I would rather LA have a mayor who just says she wants more and more people to be priced out than one who engages in this kind of nonsense - ThreadSky

mattyglesias.bsky.social • 55 days ago

I would rather LA have a mayor who just says she wants more and more people to be priced out than one who engages in this kind of nonsense

Reposted from Ben Phelps

Karen Bass, terrible mayor. Says she was worried about building low income housing in single family neighborhoods as a result of ED1 because it might gentrify them.

Comments

cindypal.bsky.social•55 days ago

Gentrification is a truly pathetic bogeyman

thestinkfoot.bsky.social•55 days ago

But if we don't build houses for wealthy people, they'll just go away and things will stay the same forever. Look how well that worked in San Fransisco!

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

SF housing prices down to 2019, condos 2015. No YIMBY required.

thestinkfoot.bsky.social•55 days ago

And all it took was a massive, society-upending pandemic!

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

That wasn't the cause.

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

Most important part is evaluating whether the policy works. YIMBYs hate this. They set things up so YIMBY can never be disproved. It's always 'you're just not YIMBY enough...' We now have 4 years of data since a wave of YIMBY legislation and these policies have not produced the promised results.

malevolentmango.bsky.social•55 days ago

For prices to lower, we need vacancy rates to rise. What percentage of housing supply has actually been added? And what are you advocating for, NIMBY? Do you think NIMBY will lower rents?

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

My argument is not for NIMBY. It is to prioritize policies that get housing built where building is fast and cheap instead of doing ineffective YIMBYism.

My argument is mainly about policy priorities.

Also, Portland: https://www.wweek.com/news/2024/04/11/metro-portland-apartment-vacancies-rise-but-rents-dont-fall/

malevolentmango.bsky.social•55 days ago

Developers do prioritize time and cost I don't know why we would need policy pressure to do what they already do.
And 5.5% vacancy isn't enough to put any real pressure on landlords.
There is zero reason that YIMBY, time and cost, or non market housing are in conflict, these are complimentary.

tylerdinucci.bsky.social•55 days ago

You’re making a consistent mistake where you assume that any construction means that demand has been met when it’s very clear that demand has not been met. A great way to meet demand is to build everywhere and fast!

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

You are making a mistake that policies do not require prioritization. Policies the prioritize building in expensive markets look different than prioritizing building in areas with low construction costs. Prioritizing expensive areas can hinder growth in the cheap areas.

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

At the most basic level, my argument is that is more important to bring good jobs to areas with 400k housing than add 900k housing to an area with good jobs.

brooklynkid53bskys.bsky.social•55 days ago

on the one hand, you are 1,000% correct

OTOH, people are not logical, and base their thoughts on what they see, so that is a powerfull thing, a thing of all humans, and it is hard to over come

boomies-n-zoomies.bsky.social•55 days ago

On the other hand, they’re completely wrong.

https://bsky.app/profile/tylerdinucci.bsky.social/post/3lervguy2lk2m

brooklynkid53bskys.bsky.social•55 days ago

yeah, but the point is people do not change their minds when you say

you are wrong and here are the facts
esp if facts conflict with observations

boomies-n-zoomies.bsky.social•55 days ago

I have no idea what you’re trying to communicate.

super-bus-machine.bsky.social•55 days ago

Ooof. You’re right we should build less housing.

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

No we should be building it where it is cheap and easy to do so, instead the markets with high construction and land costs (the primary focus of YIMBYs).

reasonablysmart.bsky.social•55 days ago

So, sprawl then. And its attendant larger marginal costs to both residents and infrastructure providers.

reasonablysmart.bsky.social•55 days ago

Also, cheap places are often cheap because of lack of desirability, accessibility, amenities, agglomeration benefits, etc. Prices are a signal of where demand is exceeding supply.

davidjorgonson.bsky.social•55 days ago

High land costs = where people want to live & where the jobs are.
Anyway, just legalize housing construction everywhere and stop trying to dictate where it can't be built.

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

Yes, we should have policies that address where the jobs are. After all, policies at all levels of gov't have greatly influenced where the jobs are for decades.

aubreygilleran.bsky.social•55 days ago

It's true that a lot of YIMBYs don't think about the factors that make construction costs high, but a lot of them do! @stephenjacobsmith.com is a great example. But yes, this just means that some forms of YIMBYism can be ineffective or incomplete.

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

My argument is really about YIMBYs insisting on doing ineffective policy. It is really hard to bring down construction costs in the cities YIMBYs are most concerned with. Yet, almost all YIMBY don't want to talk about anything but upzoning the most expensive cities.

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

Even MattY admits upzoning is woefully insufficient.

Ask YIMBYs what else we should do, I just get 'I don't care, I just want to upzone SF.'

aubreygilleran.bsky.social•55 days ago

I agree with you that upzoning, while necessary, is insufficient in many places.

