This was a response to someone who was opposed to the construction of more housing and was trying to use the excuse of vacant housing in places with little demand to oppose the construction of more housing in in demand places. I was pointing out that vacant housing isn't a solution to high rents and that we still need to allow the construction of more housing, especially in in demand cities.
penguincascadia
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A member registered Sep 16, 2022
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The housing shortage is the cause of high housing prices and most homelessness in America: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/
And we know that not building enough housing is the cause of the housing shortage (see above article). NIMBYs are blocking new housing construction. Therefore, NIMBYs are causing the housing and homelessness crisis. It is reasonable to point out that a political group of people are causing big negative effects with the policies they advocate.
I have shown how NIMBYs are causing the housing shortage. And I have shown the housing shortage is causing a big housing costs and homelessness crisis. There is evidence provided. Because of my reasonable chain of logic and the evidence I have provided, I have provided a reasonable case for NIMBYs causing the housing and homelessness crisis.
You've said that you don’t want to reply to this discussion anymore twice already, but you still keep replying. That's a you thing, not a me thing.
I mentioned NIMBYs once. Then you kept bringing up the topic, so I had to reply to that. The reason why NIMBYs have been discussed here is because you keep bringing up the topic.
I am only pointing out the fact that the housing shortage is the cause of high housing prices and most homelessness in America: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/
And we know that not building enough housing is the cause of the housing shortage. NIMBYs are blocking new housing construction. Therefore, NIMBYs are causing the housing and homelessness crisis. It is reasonable to point out that a political group of people are causing big issues with the policies they advocate.
I was not talking about the game, I was pointing out that cities with high housing prices have low vacancy rates, not high ones.
Whenever I have criticized something, I have provided a good reason or reasons why I don’t think it will work. For example, vacancy taxes will not solve the housing crisis because they only free up a small number of units (see: Vancouver, where a vacancy tax only greed up a few hundred units). Explaining why you don't think something will work is the opposite of dismissing it.
Earlier, you kept insisting that housing demand is infinite. I pointed out that studies have found that when new housing is built, prices typically go down instead of up, which shows that demand is not infinite (otherwise prices would still go up).
I was responding to you falsely claiming that I said if NIMBYs went away, all our problems would be solved. I have not said that at all. I only said that NIMBYs blocking new housing are causing the housing and homelessness crisis.
Think about how many people are not politically engaged on the national level despite the huge stakes for everyone. Now take that to the local level where a lot of people don't even know who their city council person is. It's not surprising that much of the public is disengaged from local politics despite the stakes, which is how NIMBYs came to dominate zoning and housing discussions.
People are already organizing after they saw the high rents and homelessness from too little housing and recently have overcome NIMBYs in some places to pass some upzonings to build new housing. Here's one example: https://www.sightline.org/2020/02/21/one-of-north-americas-boldest-housing-initi...
However, these upzones are still not sized to meet the backlog of needed housing production over the last few decades because of NIMBY opposition scaling down the upzonings. So there's still a long way to go.
To get the needed housing production, we will need to go statewide and pass mass upzoning in all cities statewide: https://qz.com/2052284/california-passes-a-zoning-law-designed-to-create-more-ho...
As I said above, we're not talking about the game. I never mentioned the game in my original post. We're talking about how building new housing lowers housing prices and reduces homelessness.
No one here is claiming that if NIMBYs did not exist that all problems would be solved. I am only pointing out the fact that the housing shortage is the cause of high housing prices and most homelessness in America: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/
And we know that not building enough housing is the cause of the housing shortage. NIMBYs are blocking new housing construction. Therefore, NIMBYs are causing the housing and homelessness crisis. It is reasonable to point out that a political group of people are causing big issues with the policies they advocate.
Corporate executives and major shareholders are people, through, and someone coming up to you for criticizing corporate executives and saying "substitute Jews for executives and see what you get" would be unfair to you, and you doing this to me is unfair to me as well.
Religious minorities aren't hurting anyone when they practice their religion. NIMBYs blocking new housing construction are hurting ordinary people by driving up housing costs and forcing ordinary people into homelessness.
Plus, new housing construction does not hurt people's lifestyles. New housing is going on other people's land. No one is building on NIMBYs' land against their will. No one is moving in with NIMBYs against their will.
