Normally, the Antiplanner doesn’t have time for on-line games. But here is a great on-line game illustrating the insanity of housing in Vancouver, BC, which Wendell Cox says is the least-affordable housing market in Consume Medicine In The Presence Of Sexual Stimulation The penis becomes hard by the flow of the blood into the male reproductive uk viagra online organ. It is a vicious cycle that can seriously put viagra uk delivery your sexual life in danger. Lawax capsules improve stamina, strength and offers control over your ejaculate and helps to last longer in controlling ejaculate to satisfy her in bed. cheap levitra pills It supplies the essential cialis soft generic nutrients in bio-available form. the English-speaking world. Of course, the reason it is unaffordable is that Vancouver adopted a growth-management plan in the 1970s that put 70 percent of the land in the region off limits to development.
-
Recent Posts
- A Look at the Wacky Transit Industry
- The Affordable Housing Industrial Complex
- This Just In: Remote Work Changed Travel
- February Driving Up 2.3 Percent from 2019
- Is It Safe to Ride Transit?
- Transit Daily Riders Down 24.2% from 2019
- Cordelia Is Running Ramsey County
- Montanans Against Irresponsible Density
- Europe More “Auto-Dependent” Than U.S.
- 2022 Highway Subsidies Were 1¢/Passenger-Mile
Calendar
Categories
- Book reviews (59)
- City planning (122)
- Entrepreneurs (17)
- Fish & wildlife (10)
- Follow up (119)
- Housekeeping (201)
- Housing (276)
- Iconoclast (50)
- Meltdown (28)
- Mission (79)
- News commentary (939)
- Planning Disasters (95)
- Policy brief (147)
- Public lands (68)
- Regional planning (312)
- Transportation (2,439)
- Travels (35)
- Urban areas (367)
- Useful Data (231)
- Why Planning Fails (33)
- Wildfire (61)
Tags
airlines Amtrak Austin automobiles bicycles bus-rapid transit bus transit California commuter rail congestion Denver driverless cars energy heavy rail high-speed rail highways Honolulu housing housing affordability infrastructure intercity bus intercity passenger trains intercity rail light-rail transit light rail Los Angeles low-capacity rail New York New York City Portland rail transit reauthorization San Antonio San Francisco San Francisco Bay Area Seattle self-driving cars streetcar streetcars tax-increment financing transit transit-oriented development Twin Cities Washington Washington DCFaithful Allies
- American Dream Coalition Protecting freedom, mobility, and affordable homeownership
- California Chaparral Institute Defends natural management of Southern California forests
- Debunking Portland Portland has become a PR machine for the Light Rail & Streetcar industry. We are telling the other side
- Demographia Wendell Cox’s compilation and review of population data
- Public Purpose Wendell Cox’s compilation and review of transport data
- Reason Foundation Supporter of improved urban transportation
- Save Portland Documents subsidies to Portland transit-oriented developments
Loyal Opponents
- American Planning Association Voice of the urban planning profession
- American Public Transportation Association Lobby group for the transit industry
- Market Urbanism Smart-growth advocates in a free-market guise
- The Public Transit blog Reasonable (for a rail-transit advocate) analysis of transit data
- Victoria Transport Policy Institute Promotes rail transit & smart growth
Popular Blogs
- Prepare for Wildfire How to make your home firewise
- Streamliner Memories The Antiplanner’s blog about the history of American passenger trains
Useful Data
- Highway Statistics US DOT’s annual compilation of highway data
- Home price comparison index Coldwell Banker’s annual estimate of the value of similar homes in more than 300 cities
- House Price Index Department of Commerce’s quarterly compilation of changes in housing prices
- National Transit Database US DOT’s annual compilation of transit data
- National Transportation Statistics US DOT’s annual compilation of transportation data
- Transit Database Visualization Graphs of the National Transit Database showing ridership trends by agency and mode.
