I consider high-density housing to be a separate conversation. I entirely agree that high-density housing should be encouraged and would largely solve this issue (assuming apartments can't rent out as AirBNBs like they do so frequently now). However, I don't want "we need more supply" to justify building more housing when we have enough developed land as-is to build high-density housing with ease.
Do you have any example of higher density real estate development leading to affordable housing? High density only seems to stress existing resources and infrastructure while making cost of living more unaffordable.
It’s baffling. And yet, we keep buying the myth of high density sustainability. This year is going to be the year I give up all delusions and stop being naive.
That's a curious position to take, and I expect a rain of downvotes on your comment. What makes you say that? Are you just opposed to high-density living?
There are people on this very page who could well afford to live in a high or low density area and are arguing the benefits they experience and their preference for high-density.
Building more housing units would lower the price of housing units. The question is, within that, how should we approach it. I don’t think plopping randomly placed high-density buildings into low-density neighborhoods is optimal compared to planned development.
I don't think either side of the argument is necessarily wrong. Both high and low density housing bring different pros and cons as well as different elements that the residents of either one may not appreciate of the other.
The question of whether one form of housing development is better than the other is a red herring.
What we must ask is why we've organized cities the way we have, whether we can change how they are organized, and if we even should. That's because, let's face it, there's a form of NIMBY for both. Create more high density housing and the people with McMansions complain. Build some McMansions and the high density people cry "gentrification!" None of these people are going away, and neither one necessarily needs to lose their way of life.
The way I see it, there's too much a dichotomy between the city-life and the suburban or rural life. We might find ways to for them to better work together
For instance, although high density housing can be a good thing for many, from a structural standpoint they mostly make sense in dense urban cities and the outskirts of said cities. But why have dense urban cities in the 2020's? Why can't suburbs actually live up to the urb part?
Maybe we can actually use a lot of the vacant land we still have in America to create systems of small cities that can satisfy the needs of the many as well as the few? I don't think that there would be as much an opposition to high density development if it could be planned in such a way not to step on the toes of those who don't want to be around high density housing while still having a place for it. It would be better for policing and a sense of community.
Better yet, create networks of paths for bikes and tiny vehicles between said small cities. I mean actual bike paths, not the fake ones we paint on existing roads designed for cars. Economic opportunities could be created along those paths and make it simpler for towns to have their own cultures yet be involved with each other and easy to travel between without the hell of vehicle traffic.
I guess my thought is rather vague, but I still feel that we always end up asking the wrong questions.
You make good points for why it does not have to be the way it is. I agree there should be no constraint on higher density housing. Hopefully, people come around to this and supply of housing increases!
I think high density housing is a band-aid because there are sometimes significant infrastructure challenges to packing more people into a town. I’m not saying not to do it; I think it’s a good solution for many places, but I do not believe it is simpler than taxation
Your earlier still argument applies: higher density housing is cheaper, and brings in "bad elements" - people lower on the socio-economic scale who can't afford to buy or rent the less dense homes present currently. It's class warfare.
Of course I agree that high density housing is a great for cities. But I think you have conveniently forgot that this thread is about gentrification of existing communities, and not about Greenfield developments.
Maybe some people don’t mind cheap, tiny housing and we should be building extremely high density housing for those people to reduce the demand pressure?
No, and for good reason: if everything is high-rises then housing becomes too dense. The problem isn't lack of housing density. The problem is too many people wanting to live in a small area. We need to reduce demand (by spreading over a wider area - more cities and rural areas too) rather than increase supply.
No area has historically been built for high density housing. You build the housing and that creates new problems that you then solve, which in turn cause more problems to solve, etc. etc. in a process usually known as "life". The important thing is to serve the zeitgeist of today, rather than the perfectly spherical zeitgeist in vacuum of imaginary tomorrow.
It's not that it won't be near "trendy". It's that it won't be near jobs. Look at median salary and workforce participation in places where houses cost $200k. Your affordability calculation will be re-calibrated.
Density is not a problem, it is a solution. Denser means more developed, more environmentally friendly, more productive, higher earning, more efficient. Increasing density increases wealth (pay a little, gain a lot). It almost always increases wealth faster than costs.
The issue right now is that we are not allowed to build dense cities. We are not allowed to build single bedroom apartments where young, single workers need them to live next to new, productive jobs. We can only build single family homes and even then only at the periphery of huge cities. Massive swathes of downtowns are parking, highways, and single family houses -- when those should have been demolished and replaced with transit and dense towers long ago.
The market is screaming for the opportunity to build us dense housing. All we have to do is grant it.
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