Nope, the criticism still applies to you. I mentioned NIMBYs once, and you keep bringing it up. You are the one who is obsessed with NIMBYs, not me.
I am only pointing out the fact that the housing shortage is the cause of high housing prices and most homelessness in America: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/
And we know that not building enough housing is the cause of the housing shortage. NIMBYs are blocking new housing construction. Therefore, NIMBYs are causing the housing and homelessness crisis. It is reasonable to point out that a political group of people are causing big issues with the policies they advocate.
If a political grouping of people are advocating policies that have bad effects, it is reasonable to point that they are causing those bad effects.
People have the freedom of movement within America. They're going to come to California or other places for jobs, be with family, or for other reasons. No matter what, they will come anyway.
And even if they stayed in where in America they originally came from, a lack of housing caused by NIMBYs would drive up housing prices where they are. NIMBYs are still responsible for the housing crisis.
NIMBYs are still responsible for the housing crisis. New housing construction does not hurt people's lifestyles. New housing is going on other people's land. No one is building on NIMBYs' land against their will. No one is moving in with NIMBYs against their will. People moving into a city or state does not hurt the NIMBYs. Yet they advocate policies that would hurt other people through higher rents and more homelessness.
When people move, it's typically for employment or family related reasons. Movies don't have to do with it.
Homelessness is mostly caused by a lack of housing: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/
Drug use doesn't correlate with homelessness. West Virginia has high drug use yet a low homelessness rate.
As we already talked about earlier, many dense cities achieve density through five story and below buildings. Paris has few skyscrapers, yet has a density of twice New York City. And things like duplexes mean we can achieve density through even lower buildings. I have no idea where you are getting skyscrapers from, because we don't need them for density.
Population growth is not infinite. There is no infinite demand for housing.
Building more housing typically lowers prices, which is the opposite of what we would see if it created demand: https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-apartment-buildings-low-income-ar...
Again, the entire world is not moving to America.
Building new cities in the middle of nowhere is not a solution. Jobs and economic activities concentrate in existing major metro areas because of economies of scale. Stuff built in the middle of nowhere will not have that. We can see this even with the rise of remote working- remote workers still typically gravitate to existing metro areas.
People are already decentralizing by trying to move to other cities, but this is only spreading the housing crisis. Boise and Spokane, among many other cities, have seen increases in rents as people attempt to seek new housing there. NIMBYs are in those cities, too, and housing production because of that has not kept up. The solution to the housing and homelessness crisis is to build more housing where people need it.
No, earlier you said you support NIMBYs blocking the construction of new housing. That's the opposite of supporting new housing construction. Your last sentence about empty properties (that aren't actually ready for people where they need to live) also suggests that you don’t want new housing.
The blocking of new housing by NIMBYs has caused a shortfall in the housing supply. This is causing higher rents and more homelessness. I am pointing out that NIMBYs are responsible for the housing and homelessness crisis. Pointing that out is pointing out facts, not hate mongering. How is it hate mongering to point out a policy of blocking housing hurts ordinary people through high rents and homelessness?
Think about how many people are not politically engaged on the national level despite the huge stakes for everyone. Now take that to the local level where a lot of people don't even know who their city council person is. It's not surprising that much of the public is disengaged from local politics despite the stakes.
The blocking of new housing by NIMBYs has caused a shortfall in the housing supply. This is causing higher rents and more homelessness. I am pointing out that NIMBYs are responsible for the housing and homelessness crisis. Pointing that out is pointing out facts, not hate mongering. How is it hate mongering to point out a policy of blocking housing hurts ordinary people through high rents and homelessness? Please do not accuse people of being Hitler...for pointing out negative effects of NIMBY created policy. Please keep on topic.
I only started posting about NIMBYs repeatedly after you kept repeatedly posting about one mention of them in one of my posts. I never even said NIMBYs were a tiny minority. I only claimed that the majority of people want more housing. It seems to me that you are the one who are obsessed with NIMBYs, not me.
And earlier you were criticizing the influence of corporations in our government. Corporate executives and major shareholders also make up a small minority of people in this country. How would you feel if someone came up to you after you criticized corporations and said "Replace corporations with Jews and see what you get in your speech"? That would be unfair to you and you doing that to me is unfair to me.
