Paul Krugman argues that housing costs, not taxes, are what is drawing people to Georgia and Texas and away from California and New York. He’s partly right, but he’s mostly wrong.
What he fails to see is that the same impulse that attempts to control land uses in California, making housing expensive, also makes unduly regulates California businesses and boosts taxes to make California undesirable. The same impulse the attempts to control rents in New York City also leads to nanny-state rules and excessive bureaucracy that makes that city undesirable to many businesses.
Contrary to what Krugman says, housing prices in California and New York are high not because they’ve run out of land. California especially has plenty of land available while a good share of the New York and Connecticut counties bordering New York City are rural open space. Nor are prices high because cities won’t allow higher densities: if California cities didn’t have urban-growth boundaries, few people would want to live in higher densities.
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The real problem is a government-knows-best mentality that puts the desires of a few above the needs of the many. That same mentality leads California to impose the most restrictive rules on greenhouse gas emissions and leads New York to spend more than $2 billion a mile on subway tunnels. Until regulations like this and the taxes needed to support them change, California and New York will remain undesirable places to expand businesses, which is why they grow so slow.
Except there are no urban growth boundaries in southern California (other than Ventura County). As for density, just about any neighborhood in LA that’s zoned for single family would get denser if the zoning were changed and the market were allowed to function.
Good point letsgola. Father up north, in the Bay Area, NIMBY incumbent property owners ceaselessly attempt to use regulation to block any increase in density of residential housing. They also want to keep parking minimums in place regardless of whether new residents desire to pay for parking. In effect they are manipulating the market in their favor.
letsgola wrote:
Except there are no urban growth boundaries in southern California (other than Ventura County).
In my opinion, the above is a highly misleading comment.
Maybe not de jure urban growth boundaries established by state or local governments, but there are de facto ones established by large federal landholdings, especially to the north of the Los Angeles basin in the form of the Los Padres, Angeles and San Bernardino National Forests and to its east and southeast in the the Cleveland National Forest.
As for density, just about any neighborhood in LA that’s zoned for single family would get denser if the zoning were changed and the market were allowed to function.
Los Angeles is already the densest metropolitan region in the United States. How much more density do you desire?
Don’t forget – densities don’t ride public transportation.
So why are so many Bay Area exurban developments either ghost towns, as in Rio Vista or barely climbing out of the crater of the Great recession, like Mountain House. If your statement was true wouldn’t we expect housing prices in the exurbs to be as high or higher than prices in downtown San Francisco, Oakland or Berkeley?
Rio Vista and Mountain House are both extremely remote from most Bay Area jobs. Development at these locations never really did make sense but during the boom times it did occur because builders couldn’t get approval to build a significant number of single family homes at any better location. Attempts to outlaw sprawl resulted in huge leapfrog development at locations that made little sense.
Los Angeles is already the densest metropolitan region in the United States. How much more density do you desire?
Wrong question. Right question: how much more density does the market desire? (answer: more than what is allowed by regulations).
The LA Basin is built out, but there’s tons of room for sprawl in the Antelope Valley, the Victor Valley, and along the 215 in Riverside County, and the cities there are very pro-growth (pro SFR growth, anyway). You could probably support a few small towns in the Angeles & SB National Forests, but the topography is extremely rugged, which would make building very expensive.
How much density do I want? Personally, density doesn’t bother me. You could double the density of LA and it still wouldn’t feel that crowded (which is the genius of historic LA land use patterns, if you ask me). But it doesn’t matter how much density I want. The question is how much density does everybody want, and that’s a question you can answer through the market. The fact that some people feel they need restrictive SFR zoning in the first place suggests that we all know what the market’s answer would be.
“if California cities didn’t have urban-growth boundaries, few people would want to live in higher densities.”
Huh? Does this make sense to anyone else? Are you saying that UGBs make people want to live in dense areas? And is there any evidence for this nearly nonsensical statement?
Didn’t make any sense to me either. How does the Antiplanner know that “few” want to live in high densities?
OK. The Antiplanner could have phrased his statement better. He should have said if California cities didn’t have urban-growth boundaries, few people would choose to live in higher densities. People can only choose from the options available to them.
How does the Antiplanner know that few want to live in high densities? He’s a pretty smart, pretty fair guy who has been observing actual human behavior.
“People can only choose from the options available to them.”
Simply brilliant. Now everything is clear.
“How does the Antiplanner know that few want to live in high densities? He’s a pretty smart, pretty fair guy who has been observing actual human behavior.”
Please. While I don’t doubt his intelligence, this is not evidence.
I’ve posted this before. It will undoubtedly be ignored again.
“In general, a majority of residents are living in the type of area where they say they would most like to live. Small town and rural residents are especially content: 75 percent of small town and rural residents would still live in a rural area if they could choose any place to live. Two-thirds of suburban residents would still choose to live in the suburbs, and 58 percent of city residents would still choose to live in the city.”
A majority currently living in a city are ok living in density.
“Half prefer the walkable community [presumably more dense] and 45 percent prefer the conventional suburb model.”
Again half is more than “few”.
But I’m sure this myth will be trotted out over and over and over until the dead horse has been beaten to a fleshy pulp.
Surveys like this are well and good, but they miss the central point: how many brewpubs are there? Brew pubs are sure sign that planners have infested your town.
Funny.
But Google brewpub + city planner for how totalitarian city planning departments have become.
One article shows how city planners and governments have regulated private property out of existence:
It’s not really private property if you can’t use it without planners’ and government’s permission and permission is conditioned on silly requirements like what percent of your property must be retail sales and where your guests can and cannot sit.
