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Why look to China when we can look to Japan? They had the worst housing bubble in world history, now housing is affordable. All thanks to a streamlined national zoning code that took power out of the hands of local government. There are twelve nuisance levels and you can build anything that falls below the maximum allowed nuisance level for a lot, no community approval process necessary.

Oh yes, I've seen videos about Japan's approachable housing. [1]. I'm sure Korea and other Asian nations have similar approaches.

I mainly wanted to highlight a market driven approach that works with the other industries in the US as opposed to a government directed one. Albeit the government provides stimulus of some type to kick start it, like how NASA drove the privatization of Space and now we have lots of launch vehicles via different companies.

[1] https://youtu.be/iGbC5j4pG9w

it appears that the US is heading in the other direction, with mandates to force developers build % affordable housing. Just let developers develop. Rich people move up, middle people move up, making the cheap places cheaper for low income residents. It's all backwards

I think question really is what to develop. SFH just aren't sustainable. At least if you want sane pricing.

That sounds like genius. Is the a detailed explanation of this system in English?

This video covers it: https://youtu.be/wfm2xCKOCNk

Thanks!

Japan's population has also been flat since 1993. It's quite a different situation. Many countries have struggled to maintain sufficient new housing development to keep up with rising population numbers.

China's alternative approach is hukou, which is in practice the only way US superstar cities could get what they want, to be both quaint and affordable: just ban people from moving there. China is allowing the countryside to urbanize but they are doing it at their own pace; it's not a free for all where every bright kid from every backwards place is simultaneously bidding up the price of housing in Beijing.

In the US these kinds of internal migration controls violate the Equal Protection clause, so they are mostly a pipe dream. Like anywhere, the US has a lot of places not worth living in, but the people from those places are all able to compete for spots in the cities, so those spots will necessarily be competitive.

So if that's the case, won't investing gov't funds into those uncompetitive places (e.g., by moving gov't agencies there, moving some industries that could move there etc) even out the level of competition?

Rather than spending money subsidizing the poor in these competitive places, it's better and cheaper imho, to add/create a good place to be in a currently bad place.

There might really be the magic window, where a place is big enough for real opportunities and amenities but small enough for cheap large-lot housing, high-mileage low-traffic commutes, and ample free parking. But if it exists, it's very narrow. We have no track record of getting population centers into that window or holding them there. Most population centers, whether driven by government spending or not, either undershoot or overshoot it in the end.

We have thousands upon thousands of towns sustained by the local military installation, prison, defense plant, research lab, state university, etc. Even some mid-sized metro areas where the economy is mostly Medicare. Usually it is more of a life support thing. They're too small to be desirable. On those occasions when they do take off and become desirable (defense spending made Silicon Valley!) they quickly become competitive.

Rather than trying to manufacture and maintain dozens of places on this knife's edge Goldilocks window for postwar sprawl (that may or may not exist), we could instead choose a building and transportation architecture that provides a high quality of life at reasonable cost over a wider range of population levels.

There's just too many folks here who'd rather make a quick buck then provide some longevity to the nation (at the top and in politics).

China and other nations realize that there is more money and happiness in the long term view, so they're either pivoting or have pivoted. I'm afraid we just don't have the gumption / community oriented view to do that here in the USA. Folks want "freedom", even if that freedom means degrading into massive poverty / wage slavery. I don't blame them particularly, our education system massively touts the successes of USA above all.

> Stopped their speculative debt fueled housing bubble

Have they actually done this? Last I checked the cost to buy a home as a multiple of average income was far higher in China than it is in the US.

Indeed. Even cities like SF and NYC look down right affordable compared to Shanghai if you compared wages.

China is going to have a massive housing correction - a la Japan.

China has a pretty big property bubble though.

https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings_by_count...

US can avoid demographic crisis by importing people.