Most of my arguments in my posts here are about how building more housing will benefit people. I have already formed many arguments about the positive effects, which is the opposite of focusing on negatives.
I've already addressed this in an earlier post. Most vacant properties are between residents or are in places where there isn't much demand, like a distant rural town: https://ggwash.org/view/73234/vacant-houses-wont-solve-our-housing-crisis. So vacant units are not a solution to the housing crisis.
And we want more vacancies because it increases competition between landlords (thus lowering rents) and makes it easier for residents of a city to move to where they need to live. Think of it like a siding square puzzle- the more empty spaces are around, the easier it is to move a square to where you want it.
And the higher the vacancy rate is in a city, the lower its homelessness and rent burden rate is: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/ The cities with high rents have low vacancy rates.
We still need to build much more housing. There's no way around this need.
Let me repeat myself since I already explained how:
I already responded to that with my previous points that other countries have already done it quite successfully. Just look at other developed countries with higher urban densities then most American cities. Eirope has twice the population of the U.S and has successfully built many, many cities worth of density. A lot of them achieve it through low rise density like the aforementioned five story or lower buildings. I've already mentioned this several times before, so I have considered the scale of things and have concrete examples to back it up.
This is a constructive, precise answer- other countries have done it successfully, so we can too.
As we already discussed above in previous posts, the blocking of new housing by NIMBYs has caused a shortfall in the housing supply. This is causing higher rents and more homelessness. I am pointing out that NIMBYs are responsible for the housing and homelessness crisis.
Ordinary people, meanwhile, are the ones who are being hurt by the NIMBYs' policies. They are the ones who are paying high rents and becoming homeless because of the housing shortage caused by the NIMBYs. Note that I said NIMBYs are causing the shortage, not regular people (in this and previous posts). Pointing out that ordinary people are being hurt by NIMBY policies is the opposite of blaming ordinary people.
So, we have a cause of the housing crisis (not enough housing), which we have discussed in previous posts. Pointing out the cause of the housing crisis is the opposite of ignoring what caused it.
As already posted in a previous post, the majority of the public is very weakly politically engaged at the local level. They don't pay much attention to local politics. However, NIMBYs tend to be heavily engaged in local politics. Because of this, they have much more power in local politics then their size would suggest. Because of this, they are able to much more easily block new housing construction.
Pointing out that NIMBYs are responsible for the housing shortage is pointing out well established facts, the opposite of demagoguery.
There is a problem because NIMBYs are blocking people's property rights to build new housing supply on their own land. NIMBYs are not being forced to build anything on their own land, yet they are dictating other people's decisions on what to do with said other people's land.
People working to build more housing are not forcing anything upon anyone else.
NIMBYs blocking other people from building housing are forcing something upon them.
I have already explained how we can build more housing in previous posts. We can copy what other countries have done with allowing much more housing construction and do that. Just look at all the other countries with denser cities then American cities, which they acheive in large part with low rise, five story and below, density.
The European and other countries that have successfully built enough housing to have low rents and homelessness have solved problems because of this. They have lower housing prices for ordinary people and low rates of homelessness. Pointing out that they have solved problems is the opposite of ignoring problems.
I've already posted at length throughout all my posts here about what can be done to fix the housing shortage. Just allow the construction of much more housing (and as already talked about in here in a previous reply, because it is market rate private sector construction, no public funding is needed for the housing construction) . That's it, that's the policy.
It was referencing your previous post where you said that ignorance is a sign of a tyrant, and I was providing an example of how people not knowing a particular fact is not them being a tyrant. Responding to other people arguments with a counterexample is being coherent.
I already responded to that with my previous points that other countries have already done it quite successfully. Just look at other developed countries with higher urban densities then most American cities. Eirope has twice the population of the U.S and has successfully built many, many cities worth of density. A lot of them achieve it through low rise density like the aforementioned five story or lower buildings. I've already mentioned this several times before, so I have considered the scale of things and have concrete examples to back it up.
See above.