Meta
The Antiplanner’s Other Blog: Streamliner Memories
Antiplanning Books
Ah. So Randal has never been to Vancouver. He erroneously states growth management is the reason. I guess if you want to build on water, that would be true.
So we can choose high in-migration with many people with money, tons of amenities, lack of buildable land, relatively stable market, high ownership culture…or we can blame it on our pet peeve.
Sure.
DS
Perhaps Dan is the one who has never been to Vancouver. It is built next to water on the west. But on the east there happens to be an entire continent. In the Vancouver metro area, 70 percent of the land has been ruled off limits to development. It wouldn’t take much of that land to make housing a lot more affordable.
I used to live in Seattle, Randal. A buddy of mine lives in Burnaby.
Nonetheless, what are your calculations for affordability, rather than vague assertions?
DS
That was a funny game. But the crack shacks were much nicer than the “mansions.” Maybe Realtors are investing in the wrong product? 😉
Affordability is usually measures as housing expenses as % of income. Fairly straight-forward.
The nominal amount of rent or mortgage (in US$) is usually comparable (or relatable to), mostly regardless of regional avg income.
Oh, do I need to point out that there should be a certain value for the money?
That can be looked at price/sq.ft., among other things. Vancouver, coastal California & Manhattan has among the highest.
It wouldn’t take much of that land to make housing a lot more affordable.
Let me point out that on this site, when these claims are made about the Bay Area, the standard game is that I ask for what numbers of units would result in what reduction, and the standard reply is either crickets chirping or someone calling widdle namie-names to distract away from there being no answer.
So.
The Fraser Institute being nearby, and the obvious assertion needing actual evidence, surely the Fraser Inst has turned its prodigious and learned eye in the direction of driving policy toward paving over perfectly good land. So what does the Fraser Inst say about such things? Where is their devastating analysis that shows supply effects?
Where are the models in the empirical literature (never mind right-wing think tank “analyses”) that support Randal’s assertion? What does the economic literature say about increasing supply and “a lot more affordable”? How many for how much, sayeth economists?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Hello?
DS
Dan:
I’m not sure that you care, since you tend to just plug up your ears to any replies and then complain triumphantly that you don’t hear any, but here’s an article discussing some of the economic research on the topic. I realize that you consider Virginia Postrel, and Wendell Cox, and indeed anyone who disagrees with you as an ideologue.
Ed Glaeser has studied the topic more than anyone else, and his recent book a long with all his research (here’s one paper from 2002) suggest that increasing supply is both eminently possible and would decrease prices.
One excellent piece of evidence that it’s not land scarcity is that there’s an enormous difference between adding another quarter-acre to one housing lot, and the price of an empty quarter-acre lot with zoning permits to build another house. The price of the right to build a house is far, far, greater than the price of extra land. Gyourko and Gleaser’s research, as mentioned by Postrel, overwhelmingly supports this.
I realize that you consider Virginia Postrel…and indeed anyone who disagrees with you as an ideologue.
Nope. You are wrong.
Postrel is not a shill and you are still wrong. I read her and I already read your link when it came out. It doesn’t support Randal’s assertion. I’ve discussed the arguments in her essay numerous times on this site. One size does not fit all, despite some folks’ wish that it did, and wish Glaeser’s work supported their ideology (which I’ve discussed on this site numerous times).
Nonetheless, neither Glaeser nor Gyourko quantify adding x amount of land in y market would decrease prices (or Randal = increase affordability) by z. One wonders why such solid ‘wisdom’ hasn’t been tested and quantified, eh?
Thanks!
DS
In about every post, Dan shows his ignorance & inability to cogently address the subjects at hand. Additionally, Dan ignores the posts where his points are destroyed & where questions are brought up for him to elaborate, provide backing, etc.
Now, Dan has shown that he cannot even use & interpret maps.
Looking at Vancouver, one can see there is even more farmland than built land (east along border). So, fully built out, at new urbanism densities, the Vancouver area can hold over 20 million people.
