More housing supply is needed to bring down prices, but this is often opposed by local residents motivated by the same resistance to change with which you seem to sympathize. Should we tell the NIMBYs to "just move" if they don't like new housing?
I understood the piece to be YIMBY in spirit, and not in sympathy with those who resist change. Here the piece argues explicitly for getting rid of low-density zoning:
"If we ever get into a nice house, which we would indeed like one day, I will fight like hell for the right of myself and my neighbors to build and do more with that land, now or one day, so that planning decisions from half a century ago do not squeeze out the vitality that makes this place great."
I think we will see more of the same cycles of urbanization and new suburban development that we saw in the last century. People will always be weighing their desires for space and convenience and making different tradeoffs at different points in their lives. At least, upper middle class folks will continue to have these choices. Who knows what grim fate awaits the workers made redundant by AI, robotics, and offshoring.
Oh this is crazy. YOU DO RENOVATIONS....That's your "thing". For 99% of the population, that is not the case. One of the biggest issues I see is with people desperate to get out of the overpriced rental market biting off more then they can chew. Most people don't even have the knowledge base to find the contractors they need that won't take them to the cleaners.
It is wildly unrealistic to expect everyone to be able to do what YOU THINK they should be able to do because it's something YOU HAPPEN TO DO.
For example, I was a molecular biologist for many years. I had almost a decade of post-graduate education to get there. What if I suddenly said everyone should be able to do what I did? You would rightly think that I was crazy. It takes a lot of time and skill to do what I did. The same is true for renovation. Like molecular biology, home renovation is a complex. They are not error-friendly fields. Anyone not knowing what they are doing could blow up a lab. Anyone not knowing what they are doing could cause cause tremendous damage to a house, like start a fire. In neither case can you can't just pick up a book and learn it. With a home renovation you have the added burden of living in a construction zone for months on end. At least I could get away from the lab when I went home!
You also have to recognize that most people who are married with kids are spread very thing. Many families need 2 adults working well over 40 hours a week each to make ends meet. And many employers demand unpaid overtime as well. Then they have to take care of their kids and many also have parents to care for as well.
There are a few people this can work for. A VERY FEW.
While housing costs have gone up, no doubt, I think that an unexamined problem is the expectations people have. I remember listening to some very well-paid federal employees (think salaries of $170K) grousing about how the only housing they could afford was a 90 minute commute to their downtown offices, and as this was in the context of remote work (pre-lockdowns) , they thought that their long commutes justified not going into the office. But when you pressed them further, the reason they had such long commutes was not just in order to get to a better school district but also because they wanted a lot of space. A lot. They required at least four bedrooms (an extra so they could use it as an office for their work from home), plus they felt they wanted lots of outdoor space for the kids, pets, etc. There were plenty of more affordable homes closer to work, but not ones as large as what they felt entitled to. If they had more realistic expectations about how much space they really needed, they could live a lot closer to their work location and save many hours a week on commuting. Think of it as sort of a corollary to "drive until you qualify".
Here's another issue related to the expense of buying a house -- one my son and his wife encountered in Vancouver, Washington (Greater Portland). The cost of homes in that area has shot through the roof, and because it's such a desirable place to live, lots of people are moving there.
There's no shortage of apartments -- they're getting thrown up everywhere, in large numbers. But because the cost of houses is so high (as in, my son and his wife paid $480K for a small mid-20th century ranch house with 3BR, 1.5 baths, and very small rooms), most of the people with kids my grandson's age are living in apartments.
There are lots of affordable places within a 200 mile radius of where I live. But as you said, there's a reason why people are moving away from these places. You're tied to your car, there are limited resources (including health care), and the commute to a decent job is likely many miles away. The housing shortage in desirable communities (not all of them in the largest urban centers) is very, very real.
But therein lies the problem. It's the same in my area. (20 miles from Manhattan) The more LUXURY apartments you build, the more the prices skyrocket. (They won't build anything else and wriggle out of the required affordable units with money upfront.) The pricing has been disconnected from supply and demand by landlords simply removing inventory and letting apartments lie empty. About 3 years ago a studio was about $2000/month. 400 sf, paper-thin walls and all. That was outrageous enough. Now they are $2500/month. It's ridiculous.