As we have discussed before, upzoning allows other people (not you) to voluntarily build higher density housing on their own land to meet housing demand. No one is forcing other people to live with you. No one is forcing you to build more housing on your own property. No one is forcing people to live in dense housing- the demand is coming from people who voluntarily want to live in dense housing. I do not know where you are getting this from.
See my second paragraph here, and my previous detailed discussions in previous posts.
You seemed to imply earlier that there was infinite demand for housing in cities. I pointed out that there wasn't.
Politicians doing things that voters want is not a divide and conquer tactic.
Okay. So what? You don't have to live in a city if you don't want to. People are living on homes on their own land or other people's land that they mutually agreed to use. They are not living with you.
Besides, people are already here. Plus, there's children growing up and splitting off to start their own households, which will create more demand for housing. We still need to build much more housing.
There's also the fact that much of the demand in cities is from native born Americans moving back into cities. We would still need to build more housing in cities if we take into account just them.
Also, my point about population growth not being infinite and not everyone is moving to America still stands.
Other countries have built densely with mostly only five story buildings and below, and they are much more dense then the urban parts of the U.S. So yes, we can have low rise density to meet housing demand.
The polls I posted were in support of upzoning in general being a decently popular concept. I did not make any claims about them supporting specifically five story buildings (but there are polls out there showing support for low rise density like that).
Lisa the nurse from Colorado thinks that NASA's budget makes up 10% of the budget, when it really is much less. Does that make her a tyrant? No, it does not.
We know that a lack of housing is the primary factor behind America's housing and homelessness crisis: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/
We also know that NIMBYs blocking new housing is the main reason for the housing shortage.
Other things we have tried, like rent control and vacancy taxes, have only helped a little bit with housing. There's no other way to fix most of the housing and homelessness crisis without
So, we have examined all the options, found most of them not sufficient, and arrive at building much more housing as the solution. That's taking a broad view of things and examining all the options.
The polls I posted were in support of upzoning in general being a decently popular concept. I did not make any claims about them supporting specifically five story buildings (but there are polls out there showing support for low rise density like that). That's being honest.
Regular people are the ones who are suffering from high rents and homelessness because of a lack of housing. Regular people are being made unhappy by shelling out huge parts of their income to landlords and struggling to find housing. No wonder why ordinary people are angry at NIMBYs, because NIMBYs are making them miserable by blocking new housing.
So, we can conclude that on my end, there has been no tyranny.
Also, NIMBYs blocking housing are preventing ordinary people from exercising their property rights. They are also blocking ordinary people from getting cheaper housing and blocking ordinary people from getting out of homelessness. In short, they are reducing ordinary people's rights.
Ordinary people working for more housing are expanding ordinary people's property rights. They are also helping ordinary people get cheaper housing and getting ordinary people out of homelessness. They are expanding ordinary people's rights.
Tyrants are typically considered to be reducing ordinary people's rights. Who are the tyrants, the NIMBYs who are reducing ordinary people's rights or the ordinary people for more housing who are increasing ordinary people's rights?
Also, a lot of what you originally brought up does not relate to the actual topic, the lack of housing for people. Could you please try to keep to the actual topic?
You'll note that we've been discussing market rate housing. The free market, if unburdened by NIMBYs, will build it for us. There's no cost to you for the housing.
It turns out that density costs less then sprawl: http://usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2015/03/Halifax-data.pdf So, we are saving taxpayer money in the long run with density.
Plenty of other countries have densities at that level, like most European cities. So, yes, it is very possible to upgrade infrastructure to and have an economy that supports that level.
Ditto for resources- other countries do it fine. And density is a savings on resources: https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels-carbon-footprint-sa... Denser areas use less resources per capita then sprawling areas.
Besides, the people are already here. They're going to be using the resources anyway. We're just building more housing to meet their needs. And as above, density saves on those resources.
More housing and more density:
-Lowers rents and housing prices
-Reduces homelessness and all the negative effects from that
-Reduces poverty and inequality stemming from high rents
-Reduces sprawl and its negative impacts on the environment
-Reduces resources use
-Uses less taxpayer money per capita then sprawling
-And more!
So, building more housing and allowing more density is a holistic solution that addresses a lot of society's problems. The underlying problem is that people don't have enough housing, and that is causing all sorts of other issues.
