it this way: The more people who live in a given area, the more businesses will want to be there because they want a big pool of potential customers. The more businesses move into an area, the more people will want to live there. Which leads to more businesses wanting to move there. Which leads to more people wanting to live there. Which leads to more businesses, etc etc etc.

In that scenario, a one bedroom condo will cost a fortune (see: New York City) [/quote]

There are counter examples of cities that have experienced a lot of growth like Raleigh, Austin, and Denver that built a lot of supply and prices have stabilized.

I've heard that over 30% of the population lives in urban areas which account of 3% of all land.
With such a high demand to live in urban areas a trickle of new housing supply doesn't have a very pronounced effect.

But I've lived the alternative in Silicon Valley where there are NIMBYs on every corner on the new housing supply and apartments are very low...it's not pretty when average post-war beater homes average a few million dollars.
[/quote]

Austin prices have not stabilized.  Far from it.  Tech companies from SV flooding there during/after COVID continue to put upward pressure on housing costs.  This has become bad enough that some SV companies have stopped/capped their Austin growth.  The rapid huge rise in Austin housing costs means that upward salary pressures in Austin are not ignorable.  Texas property law favors “developers”, so NIMBYs are not the reason for housing costs growth there.

Raleigh has not built a lot of supply, but neighboring sprawl communities like Cary have helped manage the upward housing costs there, at the cost of more and more congestion/delay on the commute routes to the RTP jobs.[/quote]

I've lived for years in Cary and went to college in that area, quite familiar with the area and Raleigh. Plenty of new multi-family supply in Cary dispersed next to multiple single-family home areas and not segregated in specific corridors like in Arlington. Downtown Raleigh has also had development.
I often look at real estate/rentals down there - you can easily find rentals in brand new apartment buildings for under $1400 a month. Plenty of new single family housing stock too in the metro area.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article300115874.html

"2025 starting off as a ‘renter’s market.’ What Triangle apartment hunters should know 
February 13, 2025 8:00 AM ---
Platform is a new apartment building in Raleigh’s West End. It is currently offering up to two months free rent as part of a move-in deal. Kane Residential The price of eggs may be soaring, but renters are paying less for housing this year as new, amenity-rich buildings hit the Triangle market, driving down prices. In Raleigh, the median rent (mid-point where half cost less and half cost more) for a one-bedroom increased 0.8% from December, to $1,260 in January, according to Zumper’s national rent report. But that was still down 3.1% year over year."[/quote]

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