So I "get" the NIMBYism. The residents aren't stupid. None of this is for them or their families and they bear a lot of the cost. It's all to line the pockets of the investors and developers. The existing homeowners and renters end up footing the bill. The homeowners deal with the flooding that building too much on a high water table creates. They pay for the new roads, schools and infrastructure all the new construction requires. The investors and developers sell quickly and laugh all the way to the bank. I've seen this over and over again. We actually have a glut of rentals no one can afford.
Until you can create development that WORKS for average people, I'm NIMBY all the way and proud of it.
”Fixer-upper full of hidden and deferred maintenance? It’s just not reasonable to expect an ordinary couple to take on that workload in order to have a roof over their heads.” Why not? This is not clearly argued against in your article. Why not deem it reasonable? You put a couple of years, savings and hard work into an older house. I find that very reasonable.
Do you have any clue as to how expensive dealing with deferred maintenance and renovation can be? Not to even mention that for most major projects You can't LIVE IN THE HOME. You have to maintain the home, pay for the work and sustain two households for the duration of the major renovation - which can go on for a months - even up to a year. Most people -given the number of hours they work a week can NOT sustain a situation like that.
You've obviously NEVER had to do a major home renovation. Doing it one piece at a time and living in the home is not possible in many, if not most cases.
Houses that need intensive renovation have to be rebuilt from the studs out. You can't live in a house that is fully exposed to the great outdoors for months on end. You lose access to bathrooms and water in general. The electricity has to be turned off and big portions of the home are exposed to the great outdoors. No, you CAN'T live in a home undergoing extensive renovation.
I will add that for anyone with children, it's downright dangerous.
Most houses do not need to be rebuilt from the studs out... That’s an outlier. Also, its quite possible to rebuild in sextioens, from the studs out, without clearing the entire house. That is actually construction work that I have participated in. I simply don’t agree with what you are saying here, having renovated extensively myself both my own houses and helping out with others. Of course, if you are not willing to do the work that’s another matter, but that’s up to the owner.
More housing supply is needed to bring down prices, but this is often opposed by local residents motivated by the same resistance to change with which you seem to sympathize. Should we tell the NIMBYs to "just move" if they don't like new housing?
I understood the piece to be YIMBY in spirit, and not in sympathy with those who resist change. Here the piece argues explicitly for getting rid of low-density zoning:
"If we ever get into a nice house, which we would indeed like one day, I will fight like hell for the right of myself and my neighbors to build and do more with that land, now or one day, so that planning decisions from half a century ago do not squeeze out the vitality that makes this place great."
I think we will see more of the same cycles of urbanization and new suburban development that we saw in the last century. People will always be weighing their desires for space and convenience and making different tradeoffs at different points in their lives. At least, upper middle class folks will continue to have these choices. Who knows what grim fate awaits the workers made redundant by AI, robotics, and offshoring.
Oh this is crazy. YOU DO RENOVATIONS....That's your "thing". For 99% of the population, that is not the case. One of the biggest issues I see is with people desperate to get out of the overpriced rental market biting off more then they can chew. Most people don't even have the knowledge base to find the contractors they need that won't take them to the cleaners.
It is wildly unrealistic to expect everyone to be able to do what YOU THINK they should be able to do because it's something YOU HAPPEN TO DO.
For example, I was a molecular biologist for many years. I had almost a decade of post-graduate education to get there. What if I suddenly said everyone should be able to do what I did? You would rightly think that I was crazy. It takes a lot of time and skill to do what I did. The same is true for renovation. Like molecular biology, home renovation is a complex. They are not error-friendly fields. Anyone not knowing what they are doing could blow up a lab. Anyone not knowing what they are doing could cause cause tremendous damage to a house, like start a fire. In neither case can you can't just pick up a book and learn it. With a home renovation you have the added burden of living in a construction zone for months on end. At least I could get away from the lab when I went home!
You also have to recognize that most people who are married with kids are spread very thing. Many families need 2 adults working well over 40 hours a week each to make ends meet. And many employers demand unpaid overtime as well. Then they have to take care of their kids and many also have parents to care for as well.
There are a few people this can work for. A VERY FEW.
While housing costs have gone up, no doubt, I think that an unexamined problem is the expectations people have. I remember listening to some very well-paid federal employees (think salaries of $170K) grousing about how the only housing they could afford was a 90 minute commute to their downtown offices, and as this was in the context of remote work (pre-lockdowns) , they thought that their long commutes justified not going into the office. But when you pressed them further, the reason they had such long commutes was not just in order to get to a better school district but also because they wanted a lot of space. A lot. They required at least four bedrooms (an extra so they could use it as an office for their work from home), plus they felt they wanted lots of outdoor space for the kids, pets, etc. There were plenty of more affordable homes closer to work, but not ones as large as what they felt entitled to. If they had more realistic expectations about how much space they really needed, they could live a lot closer to their work location and save many hours a week on commuting. Think of it as sort of a corollary to "drive until you qualify".
Here's another issue related to the expense of buying a house -- one my son and his wife encountered in Vancouver, Washington (Greater Portland). The cost of homes in that area has shot through the roof, and because it's such a desirable place to live, lots of people are moving there.
There's no shortage of apartments -- they're getting thrown up everywhere, in large numbers. But because the cost of houses is so high (as in, my son and his wife paid $480K for a small mid-20th century ranch house with 3BR, 1.5 baths, and very small rooms), most of the people with kids my grandson's age are living in apartments.
There are lots of affordable places within a 200 mile radius of where I live. But as you said, there's a reason why people are moving away from these places. You're tied to your car, there are limited resources (including health care), and the commute to a decent job is likely many miles away. The housing shortage in desirable communities (not all of them in the largest urban centers) is very, very real.
But therein lies the problem. It's the same in my area. (20 miles from Manhattan) The more LUXURY apartments you build, the more the prices skyrocket. (They won't build anything else and wriggle out of the required affordable units with money upfront.) The pricing has been disconnected from supply and demand by landlords simply removing inventory and letting apartments lie empty. About 3 years ago a studio was about $2000/month. 400 sf, paper-thin walls and all. That was outrageous enough. Now they are $2500/month. It's ridiculous.
So I "get" the NIMBYism. The residents aren't stupid. None of this is for them or their families and they bear a lot of the cost. It's all to line the pockets of the investors and developers. The existing homeowners and renters end up footing the bill. The homeowners deal with the flooding that building too much on a high water table creates. They pay for the new roads, schools and infrastructure all the new construction requires. The investors and developers sell quickly and laugh all the way to the bank. I've seen this over and over again. We actually have a glut of rentals no one can afford.
Until you can create development that WORKS for average people, I'm NIMBY all the way and proud of it.
”Fixer-upper full of hidden and deferred maintenance? It’s just not reasonable to expect an ordinary couple to take on that workload in order to have a roof over their heads.” Why not? This is not clearly argued against in your article. Why not deem it reasonable? You put a couple of years, savings and hard work into an older house. I find that very reasonable.
Do you have any clue as to how expensive dealing with deferred maintenance and renovation can be? Not to even mention that for most major projects You can't LIVE IN THE HOME. You have to maintain the home, pay for the work and sustain two households for the duration of the major renovation - which can go on for a months - even up to a year. Most people -given the number of hours they work a week can NOT sustain a situation like that.
Most projects can be done in sections, and it’s quite possible to live in the house as you do them.
You've obviously NEVER had to do a major home renovation. Doing it one piece at a time and living in the home is not possible in many, if not most cases.
Houses that need intensive renovation have to be rebuilt from the studs out. You can't live in a house that is fully exposed to the great outdoors for months on end. You lose access to bathrooms and water in general. The electricity has to be turned off and big portions of the home are exposed to the great outdoors. No, you CAN'T live in a home undergoing extensive renovation.
I will add that for anyone with children, it's downright dangerous.
Most houses do not need to be rebuilt from the studs out... That’s an outlier. Also, its quite possible to rebuild in sextioens, from the studs out, without clearing the entire house. That is actually construction work that I have participated in. I simply don’t agree with what you are saying here, having renovated extensively myself both my own houses and helping out with others. Of course, if you are not willing to do the work that’s another matter, but that’s up to the owner.