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

Portland after a city and state wave of YIMBY legislation is set to produce only 500 units 25% of the housing of 2023 (2000).
https://www.wweek.com/news/2024/04/11/metro-portland-apartment-vacancies-rise-but-rents-dont-fall/

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

What you get from YIMBYs - 'well it needs for more time, you need to do more of it, you need to do this platonic ideal of YIMBY that will never be politically feasible...'

What I would like is for YIMBYs to provide some conditions that if true would force them to admit their policies do not work.

jeremyke.bsky.social•55 days ago

Easy. The goal is to build more housing than the market demands so prices fall. If prices go up AND inventory sits vacant rather than reduce prices to rent/sell, then you will prove the plan doesn't work.

jeremyke.bsky.social•55 days ago

The hard part is that there is a lot of pent up demand for expensive areas at current prices, so *some* more housing won't change the prices much. Growth also induces demand, so even more housing is required to meet that.

jeremyke.bsky.social•55 days ago

But if you build enough, you have to start attracting people who would prefer to live somewhere else at current prices, and so you have to lower prices to do so. At that stage, it's simple supply/demand .

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

So your plan is for developers to make catastrophic misjudgments of their markets, overbuild, lose money and go out of business (and cause construction workers to lose their jobs and leave the industry).

jeremyke.bsky.social•55 days ago

No. A big part of "YIMBY policies" is to reduce the cost and increase the availability of opportunities so that developers can 1.) do *more* projects and thus need less profit per project to stay solvent overall and 2.) have reduced cost per project so that profit can be maintained at lower prices.

jeremyke.bsky.social•55 days ago

You're right that a big reason for prices being where they are is the prices developers can pencil projects that make sense. Short of direct gov funding, you gotta reduce their costs to make developers do more development.

jajajaboo.bsky.social•55 days ago

Actually all we see is data from actual implementation showing they work (Minneapolis and Austin) and vague statements like this about not working (or half hearted / poorly implemented visions not working). Build more of everything everywhere

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

I could go on and on, increasing rents/production collapse in Portland, failure of SB9 in CA, LA having transit oriented communities policy and ADUs since 2018, San Diego. Cities have done YIMBY policies and they haven't delivered.

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

In summary, YIMBY proposition is you change land use. This increases sustainably and significantly increases production. The increase then delivers sustainable and significant increases in affordability. This just isn't happening.

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

At best, YIMBY policies possibly could 'bend the curve.' In cities with severe affordability issues (all the cities YIMBY focus on), you then have to wait until incomes slowly catch up to the bent curve. Absent demand shocks, this is a multi-decade proposition.

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

Jersey City

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

More Minneapolis

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

The prices you see in Austin now have nothing to do with YIMBY policies. All the building happened before YIMBY policies. After YIMBY policies, building has collapsed.

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

Experts think Austin will resume the 2019 trend and Austin will end up with housing shortages in a few years.
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/austin-texas-rental-market-apartments-post-pandemic-growth/

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

'New apartment construction hasn’t lowered rents in many areas'

https://www.housingwire.com/articles/new-construction-asking-rent-redfin-report/

winedad.bsky.social•55 days ago

Couldn't the same argument be lobbed at the anti-YIMBY left re: tenant advocacy?

My two cents: YIMBY's and left NIMBY's should make peace and team up to get more done on both fronts.

thisisbenphelps.bsky.social•55 days ago

You can find examples of YIMBY policies not resulting in more homes being built (as in California and Los Angeles)

You cannot find examples of building more homes not putting downward pressure on rents.

ymroddi.bsky.social•55 days ago

https://www.startribune.com/a-rental-reckoning-is-coming-to-twin-cities-housing/601180524

ohtheurbanity.bsky.social•55 days ago

Jersey City has a population of 300,000 in a metro area of 20 million. I don't think it's possible for that small of a jurisdiction to solve a housing crisis for such a large region.

thisisbenphelps.bsky.social•55 days ago

The quote is not even a counter example of what I said

cspeters42.bsky.social•55 days ago

Don't bother arguing with this bad faith actor.

alasdairc.bsky.social•55 days ago

can we see the results of your data crunching?

dmitt.bsky.social•55 days ago

It's extremely easy to see if collective "YIMBY" policies are effective. Did the rate of housing construction go up? If that didn't happen, then yeah, the policy isn't YIMBY enough for what is probably fairly complex reasons. If it did, you get a Minneapolis or Austin where prices go down.

erik45824291.bsky.social•55 days ago

Interest rates and construction cost inflation have made it doesn’t matter how friendly a community is to development, it’s not going to make financial sense to build in the last 3 years. It’s like opening the public pool in December, and complaining that no one wants to swim.

parkerjamie.bsky.social•55 days ago

Maybe we should have had Rick Caruso

winedad.bsky.social•55 days ago

I doubt he would've done much to build housing either. Conservatives talk a big game on "free markets", but are often bigger NIMBY's than liberals.

parkerjamie.bsky.social•55 days ago

Maybe you are right….

koala666.bsky.social•55 days ago

Insane how much willful, committed bad analysis goes on re: housing. Logic that wouldn’t stand in any other field is commonly touted by politicians. Wild stuff

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply