Starting to think more deeply about subsidized housing and I'm increasingly of the mind that cities ought to get back in the business of turning a profit.
Posts by Jeff Fong
and now for some actual good news: the yimbys are getting good enough at suing the suburbs that they don't even need to sue anymore! they got a building improved in a very bougie burb just by sending nastygrams signed "sonja trauss"...
And, in a more ideal world, we'd also be capturing (expropriating?) a lot of rising land values to roll back into direct/indirect public housing housing provision.
In my mind, this is still a supply story, it's just a matter of exploring all the mechanisms for producing more supply relative to need
agreed - this is meant as a very narrow answer to the question of whether devs will ever "oversupply a market"
the more important point is thing is letting densification reduce per capita land consumption as land prices increase (these being the lion's share of real estate cost in major metros)
question then - would you be onboard with the idea that, even if privately funded housing dev cannot save us, we still need to reform all the same laws, regs, processes that YIMBYs go on about? (b/c the people and systems blocking housing block all types of housing - irrespective of fin model)
Had a winding conversation on urbanism and the idea of progress in China - this included Moses-esque urban renewal and the story of ... Chinese Municipal Elon Musk?
And fwiw, all that applies to public or BMR housing - the enviro review that kills a duplex also kills the 100% BMR project.
I'd love to see more housing subsidy in the US; but even pumping federal money into the system as-is wouldn't solve our problems.
(Last comment and then I'll shut up)
That article misses the point.
What we need to legalize are different types of housing products that let people consume less land and also that can be financed in ways diff ways.
(2) a lot of this is about allowing people to reduce their per capita consumption of land. In high cost US metros, the land component can be something like 66% of the overall cost - legalizing more (and more types) of housing that sit on smaller lots is a huge part of solution.
(1b) you correctly point out the difference between ADUs vs apartments in a diff comment, super important - missing middle housing, which is illegal in most places, could be funded in ways/by people who won't expect the same type of returns as volume devs (this is a big @strongtowns.org point)
(1a) devs will absolutely oversupply a market, specifically by building themselves off a cliff into a downturn. This only happens to the extent that we allow them to actually build during the boom (it's also aided when we have a permitting process that can be navigated in months instead of years)
Respectfully, and with the caveat that I'm not familiar with the housing situation in the U.K., I think this is broadly wrong.
Yeah, I personally don't love the Corbusier towers in the park kinda development, but given the situation housing is housing and it maximizes revenue to the Squamish so whatev *shrug*
The Senáḵw development in Vancouver, BC is, IMO, the most under-reported story is North American Urbanism today.
There's the obvious YIMBY angle, but there's also a Georgist one, something about regulatory arbitrage, something about placemaking, and even a bit about the politics of reconciliation.
Please do not meme yourself into thinking that communist countries defunded their police forces.
Sat down with Pablo Sepúlveda to learn how zlvas (pronounced zel-vuhs) is productizing the entire NYC zoning code.
As we move forward, we're going to see more and more attempts to represent laws, regulations, and ordinances as structured data (exactly what zlvas is doing for NYC land use)
Middle Housing rezoning goes to #Berkeley city council vote tonight.
Big question is how many homes per lot.
Will it be a handful of large 2,000 sq ft+ houses, or will a larger number of smaller starter homes or flats also be allowed.
For best results we want flexibility for either. 1/
#berkmtg
I dunno if the person who used to take care of this on the old app made it here, but...
...an lvt would fix this
Infill Friday.
Edmonton edition. One house hiding in the trees to...
Fourplex!