Yes. This is the exact same argument we are having in Australia. The 'greedy developers' argument is put out there by people who live in restored workers cottages in the inner city and it has me fuming. We also need much stronger rental protections, and 5-10 year leases.
This guy is not simply opposed to relying on the "private market" (which is never applied to existing homeowners who want to cash out, they get to rely on the private market), he's opposed to letting developers buy lots and build what they want.
Furthermore, "build public housing" relies on someone paying- it's easy to demand that "the rich" pay to subsidize everyone else but what's rarely discussed is that in California longtime homeowners/landlords and their inheritors enjoy miniscule property taxes while new market-rate buildings built by "greedy developers" pay far higher taxes- i.e. they're the ones who are actually paying for all the services of these cities. If a city funds its own public housing, they're the ones largely paying for it anyway while longtime homeowners and landlords get away scot-free
I agree more housing is needed, but in NYC, for example, new buildings are going up all the time. However, once they are built, they stay empty.
When I was living in Brooklyn, several “luxury” condos were erected. I maybe saw one or two people ever leaving the one near me.
Now logic would dictate that this would drive down the property values, except we allow for investment properties. And, no, I'm not talking about AirBnB, where at least people can come and invest in the local economy. I'm talking about people buying properties and just letting them sit there. For some reason nobody ever talks about this.
"Many people who are have genuinely progressive values oppose new housing because they genuinely believe that doing so somehow puts them on the side of the working people and against the greedy developers. Unfortunately, no. It puts you on the side of the Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust and its pricing power."
This is wrong. Progressives opposed to new (private) housing *does* position them against private developers. Supporting all new housing, including any private projects, *does* necessitate supporting private developers.
I think the research on the pricing impact of new housing is more mixed than some seem to think, but it also shouldn't matter for coalitional purposes. If YIMBYs genuinely want to build a coalition with left-NIMBYs, they should limit their advocacy to new public housing. Nothing about doing so is counter to maximizing both public and private housing construction because here's the thing: Developers are more than capable of advocating for themselves. They all have more than adequate capital and networks to advocate for their projects and navigate the building process without YIMBYs demanding the working class plow its limited resources and energy into supporting private projects. All the developers (in NYC at least) have external lobbyists at every level of government, as well as internal employees, dedicated to advocating for their projects. If developers feel that they don't have adequate resources for that, they can reallocate some of their billions in executive pay for that purpose.
If YIMBYs have the strength and organization to get projects built, they should apply that strength and organization to getting new public housing built. I'd be thrilled to come out to a rally with YIMBYs for new public housing literally anywhere, but it'd be great if someone could explain to me why I should join a dozen staffers and lobbyists from Related to advocate on their behalf at a community board meeting, just so Stephen Ross can donate the project's resulting profits to Trump's next campaign.
Yes, yes, and yes. This is why I have been supporting CA YIMBY for years and will continue to do so until the cost of housing matches the cost of construction. We are choosing self-imposed deprivation. We can have more just be allowing ourselves to have more. It's incredible.
A complication of this is the challenge of supplying enough potable water to the current population, not to mention the increased population which will accrue when enough housing is available. There is new construction going up outside of the major cities in California, but the area is already using more water than is being replaced in the aquifers. We’re heading directly towards a supply cliff regarding the arguably most important resource for human survival, and few groups are seriously interested in alternatives such as desalination plants. “Build it and they will come”, by all means, but they will have to ration water or die of thirst.
I will admit that I don't know a ton about economics and that I only have a limited understanding of housing policy, although I've been trying to get my head around it a little more, but whenever I read something like this I can't help but feel like there's some degree of sleight of hand happening. Who is the "we" that must build more housing? Why is skepticism of the good intentions of property developers always waved away? And why are arguments like "public housing is good, but all we can do is vaguely support it, and all focus must go towards empowering private development" always included?
