Liberal America’s Single-Family Hypocrisy

> . As cities regain their cultural clout, low-income African-American and Latino neighborhoods are often among the few where new housing is permitted, concentrating growth pressure and accelerating the process of gentrification.

This fact hit me like a ton of bricks. I had assumed that the reason all this new construction happens in gentrifying neighborhoods is because land is cheaper. But of course that can’t be the main reason. In Palo Alto, you can get a single family house with an 6,000-8,000 square foot lot for $2-3 million. With reasonable zoning you could put in a 6-8 story building with a 3,000-4,000 square foot footprint and 12-24 units. At the upper end, the land cost of each unit would be about $150,000. If construction costs $200 per square foot, that’s another $260,000 for a 1,300 square foot 3BR unit. Say half a million in costs for the whole unit. Already, you’re looking at land costs being a smaller part of the overall per-unit costs, and this is a relatively modest building (as you go higher, the per-unit land cost goes down). Going to a gentrifying neighborhood might save you on land costs, but at substantially greater risk. (Maybe the neighborhood won’t gentrify as fast as you expect, people will expect a discount to live in a gentrifying neighborhood, etc.)

They forced density in Vancouver, Canada by billing property taxes on possible uses of land instead of actual uses. So if city council decided your land could actually be a 10 story condo, they would hand you a gigantic tax bill based on that condo tower rate in hopes you'd sell to developers. It turned the city into a judge dredd style dystopia of luxury condo towers but they achieved density.

I'm a little confused by the implications the article is making. Density in the outer suburbs is probably not a good idea, for all the reasons the article mentions, such as traffic. Then you have to factor in all the other things like electricity, water, sewage, garbage collection, police, firefighters, more public schooling, etc.

I'm 100% all for more density, but just throwing up 8 story apartments in what were single-family lots all over the outer suburbs isn't really going to help anyone.

There are all kinds of competing forces at play, but the one I think is the hardest to understand is quality of life. Everyone has an idea of what works for them and it's different for everyone. Some of us do want to live in the core of a city and be as close to the energy as possible. While some of us need to be in a quiet area far from it all. I don't want to shame people for wanting to live in a single-family home with room for a garden and toolshed. Those spaces should exist and be in reach for anyone who wants that lifestyle.

Yet, I do think we need to rethink what is considered the "core" of a city and should expect and demand that those areas build up. That's when I start getting frustrated with cities on the peninsula. All of the downtowns from Burlingame to Cupertino have height limits of 2 stories. Are you kidding me? None of them have views, and all of them have Caltrain stops.

So I don't think "liberal America" is necessarily wrong, and I'm not sure the article is convincing me of that.

I've got an important question for everyone the writer. According to their premise and most 'liberal' premises white people are inherently racist and don't want to live around 'poc' or whatever is the polite word these days. See white flight. So what makes them think the people won't just flee the suburbs again if they do this? I too think those rich people are racist and use their wealth to live away from poc while supposedly working for them but I need some clarification on this point. I'd also love to see and be amenable to the idea of the government forcing these people to practice what they preach to the rest of us. Diversity is our greatest strength after all.

There's been a lot of pushback on Minneapolis's 2040 plan, but ultimately I think it's a step in the right direction. Most of the objections are from people living in quiet, mostly single-family neighborhoods who don't want apartments near them. But really, most of the rezoning only takes place directly along busier corridor streets; the interiors of those blocks would still be single-family zoned.

I don’t find this persuasive at all. Over-population of humans on this planet is the root cause of the impending climate disaster. Jamming more people into cities is just going to fuel the population explosion. I think we have to find a way to reduce the population to a sustainable level.

Maybe it's just me but maybe we should do our partisan name-calling somewhere other than Hacker News. I'm sick of these flamebait articles that do not "satisfy curiosity" in any way.