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Comment by burlesona | Hacker News Reader

This is a good analysis of what's wrong, although it doesn't go into how we got here or how we could get out of this mess.

If you're interested in those topics, you'd probably enjoy reading Strong Towns (strongtowns.org), and if you're _really_ motivated you should consider becoming a member. At present, Strong Towns is the most influential group in the broader "YIMBY"-sphere, and is starting to have a real impact on the way municipal leaders operate cities.

Ultimately it's going to be a very long journey to change the culture so that we can change the laws (to permit incremental development and return to more scalable transportation patterns). Every additional supporting member makes a big impact.

(disclaimer, I'm a member)

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Piggybacking, if you are convinced that we must do something about this and you live in the US and particularly in the SF Bay Area, join YIMBY Action [1].

[1] https://yimbyaction.org/2021/about/

YIMBY Action is growing nationally. We have a YIMBY group where I live in Oregon, and we signed up as a chapter.

Strong Towns is great, and if you have the money, definitely send some their way. But YIMBY Action has more actionable advice, more tools to run campaigns, and get people involved, and in general feels like it's getting more done. I happily share a lot of Strong Towns articles, because they're very applicable to the city I live in, and am a member, but if you want to go beyond sharing articles, I think YIMBY Action is where it's at.

What sort of real impact has Strong Towns been having?

Crazy idea: viral densification of housing

In the city I live in, the government turns a blind eye to secondary suites. If I buy a house, renovate a secondary suites and then rent it out with a special condition: if the renter buys a house I will give them 50% of the rent paid if they setup the same arrangement.

Depending on the local conditions, the doubling time can be like 3 years.

It'll be tricky to make the contracts enforceable, but I suspect it's possible. It'd be nice to live in a world where housing wasn't scarce.

The problem for this particular problem is not just regulation but also financing. One has to spend money to build an ADU or convert a room to be habitable, and most people who own homes don’t have free capital around to do that conversion. Ask your bank for a loan to do it and you’ll get laughed out of the room.

The FHA guarantees on home loans have made FHA insured loans much more attractive to banks, and the limits pretty much limit loans to single family homes in high cost areas. This and the mortgage deduction are probably the three biggest distortions of the market today with zoning.

https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/06/25/conventional-conformi...

Interesting. Canada might be different in this regard.

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