The "we" are the citizens who direct their local governments to block construction through endless zoning and construction requirements (FAR limits, height limits, parking requirements, etc).
> Why is skepticism of the good intentions of property developers always waved away?
Most YIMBYs imagine property developers intend to make money by building things that people want or need, much like sweater makers, restaurant operators, and automobile manufacturers. And pretty much the entire private sector. It turns out it works really well to pay people for providing you with things you need, regardless of whether those people have "good intentions". So it's not that the skepticism is waved away --- it's just that the intentions of developers don't actually matter any more for developers than they do for any other industry. (Do you argue that the government should make all cars so we stop supporting greedy auto makers with all their bad intentions?)
> And why are arguments like "public housing is good, but all we can do is vaguely support it, and all focus must go towards empowering private development" always included?
All focus need not go towards empowering private development. This argument you claim is "always included" is not included, not here or an any responsible YIMBY writing I've seen. Responsible YIMBYs want three things:
1. more public / affordable housing
2. more private / market rate housing
3. tenant protections to reduce displacement while we are working on #1 and #2
Public housing scares me a little. It's a great concept, but the minute a pol stops wanting to support the upkeep and maintenance of the project (yes, I know the connotation of that word), or budgets get cut, it seems like it becomes more degrading than uplifting, as well as a boondoggle to get back up to snuff.
"Public schooling scares me a little. It's a great concept, but the minute a pol stops wanting to support the upkeep and maintenance of the project (yes, I know the connotation of that word), or budgets get cut, it seems like it becomes more degrading than uplifting, as well as a boondoggle to get back up to snuff."
I mean this in the nicest way possible, get over it. The historic fact of society allowing public housing to become dilapidated should only motivate us to ensure that we're in a position to prevent that from happening again if/when we build new public housing.
So wait - Blackstone funds developers. If developers and YIMBYs are part of the (private sphere) solution, shouldn't we embrace that? I say more private and MUCH more public housing.
Since the rental market is so fragmented, Blackstone is probably on the margin making the market more efficient and driving prices down. But the correct take is that Blackstone only cares about housing because regulation/NIMBYism has created a unique market opportunity that they are exploiting. Any time and effort spent worrying about Blackstone is pointless, it's like worrying about a pimple when your arm is cut off. We simply need to remove barriers to adding supply to the housing market.
For sure. I just think the left's reflexively anti-corporate and anti-finance bent makes it more irrelevant, since it pits it against so many parties. We gotta be willing to build coalitions and make strange political bedfellows sometimes, but I fear that purity culture prevents that.
Modern Finance is more about extraction of money from wallets into their yachts than about building things. Exhibit A: high speed trading that exists only to exploit minute information delays, contributing nothing. A small FTT would fix that.
The left SHOULD be very anti-finance as it is currently constructed.
Modern finance is truly mostly about working within convoluted rules to generate a profit. We write down rules then business people do whatever they can within those rules to make themselves money. Sometimes we change the rules, then they get to work seeing how they can take advantage of those changes. That's what modern lawyering is about as well. Indeed that's what modern society is all about. I'm not sure how it could be otherwise unless the plan is just to burn down all of capitalism. Except oh wait socialist societies also have rules and people also exploit those for personal gain however they can. Perhaps the people are the problem? Or is this a problem at all?
Anyway, your high speed trading example is not true and a good example of why being against something without understanding it is dangerous. The type of "front-running" you're talking about (popularized and bastardized by Michael Lewis in Flash Boys) did kind of exist, but it's no longer possible and was never a large problem. HFT is generally (though certainly not always) good for the retail investor, reducing spreads and increasing liquidity in the market.
Also, a quick shout-out to housing density in central and transit-able places! Europe does this so well. America... well, America has a lot of nice rich low-density single family neighborhoods that are right next to downtowns.
Yes. This is the exact same argument we are having in Australia. The 'greedy developers' argument is put out there by people who live in restored workers cottages in the inner city and it has me fuming. We also need much stronger rental protections, and 5-10 year leases.