The way Dan type about it made it seemed like V was in a small valley.
BTW, it’s kinda funny that all the skyscrapers are not very tall.
Their reason is to not block the view.
Above the level of ~100′, what view? It’s only blocking sky.
And for shadows, from the portions of buildings above ~300′, the shadow moves fairly fast.
Also, their road infrastructure is poor, partly due to rejecting a cross-town freeway, similar to the freeway revolts in the US, such as SF & Boston in the 60s
Dan has said before that he disagrees with Glaeser & Gyorko & Krugman (re: S&D), without giving any reasons. Dan, to be persuasive, to hold water, to show your point, you need to explain why, type how a certain position is yeah or neigh.
It would really be a neat trick for you to explain how increasing supply, by a large margin, would not bring down price. In fact, that would be so neat, that you would win a Nobel Prize for Economics.
Dan asks about testing S&D. He shows his ignorance again. That can be seen often in petroleum, foodstuffs & just about all commodities. Supply has more facets than just amount, such as lag, gov regs, gov markup, etc.
Many urban areas in the US have grown faster than the Pacific coast & the housing supply has increased appropriately.
For some urban areas that’s not allowed (UGB), for example, in the SF Bay Area, there is easily 1000+ square miles of available land, in the form of cropland, grassland, hillsides & bay-swamp. Just changing zoning for that land to residential is not sufficient. Although, that would be a big help & probably result in more price drops. There is a delay in building.
One of my biggest issues with Dan is not that he disagrees with Randall and others who comment on the posts. It’s the way he disagrees.
Searching his multitudinous comments reveals scores of ad hominem attacks and appeals to ridicule. On this thread, he infantilizes the host by using the phrase “someone calling widdle namie-names”.
It detracts from the discussion. To use an analogy, it’s like going into someone’s house who is hosting a gathering and then being a total dick to the host.
It needs to stop. If you don’t like the host or his point of view, disagree civilly and politely. If you can’t do this, leave the party.
Definitely & he appears to not even realize & claims BS when the obvious is stated.
As I typed before, he’s like the drunk asshole at a party, but do the commenting situation, you cannot ask him to leave or smack him. He has many double standards, including expecting answers, but avoiding many questions & outright statement that discredit his weak stance.
Yes, we see the flailing about for distractions because there is no answer. At least we can give an A for consistency!
Let us reiterate what is being distracted away from:
DS
Here is a sum
Dan, many people are telling you things about your personal behavior on this website. Try listening.
Dan should not listen. He fits in perfectly.
I already said this a few time round here, but what I find interesting about the antidaners is that they are so consumed with him that the conversation turns away from the original post and the focus is solely on him.
Dan’s comments are almost always pertaining to the discussion at hand. Maybe he is snarly, lacks tact, and is a name caller, but he is always talking about Mr. O’Tooles post or a least where the commenters have taken the post.
This is the last time I will say this (due to the inherent hypocrisy in the statement).
DAN IS NOT THE TOPIC! If you want to talk about what a jerk Dan is, then start the antidaner blog, otherwise try to at least have 1 point per comment that pertains to the discussion.
Dan,
Here is a good place to start. There are no estimates for Vancouver, since the author uses a US data set, but it is one of the few papers I’ve seen that disaggregates across regions.
bennett, Many comments try to get Dan to focus on the post, rather than him to focus on insults, & his nebulous vague generalities, plus trying to engage his opposing points, which he does not respond to.
Just a few posts back, I mentioned how much flatland space there is in the Vancouver area. He has been silent on that. His points are countered often & he loses by default. It makes you wonder how little he is interested in real discussion.
There is plenty of land in the Vancouver area that could easily double the housing area, within half the distance of the width of the built area. The municipal gov purposely does not allow building there.
