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Comment by thorwasdfasdf | Hacker News Reader

The problem with all these regulations is that it completely stops all innovation. Imagine what the internet would have turned out to be if, from day one, it was heavily regulated as housing. Imagine if every company or every developer had to get a permit before building any website and every website had to look a certain way with certain margin. We'd be nowhere.

Housing, desperately needs permission-less innovation (completely regulation/zoning free). Maybe not everywhere. But, come on, CA has 163,707 square miles, can we just carve out a couple of those, even if it's just 100 or 200 or so (with enough economies of scale to attract serious VC money), in an area that has no NIMBYs, for build whatever you want and let builders and innovators innovate. We can take what's working and slowly apply it other areas.

At the current rate, the way things are, we're never going to see any progress in housing.

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To be fair though, websites don't affect each other while structures typically affect their neighbors (views, noise, etc).

For the parts of the internet where users can affect each other, like the networking layer, RF protocols like LTE/bluetooth/wifi, there do tend to be heavy rules (RFCs) and sometimes regulation (FCC).

As far as I'm aware, there is no FCC regulation on non-RF networking. You are allowed to peer with whomever will accept you and if you send them garbage data, they'll just stop peering with you and block access to the internet. Criminal behavior conducted via internet is of course regulated by normal criminal law.

Agreed.

As a resident of Ann Arbor, MI, I am an opponent of all the high-rise developments. I've seen general prices rise, I've seen traffic start jamming, and I've seen days with much lower air quality.

I prefer to see cities managed like an interconnected ecosystem rather than a simply supply/demand chart for housing.

Are you sure that the causation arrow runs: high rise construction —> traffic + price increases? It seems like less of a case of “if you build it, they will come” and moreso “they are coming, so we’d better build”.

The problems came after the first stages of development, but I'm open to being convinced.

Is there a single example of urbanization resulting in lower prices, lower costs-of-living, lower rates of homelessness, less economic inequality, less traffic, etc?

Or is there an economist that can rationalize how the correlation between urbanization and urban problems can be positive while the causation is negative?

>Or is there an economist that can rationalize how the correlation between urbanization and urban problems can be positive while the causation is negative?

Sure, almost any if them can. It's called spurious correlation.

So if 100 people want to buy homes in the area and there are 100 homes available for sale, you think that building 100 more homes will actually increase the average home price?

More homes always means downward pricing pressure. That may not overcome upward pricing pressure due to other factors. But you can be pretty sure that housing in your area would be even more expensive were it not for the additional housing inventory.

The reason you have never seen cheaper housing due to new developments is because you usually see new housing built as a response to increasing demand and prices.

Spurious correlations generally don't go in the opposite directions of the direction of causality.

If you travel around the world in a snapshot in time, you find that there's a positive correlation between density and rent prices. If you stay in one location over decades, you would still see a positive correlation between density and rent prices.

I have never heard of an increase in development bringing downward pressure on rent prices.

Edit: that doesn't even bring into focus the effects on traffic, on costs-of-living outside of housing, on infrastructure, etc. From what I've seen in Ann Arbor, overdevelopment almost breaks the competent functioning of the city government.

>I have never heard of an increase in development bringing downward pressure on rent prices.

Can you offer up a plausible theory as to how more housing could possibly create upward pricing pressure on rent prices?

It's simple supply and demand. You can't "see" downward pricing pressure if the price of housing is still climbing nonetheless due to demand still growing faster than supply.

What do you think would happen if the number of available housing units in the bay area doubled over night? You think everyone would be able to keep raising the rent and keep their units rented at the same prices? Of course not, the empty units are going to cut prices to attract buyers/renters.

But, come on, CA has 163,707 square miles, can we just carve out a couple of those, even if it's just 100 or 200 or so (with enough economies of scale to attract serious VC money), in an area that has no NIMBYs, for build whatever you want and let builders and innovators innovate. We can take what's working and slowly apply it other areas.

There are lots of sparsely populated areas in CA where developers can effectively build whatever they want.

But they're sparsely populated areas because they're undesirable for one or more reasons: too hot, or too dry, or too plain, or too far from the rest of civilization.

And no developer wants to be left holding the bag if the investment doesn't pan out... In fact, what happened in San Bernardino County and in Clark County (around Las Vegas) are exactly the types of failures that real estate developers have nightmares over.