I join this guy in saying "yes to more density and more housing, but no to relying on the private market."
https://48hills.org/2023/08/what-kim-mai-cutler-and-the-yimbys-keep-getting-wrong/
This guy is not simply opposed to relying on the "private market" (which is never applied to existing homeowners who want to cash out, they get to rely on the private market), he's opposed to letting developers buy lots and build what they want.
Furthermore, "build public housing" relies on someone paying- it's easy to demand that "the rich" pay to subsidize everyone else but what's rarely discussed is that in California longtime homeowners/landlords and their inheritors enjoy miniscule property taxes while new market-rate buildings built by "greedy developers" pay far higher taxes- i.e. they're the ones who are actually paying for all the services of these cities. If a city funds its own public housing, they're the ones largely paying for it anyway while longtime homeowners and landlords get away scot-free
I agree more housing is needed, but in NYC, for example, new buildings are going up all the time. However, once they are built, they stay empty.
When I was living in Brooklyn, several “luxury” condos were erected. I maybe saw one or two people ever leaving the one near me.
Now logic would dictate that this would drive down the property values, except we allow for investment properties. And, no, I'm not talking about AirBnB, where at least people can come and invest in the local economy. I'm talking about people buying properties and just letting them sit there. For some reason nobody ever talks about this.
"Many people who are have genuinely progressive values oppose new housing because they genuinely believe that doing so somehow puts them on the side of the working people and against the greedy developers. Unfortunately, no. It puts you on the side of the Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust and its pricing power."
This is wrong. Progressives opposed to new (private) housing *does* position them against private developers. Supporting all new housing, including any private projects, *does* necessitate supporting private developers.
I think the research on the pricing impact of new housing is more mixed than some seem to think, but it also shouldn't matter for coalitional purposes. If YIMBYs genuinely want to build a coalition with left-NIMBYs, they should limit their advocacy to new public housing. Nothing about doing so is counter to maximizing both public and private housing construction because here's the thing: Developers are more than capable of advocating for themselves. They all have more than adequate capital and networks to advocate for their projects and navigate the building process without YIMBYs demanding the working class plow its limited resources and energy into supporting private projects. All the developers (in NYC at least) have external lobbyists at every level of government, as well as internal employees, dedicated to advocating for their projects. If developers feel that they don't have adequate resources for that, they can reallocate some of their billions in executive pay for that purpose.
If YIMBYs have the strength and organization to get projects built, they should apply that strength and organization to getting new public housing built. I'd be thrilled to come out to a rally with YIMBYs for new public housing literally anywhere, but it'd be great if someone could explain to me why I should join a dozen staffers and lobbyists from Related to advocate on their behalf at a community board meeting, just so Stephen Ross can donate the project's resulting profits to Trump's next campaign.
Yes, yes, and yes. This is why I have been supporting CA YIMBY for years and will continue to do so until the cost of housing matches the cost of construction. We are choosing self-imposed deprivation. We can have more just be allowing ourselves to have more. It's incredible.
A complication of this is the challenge of supplying enough potable water to the current population, not to mention the increased population which will accrue when enough housing is available. There is new construction going up outside of the major cities in California, but the area is already using more water than is being replaced in the aquifers. We’re heading directly towards a supply cliff regarding the arguably most important resource for human survival, and few groups are seriously interested in alternatives such as desalination plants. “Build it and they will come”, by all means, but they will have to ration water or die of thirst.
I will admit that I don't know a ton about economics and that I only have a limited understanding of housing policy, although I've been trying to get my head around it a little more, but whenever I read something like this I can't help but feel like there's some degree of sleight of hand happening. Who is the "we" that must build more housing? Why is skepticism of the good intentions of property developers always waved away? And why are arguments like "public housing is good, but all we can do is vaguely support it, and all focus must go towards empowering private development" always included?