MJ:
The elasticities are indeed correlated. That is not in dispute. I’ve brought it up myself **. The question is not related to elasticity – the what. As we have pointed out numerous times** on this site, housing is strongly demand-driven – the why. In attractive places, there is more demand for housing. Attractive means ‘ nice weather’ plus amenities plus ‘open space’ or ‘trees’ or ‘reserved areas’ or ‘lots of green’ or ‘nature nearby’.
Preserving these places makes places attractive. Having a strong economy and attractive environs is doubly attractive for demand, hence the coasts being expensive and esp West Coast. The double demand is a demand for supply of housing, jobs, attractiveness. Some public planners – Florida – make their living on getting cities to be more attractive to attract people who can bid up rents.
Paving over green and slapping up strip malls and McSuburbs and adding 250,000 more cars does not make a place attractive. It lowers demand due to the unattractiveness, traffic, bad air, etc. At some point the natives say ‘there are too many people impinging upon our QOL’ (not to be confused with Glaeser’s frequent assertion that in the NE USA people say ‘no more people’ to keep their home values high) and they want something done. The why. It is not the native’s fault that more people want to move to, say, Vancouver or Seattle than there is space, so Ricaridan rents’ equilibrium goes up.
It is up to the residents of a place to pave over green and slap up strip malls and McSuburbs to increase supply. If they say no, it is none of your business that a place where a small group of ideoolgues don’t live is expensive.
DS
** http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=180#comment-18305
note for how long the distractions have gone on.
Bennet, thank you for joining those of us who are concerned about the comments on this site. On most days Dan comments first, last and 10-15 times inbetween. Only a few of his daily comments are even substantive and as you noted, most are snarky, lack tact, and resort to name-calling. The discussions on this website are about professional topics and most professionals would not tolerate his behavior, much less read his rare substantive comments.
I am sure you would agree that if Dan can post snarky rude comments, then “Andy” can certainly throw snarky rude comments back in his face. I am sure you can agree that on the rare occasions Dan makes a substantive comment, then professionals are free to discount them and his credibility due to his outrageous unprofessional behavior. I feel sorry for the Planners or Anti-Antiplanners because Dan’s behavior greatly undermines their arguments.
If you are going to tolerate “Dan the Juvenile Troll” behavior on this site, then you are going to have tolerate “Andy” too. As I have said before, if Dan behaves like an adult, then “Andy” won’t need to comment.
Dan’s comments are almost always pertaining to the discussion at hand. Maybe he is snarly, lacks tact, and is a name caller, [and purposely adopts the practice of mirror-matching].
Thank you bennett.
Back OT:
DS
In response to Dan’s comments, I think a lot of people have answered the question about whether an increased supply of housing would reduce price. Even if the assertion that Glaeser found that “the demand side of the housing market may be a more important determinant of aggregate housing prices than local urban containment policies” was true, it does not negate or even seriously undermine the argument that an increased supply of housing would reduce price. After all, it is not surprising that people will want to move into and out of a metro area faster than housing stock will adjust.
So what is the dispute? Is Dan trying to argue that supply does not affect price? Or is Dan making a subjective claim that people ought to be allowed to make it hard to build new homes so as to increase the values of a limited housing stock? And which of those arguments undermines the Antiplanner’s comments?
I can’t understand why there has to be a specific model that empirically found how many units of housing would result in what reduction in housing prices in Vancouver in order for the more general theory to apply.
Dan,
I’m not sure if you took away the same message that I did. Note that in Green’s second-stage regression explaining supply elasticity values that higher house values are negatively correlated with supply elasticity. I’m really glad Green added this bit of analysis as it confirmed some of the casual observations provided in the region-specific supply estimates. San Francisco and San Jose both have extremely low supply elasticities. Thus, it cannot be possible that their high housing prices are the result of amenity factors alone.
What Green’s analysis points to — and this is an important point — is that the demand for regulation is endogenous to higher incomes (and house prices). This speaks to Glaeser’s point about wealthier people pulling up the gates after they find their ideal location. In other words, it’s not just the amenities of an area that make house prices high, it’s also the ability of the residents to keep others from enjoying them.