Other "solutions" like not building housing and forcing ordinary people to pay very high rents and driving ordinary people to homelessness are heavy handed in their effects. Still other possible solutions like rent control solve only a little of the issue. Building more housing is the solution that fixes most of the issue.
We have considered the housing and homelessness crisis from a wide variety of views (it's negative impact on ordinary people's lives, it's negative impact on ordinary people's finances, it's negative impact on the environment, it's negative impact on city finances), etc.) We have gotten a lot of information about it that expands our knowledge in all directions, and found that building more housing has a lot of positives for ordinary people. We have found that not enough housing is the underlying issue, and building more housing fixes that.
Building more housing is the best solution for a lack of housing for people.
No one is forcing you to have other people living in your own home. In contrast, NIMBYs blocking the construction of more housing on other people's property are reducing the property owners' freedom.
Most people are only weakly politically engaged on the local level. This allows for NIMBYs who are much more politically involved on the local level to block housing. Hence why California and Washington, among other states, are bypassing the NIMBYs by mandating broad upzoning on a statewide level.
You have the freedom to move to and live in a low density area. However, people do not have the right to force other people into poverty and homelessness just because they don't like new market rate housing.
That makes no sense. Cuban Americans are a big Republican voting group and the GOP caters to them, but you don't typically get people accusing the Republican Party of catering to Cubans as a tactic to divide white voters.
There is no infinite demand for housing because population growth is not infinite.
The entire population of the Earth is not moving to America.
NIMBYs blocked enough new housing supply to be built to meet demand from a growing population. Therefore, we can properly blame NIMBYs.
American birth rates are above replacement rate, and even if they were below replacement rate, population growth would still continue for a while because of new generations being born. There's no way around this- people need a place to live and we can build more housing or see more poverty and homelessness.
No one is saying that random people have to build housing themselves. By mass upzoning, we can leave that up to the free market which will respond to demand and lower prices.
Building more housing lowers prices, which reduces homelessness and poverty. Poverty and homelessness cause all sorts of other problems. Therefore, by building more housing, we reduce problems in the future.
Considering that upzoning typically is allowing up to five story buildings, where you are getting the skyscrapers stuff from?
NIMBYs are causing poverty and homelessness by blocking new housing. So NIMBYs are the one who are causing the problems, and people who want more housing are fixing the problems.
People do not have the right to force people into homelessness and poverty by blocking housing, just like I can't stop my car on the freeway for hours and block traffic and excuse it for saying "it's a personal choice".
NIMBYs blocking other property owners from building more housing on the other property owners' own land are forcing their own personal choice onto the property owners. It's no longer a matter of personal chpice if the NIMBYs are reducing other people's rights.
Ordinary people are the ones who are become homeless and having a lot of money being sucked away from them because of high housing prices. Ordinary people are the people who are paying the price for NIMBYs blocking housing. NIMBYs are the ones who are not leaving ordinary people alone. The people who are working for more housing are the ones leaving ordinary people alone so they are not paying high rents or mortgages or are not homeless.
Homeless people and people spending a lot of their income on rent are also, well, people. By blocking new housing that would stop them from being homeless and from shelling out too much hard earned money to big corporations, aren't NIMBYs treating people being hurt by high rents and little housing as numbers?
One group of people are working for more housing to reduce poverty and homelessness. They are also working to increase property owners' rights. They are working to increase people's rights to live decently and not be homeless. They are working to expand property rights.
Another group of people are blocking housing from being built, which throws more people on the street and more people into poverty. Their blocking of housing also reduces property owners' property rights. NIMBYs are taking away people's right to not be homeless and their right to live decently. They also are taking away people's property rights.
Tyrants are generally considered to be taking away rights. The people working to allow the construction of more housing are expanding rights. The people blocking housing are taking away rights. Who are really the tyrants?
You stated "No need to build new stuff in regular people's backyards", which I read as a general comment about development in general, not the game. All my responses have not been about the game, but about how cities badly need new housing to lower rents and reduce homelessness.
Upzoning is the opposite of a cap on demand. It allows for much more housing to be built to meet demand and lower rents. Also, population is not growing to infinity, so there isn't infinite demand for housing.