Frank quoted a planning approval (with emphasis added):
She recommended the commission approve the permit as long as the owners obtain a city building permit, get permission from the state fire marshal, allow for at least 25 percent of the floor area to be for retail sales, consult with building and electrical inspectors and follow Oregon Liquor Control Commission guidelines for signage and outside seating.
Frank wrote:
It’s not really private property if you can’t use it without planners’ and government’s permission and permission is conditioned on silly requirements like what percent of your property must be retail sales and where your guests can and cannot sit.
Yet another legacy of Prohibition.
Though I admit to gladly going along with penny-ante stuff like the above if (in exchange) we (as a nation) terminate Nixon’s War on Drugs and (at a minimum) legalize marihuana.
Decrimalize. Don’t legalize. Legalization in WA has led to shortages and a three-fold price increase due to greedy taxation.
But, back to housing.
Here’s evidence that demand for places in certain neighborhoods is leading to microhousing. More than a few people want to live in these dense neighborhoods, but those grandfathered in or those with affluenza have developed a serious case of NIMBYISM. They LOVE voting for soshulists like Sharma, but they sure don’t Sawant anyone parking in “their” socialized parking spots in front of their million-dollar SFHs.
From the article:
“City Council next month will consider a proposal to restrict how and where Seattle’s smallest and most controversial homes are built.”
“Current regulations here limit the size of studio apartments to about 220 square feet and new projects must include community input via the city’s design-review process when they surpass a certain number of units — eight in low-rise zones and 20 in mid-rise zones.”
“DPD estimates it has approved 43 building-permit applications submitted since 2010 for micro-apartment projects, including 15 in 2013. Of those, 22 are complete, accounting for nearly 1,000 new homes. Another 25 projects await permits.”
Yes, but few want to live…
“Since 2010, most micro-apartment projects have been in low-rise zones within urban centers and villages.”
…in density.
“Valdez, however, claims micro-apartment construction, loosely regulated, can help keep rents down by boosting the city’s overall housing supply.”
This may be a case of housing prices being high because of a city not allowing higher density.
Yes, it’s the UGBs known as Lake Union and I-5 making Eastlake rents so high (Lake WA for Cap Hill and the Sound for Ballard); certainly if they were lifted, few would want to live in this density.
Frank, I think I detect a note of sarcasm above with regards to decriminalization versus legalization of marihuana (and perhaps other substances as well). Correct me if I am wrong.
As far as land use regulation goes, I think we are pretty well in agreement. Your points are pretty well spot-on.
Relevant to this thread is a N.Y. Times editorial from today.
Yes to Housing in Our Backyards
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s mission to fix New York’s affordable-housing problem is both daunting and necessary, like fortifying a sandy coastline against a rising sea. The waves in this case would include smothering rents and decades of decay and disinvestment in government-subsidized housing for the working class and the poor.
Finding or hanging on to a decent place to live in is hard and getting harder for those on the wrong side of the city’s income divide. Mr. de Blasio’s ambitious answer is to ramp up supply over the next 10 years. He wants to preserve 120,000 affordable units and build 80,000 new ones, much of them in developments of greater height and density than many neighborhoods outside Manhattan have seen.
It’s a plan for big changes in the cityscape, and as it gathers force, it will meet resistance.
We have already seen flare-ups of not-in-my-backyard syndrome across the boroughs. In Brooklyn Bridge Park, where the administration’s plan adds subsidized units to two planned luxury high-rises, there are lawsuits from 1-percenters who don’t want more people crowding the gleaming waterfront. Residents in East Harlem, including the City Council speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, worry that three planned 50-story towers will drive out the poor. In Queens, people are skeptical about how much of a proposed megaproject called Astoria Cove will truly be affordable. And on Manhattan’s West Side, where developers are grafting a six-story affordable-rent building onto a luxury tower, some are objecting to the project’s separate entrances. They say “poor doors” are repugnant and stigmatize those who can’t afford the units with the concierge.
Why is Bill DeBlasio trying to build more housing? Few people want to live in high densities.
“Frank, I think I detect a note of sarcasm above with regards to decriminalization versus legalization of marihuana (and perhaps other substances as well). Correct me if I am wrong.”
No sarcasm. Cynicism. The state is greedy when it taxes 25% at each level of production, even if “It’s for the Children!” Again, it has tripled the price. Drove by Seattle’s only legal weed store yesterday, and there was a line out the door and around the block. Looked like, an hour after the store opened, they were already out of their one strain they had in stock as an employee was out front seemingly to turn people away. Reminds me of Soviet breadlines, but for weed. If marijuana were decriminalized and not regulated or taxed, MMJ shops could have sold it, and demand would be met, the market would set prices, and the black market would die. Plus, it’s still not legal to grow or to smoke outdoors, and at least one cop is disproportionately citing homeless minorities.
I think all illegal drugs should be decriminalized at all levels. Again, not legalized. Take all the laws prohibiting them off the books.
“As far as land use regulation goes, I think we are pretty well in agreement. Your points are pretty well spot-on.”
Thanks!
“Don’t forget – densities don’t ride public transportation.”
What does this mean?
Regardless whether pot, or increased housing density, isn’t it all about expanding the bureaucracy needed to “manage” our behavior, and support the ever expanding government infrastructure? The government is doing to much, regulating to many behaviors and ignoring our reluctance to comply. We don’t ride transit as “planned, communities that legalized pot, are not abandoning their old supply lines, and we continue to ignore the fact we don’t have the jobs that afford people to live in these high density central core areas, and live well.
gilfoil wrote:
“Don’t forget – densities don’t ride public transportation.”
What does this mean?
More than a few elected officials (usually suburban elected officials) believe that if high-density apartments are built in suburban areas, then the occupants of those apartments will take transit.
From my own observations, that is incorrect.