The question of the relative contribution of demand vs supply-side forces requires the estimation of a structural model of housing markets — one that accounts for demand and supply-side forces simultaneously. I’m too tired to go searching for one right now, but I’ll try to find one tomorrow.
Lastly, I want to address this point:
The why. It is not the native’s fault that more people want to move to, say, Vancouver or Seattle than there is space, so Ricaridan rents’ equilibrium goes up.
Cities like Dallas and Houston have also added lots of new residents over the last couple of decades. Yet their house prices have not gone through the roof. I presume that you use Seattle and Vancouver as examples because you happen to like those cities. But apart from some differences in terms of physical constraints, the only glaring differences between them are in terms of how much additional supply they choose to accommodate, as the paper I cited indicates.
Price results from supply & demand. It’s a shame that some don’t know that
Recall the intersection of the 2 curves; maybe some never had an econ class.
The disequilibrium which pushes prices, can be seen when there are low vacancy rates, roughly <5%, which is proof of a supply shortage/limitation.
There are many areas in the US that have high housing demand without high prices, as seen in the growth rates; those areas have adequate supply.
Nevada & Arizona are near “normal” prices now because supply is not lagging demand. Those 2 areas are still desirable to live in. There population has not declined.
BTW, California, since 2000, has had negative net domestic migration.
Meaning that more citizens leave CA than move to.
How’s that for low demand?
First of all, let us say a ballot measure comes up to pave over the green in the Vancouver area to slap up, say, 50,000 dwelling units.
How are you going to sell it? That it will reduce new home prices for new homes? You will have to say by how much, as opponents will ask this basic question; see, they will do a cost-benefit for the loss of QOL vs the small reduction in home price for someone else (and possible loss in value for them). And you will have to explain to the people who live there how much the reduced QOL (less green, more people, more traffic) will reduce their home values.
Let us know how such a ballot measure will do.
Second, Is Dan trying to argue that supply does not affect price? Or is Dan making a subjective claim that people ought to be allowed to make it hard to build new homes so as to increase the values of a limited housing stock? And which of those arguments undermines the Antiplanner’s comments?
Look: I’ve said this numerous times here. For years. As the link in 20 shows. The supply argument is overly simplistic. And it is none of your business whether residents of a place you don’t live don’t want large increases in population. The overly simplistic argument undermines Randal’s “argument”.
Third, MJ, I bolded the why above. Why communities make it hard. Esp in California, where the ecosystems are struggling to supply services and absorb waste. I’ve discussed this here many times as well. And even Glaeser disagree with you about CA and, say, HOU. Houston has no hills, water, seismic to limit development outward. Bay Area has seismic, water, buildable land (slopes). Sorry.
DS
Neighboring dwellers/voters should not have a say in how property owners use their land.
There are limits, such as interferences (odor, noise), so don’t be ridiculous is saying anything can go up. We’re basically taking same zoning–residential.
This drawbridge principle is what influneces public policy, inflating housing prices.
Just claiming “simplistic” does not change the fact that more supply, lowers price.
It doesn’t matter about all of the factors that create demand. Looking at Texas (25M people) & its low housing prices should clearly debunk the demand only premise.
Previous comments? Dan, just because “you say” does not make it so. Evidence & reasoning are needed.
You have even provided a quote from Glaeser & Gyourko that disproved your position.
You thought it supported you because you only read the first part, stating that
~most of the US does not have high housing prices. You neglected the remainder, that stated, ~certain markets (ie Pacific coast) have prices well above construction costs, due to policies that restrict supply, mainly through the permitting & zoning process.
According to the demand/growth idea of pushing price, This list of cites should be correlated with prices.
Demand is a factor, but the difference with supply has a big impact on price changes. That gap can be measured in the vacancy rate.