A few local residents successfully opposing the construction of more market rate housing is how we got in this mess- high rents, low supply, and high homelessness. We need much more housing to be built, which means allowing the construction of much more housing everywhere in residential and commercial zones.
No one is making you or other people live in a high density area.
Sprawl and low density put significantly more strain on municipal budgets then higher density: http://usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2015/03/Halifax-data.pdf It costs a lot more per person to, say, run a water pipe to a low density neighborhood then a higher density one.
Sprawl is environmentally damaging: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.oecd.org/enviro... If you want to prevent sprawl to protect the environment, the solution is to build more housing in cities.
??? Voter fraud is very rare: https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/vote-suppres...
Blocking people using their property rights to build more housing on their own land is a lessening of freedom by bureaucrats and politicians who do the zoning. It channels massive wealth from high rents to big corporations.
I don't get to block people from driving cars with colors I don't like or wearing clothing I think looks ugly. Why should people be able to block where other people want to live?
Also, keep in mind that the NIMBY blocking of housing through the last several decades has been enough to cause a massive housing prices and homelessness crisis in the U.S. We can't afford any more roadblocks to building much more housing. NIMBYs' "personal choices" have made housing unaffordable for many people and forced many others into homelessness. It's no longer a personal choice if it affects such a large group of people.
Too long to detail, so sorry, but no.
As I already mentioned above, Paris achieves it's density mostly through low rise density.
The majority of Paris looks like this, but more middle class.
Paris has over 2.1 million people. It turns out these buildings can house them just fine.
Economists generally agree that building much more housing both lowers rents and meets demand: https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-apartment-buildings-low-income-ar...
Banlieues tend to exist in suburbs of cities in France. That's a strike against suburbs and for cities.
There can be affordable market rate housing as well- things like older garden apartments often fill this area in many cities.
We're not talking about the game, so I'm not sure why you brought that up. I was pointing out that higher vanacy rates typically lower rents in my original post. I did not even mention the game.
??? The stuff I've linked to is about building more market rate housing to lower rents and homelessness. I haven't mentioned social housing until you brought it up out of nowhere.
I just pay attention to local politics in the places I have lived in, and notice a lot of NIMBY opposition to new market rate housing.
You already answered your own question: the poll is talking about missing middle housing- stuff like triplexes and low rise apartment buildings. I also pointed that out. I never brought up social housing until you did.
Homelessness can be addressed without social housing if you want to. It turns out that the biggest driver of homelessness is a lack of housing. Simply allowing the construction of much more market rate housing increases the vanacy rate, which drives down rents and homelessness: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/
So I have no idea why you are going on about social housing.
I have used all the statistics and polls in their original context. A lot of people, including in New York City, support allowing the construction of more housing: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/rpa-org/pdfs/RPA-NYC-Issues-Survey-Topline-F0...
New York City has a low vanacy rate. And so on.
The Sightline poll literally shows that "A poll conducted this January shows over two-thirds of polled Washington voters support a statewide zoning law to construct more missing middle housing."
It is talking about market rate new housing, not social housing. Your original post on this game was about market rate housing, judging by the mention of corporations on it, and I responded with points about market rate housing. I don't know why you keep bringing up social housing and crime when I was talking about market rate housing.
The majority of NIMBYism I've seen is resisting new market rate housing. So, presumably people do care about duplexes.
We can solve homelessness, lower rents, and enable people to easily move where they can get jobs or have family. As linked to in previous posts, building more housing immensely helps with that.
As discussed in a previous post, Paris has twice the population density of New York City, but they do it with mostly five story and below buildings:
So your argument about giant skyscrapers is false, because New York City can build the housing it needs without them and with just five story and below buildings like the ones above.
And both people in New York City and the people moving there generally support greater density as posted in a previous post, so we should give them what they want.
It should be noted that I've been talking about things like five story buildings and duplexes, yet you bring up skyscrapers when I never mentioned them. Not sure why you are doing this.
I am talking about upzoning and building more housing in general, not social housing. I'm not sure where you got the impression that I'm talking about social housing.
Anyway, back to the point. Polling finds that a lot of Americans in big cities are fine with building more housing to meet the demand from people who live there.
