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Comment by ghufran_syed | Hacker News Reader

Having thought about it a little more, I think we don't like the idea of it because "shelter" is a basic human necessity, not an optional purchase. But a lot of the problem of unaffordable housing has been created by our own policies in the US, this article is a good summary of the issue:

'"Zoning is not a good institution gone bad. … On the contrary, zoning is a mechanism of exclusion designed to inflate property values, slow the pace of new development, segregate cities by race and class, and enshrine the detached single‐ family house as the exclusive urban ideal.” So writes M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It.'

https://www.cato.org/regulation/fall-2022/case-abolishing-zo...

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Even if you exclude zoning from the equation entirely and look at the raw material and labor costs associated with building it’s usually exceeding most definitions of “affordable”. Density is often lauded as a solution, but building vertically is more expensive than horizontally. It only helps spread land costs across more square footage. The costs of going vertical usually outpaces the savings of diluted land cost. So there’s really no solution that’s sustainable. The result being all affordable housing is a shell game of subsidies.

Some of this is our own doing as well as we continue to up the requirements of building standards/codes. Some make more sense than others, but in general we don’t design building codes with costs in mind and I feel that’s a pretty large recipe for disaster.

This is mostly not true, excluding skyscrapers, which yes are costly. You’ve forgotten roads, sewers, utilities, sidewalk maintenance etc. Missing-middle housing is much more efficient than suburbs.

Washington DC is a good example, for those unable to visit Europe.

Eh, infrastructure costs of growing horizontally are underestimated in the sense you demand everyone has cars, massive interstates, thousands of miles of water and sewer piping, pollution problems brought on by car culture, etc.

>... in general we don’t design building codes with costs in mind and I feel that’s a pretty large recipe for disaster.

Speaking as a Floridian living in Tampa (who just had a near miss with a Cat 4 hurricane) that is an extraordinarily poor choice of words. Building codes aren't supposed to be designed with costs front and center; they're supposed to be designed to foster a sturdy structure than can withstand most likely actual disasters. Go look at the footage of Ft Myers Beach and Sanibel Island for some perspective.

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