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Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

That doesn't accurately characterize voter motivations. Many long-term renters also oppose loosening zoning rules due to quality of life concerns (traffic, noise, crime, pollution). It's not always just a money issue.

Furthermore, many renters believe that if more housing is built it will only be luxury housing that they couldn't afford anyway. Sure basic economics tells us that increasing supply ought to drive down prices for everyone, but at the individual level it's tough for people to make the connection.

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>Many long-term renters also oppose loosening zoning rules due to quality of life concerns (traffic, noise, crime, pollution). It's not always just a money issue.

Most people who moved into a neighborhood because they liked it don't want it to change. Enjoying where you live gets you labelled as a NIMBY though. It's easier to dismiss people if you give them a sweet nickname I guess.

> Sure basic economics tells us that increasing supply ought to drive down prices for everyone, but at the individual level it's tough for people to make the connection.

It should be telling that the "housing crisis" only exists in the most desirable places to live. I don't believe there is a practical amount of supply that can be built to satisfy the demand for housing in these places. The supply of upper middle class people who want to live in SV, Manhattan or San Diego is more than enough to make sure the poor can never afford it. In fact, the only people I ever see overly concerned with it are the middle class who are just on the cusp of affordability.

There's no housing crisis in Blythe.

I mean we're pretty much all going to want to live as close as possible to the mountain of gold that is the jobs in those areas, poor or rich. A poorer person can more easily get a replacement job in SV than anywhere else. In fact when it was still somewhat affordable (I've moved away from SV) I've had a friend that was just a terrible employee, they couldn't hold a job - but they were NEVER unemployed, they stayed with some hotel or waitress position for about a month - got fired, hired again somewhere else before you could blink. Her husband, after living there long enough eventually got a software QA position and they finally moved up - poor to middle overnight. Mountain of gold.

In fact more housing will always be luxury. In 30 years it will be old and affordable, but only if the rich who buy new all the time move on which they will only do if they are allowed to build something new that is more luxurious.

Well, the question is how many of the host of worries US voters express (fear of XYZ evil-doers) are effectively just devices conveniently maintained and manipulated by media, consults and other moneyed interests.

> Sure basic economics tells us that increasing supply ought to drive down prices for everyone, but at the individual level it's tough for people to make the connection.

Basic economics tells us that more supply lowers prices if everything else remains the same. Which it won't if the area becomes more popular.

"The assumption behind a demand curve or a supply curve is that no relevant economic factors, other than the product’s price, are changing. Economists call this assumption ceteris paribus, a Latin phrase meaning 'other things being equal'. If all else is not held equal, then the laws of supply and demand will not necessarily hold."

https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microec...

But even in the case where the area becomes more popular, a larger supply will result in lower prices than if the area had become more popular and did not increase supply.

Not necessarily and not from an economic perspective. One can argue that, but it depends on how building affects the market. For example by shifting demographics. But even so renters, without rent control, are only interested in the part of the market they can afford where they live. That is, the quantity supplied at their income level. Which is even more susceptible to changes. The assumption people are making about "basic economics" just aren't true. More supply just isn't a solid argument for affordability without supporting evidence, and especially not when it comes to housing.

Also, people associate neighborhoods in which there is lots of new luxury housing with neighborhoods in which prices rise fast. And they are not wrong, there is a correlation. Nobody builds new luxury housing in dying towns! But the causation is, of course, mostly not from the buildings to the prices.

Or, it would be low-income housing, and who wants /those/ kind of people around, anyway?

Gentrifiers want to live near the culture of low income people (restaurants, bars) while they push low income people out.

Yea i'd prefer all artists please

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