> There are lots of sparsely populated areas in CA where developers can effectively build whatever they want.

Objectively wrong: every county in California requires building permits and has zoning.

I used the qualifier "effectively" because in practice the building permit requirements and zoning restrictions widely vary across the state and they are many counties where these restrictions are extremely light.

In practice, there are plenty of rural counties where building permits are a pro forma formality and all applications for permits are approved.

In practice, there are plenty of rural counties where the county will re-zone plots to satisfy developer requests because they'd rather see the land develop and bring tax-paying jobs than see the land lie fallow with its original zoning.

Even urban counties will change zoning to satisfy developer requests. Most of the new multi-unit residential construction in LA in the past few years has required zoning exemptions or zoning changes. The building I live in required both a zoning exemption and a zoning change...

that's why government can help play a role by first incentivizing companies to move out there. once jobs move there, people will follow and you won't have the problem above.

Back in the early days, the US gov would provide enormous incentives for people to populate the western part of the US, going so far as to even give away free land.

That is an overly simplistic understanding of how businesses and tax incentives work. Money isn't the solution to everything, and "jobs" is not a magical chant that solves every problem.

Land in San Bernardino and the High Desert is effectively free right now and developers still aren't flocking there...even though people already live and work in the area (San Bernadino is a ground logistics/transshipment hub for North America.)

People already work there. The problem is that nobody wants to live there.

What's wrong with San Bernardino? They've got museums, a university and their own baseball team with their own stadium and a nice downtown. It's just a bit high crime, like all cities. It can't be worse than poop town SF.

> poop town SF.

It's frankly going to be hard for me to resist calling it that from now on.

I'd have some trouble deciding between the two but I need to put on an extra layer when the temperature drops below 80F.

Most of the storefronts in downtown San Bernardino are empty. The mall has 4-5 occupants out of 30+ storefronts. Houses just a block or two from the courthouse and city hall can be purchased for $1000.

It's nicer now than it was at the bottom of the recession when it led the state in homicides and gang crimes, but it's still a long ways down from its heyday when it was a nicer city than Riverside.

The chilling effect of (some) regulation often goes unnoticed, because it impacts few people directly. The chilling effect is essentially invisible until we can see a better way. Eg uber vs taxis. There's usually an incumbent that benefits from these regulations as well that will argue against lessening them.

I think your recommendation can help with this issue, but I wonder if CA is a good place for this. As I understand it, access to water is a limiting factor in CA.

> The chilling effect is essentially invisible until we can see a better way. Eg uber vs taxis

I don't think it's clear that Uber is a better way than taxis. Cheaper for an individual ride? Yes. Better for the drivers? Maybe, but maybe not. Better for society as a whole? I lean toward no, even if the only factors we consider are congestion and pollution.

Zoning laws need to be addressed, and we need to do something about housing prices in major metropolitan areas. But at the same time, we don't need to allow the construction of meat packing plants in the middle of residential neighborhoods, and we don't want to promote construction of what will end up being slums in the name of affordable housing.

There is, like always, a balance to strike.

> Better for society as a whole? I lean toward no

I used to think this way. But I realized something. Uber/Lyft eliminate an entire class of scams that taxi drivers have gotten away with for decades. No longer can unscrupulous drivers take tourists on a joy ride "shortcut" or just outright overcharge them. Fares are agreed upon ahead of time. They also tend to be safer. You don't have to worry about writing down the taxi cab number you're in, or the driver's name. Uber/Lyft track everything for you.

This is not to say that traditional taxis couldn't be this way. But the fact is, they weren't getting there if Uber didn't light a fire under their ass.

Uber/Lyft eliminate an entire class of scams that taxi drivers have gotten away with for decades.

And in the process introduced whole new categories of scams.

As a for example: look up vomit scam. But there are a lot more.

> access to water is a limiting factor in CA.

It is: for farmers, who use something like 80% (I forget the exact number).

It isn't for cities, and denser cities use less water because there are no big lawns and other waste.

Many cities in my state (MN) still have laws on the books that will fine lawn owners for failing to maintain a green, healthy appearance.

Never mind if it's in a desert or forest terrain... they only allow paved spaces, green grass and landscaping, or certified native prairie replantings, which cost a mint's worth of money to do.