The "we" are the citizens who direct their local governments to block construction through endless zoning and construction requirements (FAR limits, height limits, parking requirements, etc).
> Why is skepticism of the good intentions of property developers always waved away?
Most YIMBYs imagine property developers intend to make money by building things that people want or need, much like sweater makers, restaurant operators, and automobile manufacturers. And pretty much the entire private sector. It turns out it works really well to pay people for providing you with things you need, regardless of whether those people have "good intentions". So it's not that the skepticism is waved away --- it's just that the intentions of developers don't actually matter any more for developers than they do for any other industry. (Do you argue that the government should make all cars so we stop supporting greedy auto makers with all their bad intentions?)
> And why are arguments like "public housing is good, but all we can do is vaguely support it, and all focus must go towards empowering private development" always included?
All focus need not go towards empowering private development. This argument you claim is "always included" is not included, not here or an any responsible YIMBY writing I've seen. Responsible YIMBYs want three things:
1. more public / affordable housing
2. more private / market rate housing
3. tenant protections to reduce displacement while we are working on #1 and #2
and we work hard on all three.
Public housing scares me a little. It's a great concept, but the minute a pol stops wanting to support the upkeep and maintenance of the project (yes, I know the connotation of that word), or budgets get cut, it seems like it becomes more degrading than uplifting, as well as a boondoggle to get back up to snuff.
"Public schooling scares me a little. It's a great concept, but the minute a pol stops wanting to support the upkeep and maintenance of the project (yes, I know the connotation of that word), or budgets get cut, it seems like it becomes more degrading than uplifting, as well as a boondoggle to get back up to snuff."
I mean this in the nicest way possible, get over it. The historic fact of society allowing public housing to become dilapidated should only motivate us to ensure that we're in a position to prevent that from happening again if/when we build new public housing.
So wait - Blackstone funds developers. If developers and YIMBYs are part of the (private sphere) solution, shouldn't we embrace that? I say more private and MUCH more public housing.
Since the rental market is so fragmented, Blackstone is probably on the margin making the market more efficient and driving prices down. But the correct take is that Blackstone only cares about housing because regulation/NIMBYism has created a unique market opportunity that they are exploiting. Any time and effort spent worrying about Blackstone is pointless, it's like worrying about a pimple when your arm is cut off. We simply need to remove barriers to adding supply to the housing market.
For sure. I just think the left's reflexively anti-corporate and anti-finance bent makes it more irrelevant, since it pits it against so many parties. We gotta be willing to build coalitions and make strange political bedfellows sometimes, but I fear that purity culture prevents that.
Modern Finance is more about extraction of money from wallets into their yachts than about building things. Exhibit A: high speed trading that exists only to exploit minute information delays, contributing nothing. A small FTT would fix that.
The left SHOULD be very anti-finance as it is currently constructed.
Modern finance is truly mostly about working within convoluted rules to generate a profit. We write down rules then business people do whatever they can within those rules to make themselves money. Sometimes we change the rules, then they get to work seeing how they can take advantage of those changes. That's what modern lawyering is about as well. Indeed that's what modern society is all about. I'm not sure how it could be otherwise unless the plan is just to burn down all of capitalism. Except oh wait socialist societies also have rules and people also exploit those for personal gain however they can. Perhaps the people are the problem? Or is this a problem at all?
Anyway, your high speed trading example is not true and a good example of why being against something without understanding it is dangerous. The type of "front-running" you're talking about (popularized and bastardized by Michael Lewis in Flash Boys) did kind of exist, but it's no longer possible and was never a large problem. HFT is generally (though certainly not always) good for the retail investor, reducing spreads and increasing liquidity in the market.
Also, a quick shout-out to housing density in central and transit-able places! Europe does this so well. America... well, America has a lot of nice rich low-density single family neighborhoods that are right next to downtowns.
You must live in the Washington DC area!