Reply to More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.

[/quote]

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 [b]YIMBYs deride it as spraw[/b]l, thus limiting housing options and giving corporate landlords more and more control over pricing. [/quote]

[b]It literally is sprawl[/b]. 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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]
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.[/quote]

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