Reply to We need homes. A lot of homes. Not just affordable, but also middle-income homes.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are great homes across america. I am cool with grandfathering in existing residents and also essential workers (teachers, firefighters etc/ with rent to buy, loans, homestead act.. NOT with feeling compelled to build mini apartments to compete with Ballston rentals.[/quote]

Are you a developer? If not, then nobody is asking you to build apartments, let alone compelling you to build apartments.[/quote]

My point is DC is running a $$ surplus, yes, really. There are MANY policies that don't involve building more housing (unless we are talking homeless shelters, which are fine!) that would protect existing DC residents from being priced out (like the homestead act, or more loans to buy houses) and allow the kinds of middle class residents who provide essential services to find footholds in the city. All this can be done without building little 1-2 bedroom.units all over ward 3. Those are just to lure young professionals from Ballston.[/quote]

There are many policies that would increase the supply of housing without increasing the supply of housing?[/quote]
NP. These talking points are tiresome. Any supply of housing units of any type is not a net positive good for the immediate or long-term in and of itself. It’s a question of the values you want to promote through your economic and development policy. [/quote]

I'm trying to increase the supply of housing. The value I'm trying to promote is that people need housing.[/quote]

But people don't need housing in expensive cities and subsidized by the government.  And there is enough housing for people in the United States, you just don't like the price and the location.[/quote]

Yeah, people can live in dying rural areas for cheap. Who cares if there aren't any "jobs," or "transportation to where there are jobs," or "reasons to be there at all." They can figure all those things out themselves once they're safely out of sight and out of mind, that way I can enjoy my artificially scarce housing in peace without any fear of having to look at the filthy poors. [/quote]

Perhaps instead of letting those areas die and cramming everyone into the smallest space possible, we should create policies that allow the less populated areas to thrive.[/quote]

What policies would those be?[/quote]

For decades, our leaders have chosen economic policies that disfavor small towns and cities (e.g., NAFTA), but it doesn’t have to be that way. We could implement all sorts of policies that instead promote the reinvigoration of areas that have suffered as a result of past and existing policies. That makes more sense to me than trying to get as many people as possible into our densest cities and leaving the rest of the country for dead. [/quote]

This is a myth I frequently see. NAFTA didn't hollow out industry in this country - there were significantly more manufacturing jobs in the United States in the years following NAFTA. Those specific jobs evaporated following increased roboticization and automation in the early 2000s, not because of free trade with Mexico.

Cities and states already make investments in trying to make over their downtowns and riverfronts to make them more friendly and attractive, and already offer significant tax incentives for companies to relocate headquarters or open up new factories, but that does not and cannot fundamentally change a city's economy. It's advantageous for companies to co-locate near other companies. In large and highly-educated cities, companies gain access to a larger and deeper talent pool, and it's significantly easier to entice a qualified candidate to move to Washington DC than it is to Scranton. That's why Washington's economy is so dynamic, and is an engine for opportunity and advancement in a way that Scranton will never be, no matter how many tax subsidies Scranton dangles in front of companies to locate there, no matter how many investments Scranton makes in its K-12 education system, no matter how much they beautify their downtown.

But maybe I lack imagination. You say there are all sorts of policies. What are they? Be specific. [/quote]

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