The point is that NYC is still having little in the way of vacancies, and Manhattan's vacancy rate has dropped a lot as far as I can tell from 2021 to 2022. NYC still needs more housing.
I am pointing out that the Corcoran Group's survey is much more likely to reflect current vacancy rates then the older government survey (which still shows low vacancy rates across New York City).
Companies regularly publish their own internal research for publicity. And pointing out that New York City still has low vacancy rates is a valid point to make.
People want lower rents and the ability to be able to easily move between different housing units. Building more housing lowers rents and enables people to move much more easily to where they want to live. The people demand more housing.
Polling also shows that plenty of people in America want more housing to be built: https://www.sightline.org/release/poll-strong-majority-of-washingtonians-support...
People in New York City also feel the same way: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/rpa-org/pdfs/RPA-NYC-Issues-Survey-Topline-F0...
Most vacant units are in between residents and will have someone else in them within a few months to a year: https://ggwash.org/view/73234/vacant-houses-wont-solve-our-housing-crisis
And we also know that the higher the vanacy rate is, the lower rents tend to be and the lower homelessness typically is: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/
Building more housing will lower prices and reduce homelessness and unaffordability.
Think of it this way: housing is like one of those moving square puzzles, and the more open spaces you have in it, the easier it is to move around the squares. The higher the vanacy rate is, the easier it is for people to get lower rents because of the competition.
And despite all that spending, homelessness is still high in New York City. And we can turn to surveys of homelessness that don't give the homeless any benefits from participating in them, and they still find that homelessness is high in New York City.
As above, the current programs and rent control still have New York City at extremely high rents and high homelessness. They are not cutting it.
Vancouver tried a vanacy tax. It was good, but only brought a grand total of a few hundred units onto the market (because of the aforementioned most vacant units just being between residents). Vanacy taxes are only going to fix a tiny portion of the issue.
Allowing the construction of much more housing lowers rents and homelessness. It also lowers the profit per unit of landlords. Building much more housing is siding with ordinary people who need lower rents and lower homelessness.
Demand means a lot of people want to live there. America has already sprawled out all it can.
A lot of people want to live there. That’s literally the will of the people.
Polling shows that building more housing is the will of the people: https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/02/03/poll-indicates-wa-favor-missing-middle/
American cities are far from overcrowded. NYC is half the density of Paris, a city many people find desirable and achieves most of its density through 5 story and below buildings.
And besides, it's literally the people themselves who want it- they want to live there, so we should let them.
If we don't want people to have to share housing, there is a simple solution to that. Build more housing so people can have their own apartments and houses.
The article you cite says that the government report found that "The report found that 4.54% of all New York apartments are vacant as of 2021." That’s a pretty low vacancy rate for a city! The government survey was also conducted when NYC still felt some of the effects of people avoiding urban areas from the pandemic, while, the newer survey is from 2022, when those effects have mostly gone away. A global real estate company would also want to conduct an accurate survey, because then they can use the information to invest better.
No matter what the source being used, NYC still has a low, low vacancy rate, which landlords love because low supply means they can charge much more.
New York City's vacancy rate is very low: https://inhabit.corcoran.com/new-york-city-residential-rental-market-report-may-...
Manhattan has a vacancy rate of about 1.7%!
Los Angeles has millions of people, so what we should be looking at is the vacancy rate, which is very low at about 3%: https://therealdeal.com/la/2022/02/09/study-confirms-market-heat-pinch-on-apartm...
The higher the vacancy rate, the lower rents and homelessness typically are: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/
There is demand for a lot more housing in LA and other cities, which can only be met by building much more housing.
It still doesn't make sense to have an empty unit, because there are plenty of high paying tenants in a supply constrained market.
Reminder that there are not actually that many vacant properties out there where people want to live:
https://ggwash.org/view/68831/no-vacancy-is-a-problem-when-people-need-homes
Vacancy rates are very low in cities with high housing prices, and most vacancies in those cities are simply units changing hands between different residents.
As for investors buying up units, we know that they are not keeping them empty, because vacancy rates count investor owned units as well, yet have found the same very low vacancy rates. Why would investors want to lose money on an empty unit when they can simply rent out the unit instead?
Vacant units are not a solution to high housing prices.