Because "everyone loves green grass" no matter how much water it uses or how much fertilizer runoff it allows.

And most of the produce is exported. California wouldn’t have a water crisis if only Californians used the water.

I don't think it's even necessary to have areas that are completely regulation or zoning free, there are much more rational models in other countries. One of which is Japan http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

The way I see it U.S is just bad at regulating things, and blames this on regulation as a concept, instead of its own implementation.

Any attempts at actually regulating things in the U.S are watered down by "but free markets!" and "oh no big government!", and the shitty compromise results in giant loopholes for regulatory capture, and toothless govt agencies that can't regulate what they were created for.

You can see this playing out in real time as politicians are inviting companies like Facebook to be involved in coming up with regulations.

You should use experts when coming up with regulations. But you need to use unbiased experts. Anything that Facebook suggests will of course amount to nothing more than a moat for their existing business.

Have you looked into Detroit's problems at all?

Even though a large fraction of the city is abandoned, getting the city government to approve things like experimental urban farm plots and green spaces made up of combined vacant lots is extremely difficult... because deep down the city doesn't want to give up the theoretical tax revenue they might be able to get if new houses were built there and the owners started paying.

People don't like change much.

We would see a lot of disregard for minorities and those with disabilities

Mind you, in some cases the regulations were put in place to discriminate against minorities. See https://crosscut.com/2018/12/rectifying-seattles-racist-past... for a great example.

IMHO you can't just say "regulation is good" or "regulation is bad." Intent and consequences both matter.

For a broader look, this book is good, but tough, reading: https://www.powells.com/book/color-of-law-a-forgotten-histor...

How would there be disregard for minorities?

People should pay for the costs of the negative externalities they impose on others, something that seems to be missing in the town you imagine. This is one thing I think YIMBYs constantly miss. "Build, build, build!" and when someone criticizes they say "you're just afraid to lose money on your house, housing should not be an investment" and I think that captures part of it, but it's not just that a $800k house is now worth $700k, it's that the entire character of the house is changed when it's in the shadow of a skyscraper for 6 hours a day. In this case the homeowner has not just lost money, they may have lost what made them desire the house in the first place - a calm neighborhood, a sunny garden, a beautiful view, easy parking, a neighborhood populated by similarly wealthy individuals. Now you probably take issue with at least one of those, but there are others that are perfectly reasonable and until YIMBYs confront the massive negative externalities they wish to unleash on people they'll continue to look on in disgust as entire communities show up to their council meetings and shout and howl and kill YIMBY proposals.

No one is building skyscrapers in the suburbs. Mid rises, of course. There are neighborhoods in LA with old mid rise apartments from the 1920s with hundreds of units, and you can't even zone for something that size in that neighborhood today. The zoned population of LA has actually shrunk in recent decades.

If you want stasis, California has never been that place. LA has had double digit growth per decade for most of its history, sometimes triple digit.

Agglomeration economies lead to positive externalities on balance, not negative ones. And YIMBY isn't arguing that one should build skyscrapers next to single-family houses. One can increase density in a rather gradual way, and a few skyscrapers here and there don't even give you a density advantage compared to building a far greater number of mid-rise and high-rise buildings.

This is very true. Vancouver has a huge housing issue because the main options are single-family homes (which are inaccessibly expensive) and ~20 storey condo towers (which are also inaccessibly expensive).

Then you end up with people opposed to densification because they only way that we can get sufficient density is to take this one small space and build 20 storeys of housing on it. If we wiped out one single-family neighborhood and replaced it with mid-rise residential with ground-floor commercial, it would be much more of a neighborhood and fit a lot more people sustainably.

Instead, they fight against any densification and argue that a three-storey walk-up is going to "change the character of the neighborhood" (because people who can't afford to buy homes will be able to live in their neighborhood) and now everyone is screwed (except the people who own).

That is definitely not why Vancouver has a housing issue. We all know why Vancouver’s housing market is distorted.

People do not experience 'on balance.'

The only way to ensure the neighborhood doesn't change is to own the entire neighborhood. Otherwise this is just individuals using the government's power to control what others do with their property.

> they may have lost what made them desire the house in the first place - a calm neighborhood, a sunny garden, a beautiful view, easy parking, a neighborhood populated by similarly wealthy individuals.

Good. If you want these things, you live rurally. Everything has trade-offs.

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