Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

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"It is the exact opposite."

Not considering each neighborhood is how we get here. If you treat the city as a whole as a community, you lose the granularity and it ends up as you describe - the rich veto in their area.

But what is your solution? The section 8 housing or other universally unpopular projects have go somewhere. Do you think the SFH owners in the poor part of town want it in their backyard? It has to go somewhere. It's not about containing people like toxic waste. It's about existing individuals not wanting to deal with a reduction in their estavlished quality of life over statistically founded concerns (not appearence related but project specific, such as traffc fatalies, noise, etc).

"People want a single family home but is it because they want the shape or because society is arranged such that it is functionally the only way for the middle class to build wealth and feel a sense of housing stability?"

Does it matter? Is there a solution that would make a difference? For most people, this isn't really building wealth because you need to live somewhere, so that wealth isn't available to use. From my experiences and talking with others, it is mostly because of the stability, freedom, and not having to deal with bad neighbors as closely. I'm not sure what costs you are referring to that wouldn't apply to other types of housing. The only real subsidy homeowners get would be the property tax deduction. Maybe some developers worked out deals that indirectly benefited homeowners, but so too for the apartments. Where I'm at, you have to pay to install utilities from the street, pay taxes to support the infrastructure, etc. In fact, SFHs tend to pay more taxes than condos and apartments, subsidizing the schools and other property funded programs.

> Not considering each neighborhood is how we get here

I am not saying we shouldn't consider each area as important I just don't think we should structure policy so tiny areas are incentivized to fight each other and the loser is where everything "bad" gets built. Also I pointed to a clear mechanism by which this sort of thing leads to inequitable outcomes, what part of that do you disagree with?

> But what is your solution? The section 8 housing or other universally unpopular projects have go somewhere. Do you think the SFH owners in the poor part of town want it in their backyard?

I feel like I have a solution here and you haven't proposed one. My point is that we should be more permissive with where we build affordable housing, including and especially in more exclusive areas. What is your solution?

I think towns or metro areas should come together, decide what they want for the region together, turn that into a set of rules that will bring about those outcomes, and then stick to those rules. If there are problems with the rules they can be revisited but not by making special exceptions for each individual project. I want to get close to John Rawls' veil of ignorance where people are setting rules based on what they think is fair and not based on their own interests. Obviously, it is impossible to achieve this ideal but I think a higher level conversation is more conducive to this kind of decision making.

> Does it matter?

It totally matters because if it is the result of policy then it is something we can change. There are numerous costs. Yes the individual needs to pay for utility hookup but in general water systems and roads are more expensive per housing unit if each segment of shared infrastructure serves fewer people. Zoning policy in general increases the supply of single family homes relative to multi family homes, decreasing their cost. 30 year mortgages are guaranteed by the government and home appreciation gives home owners a huge tax exemption when they sell their home. These apply to condos as well but loans are difficult to get for some forms of multi-family housing and they still put their thumb on the scales in favor of home owners at the expense of renters who are much more likely to live in multi-family housing.

"I am not saying we shouldn't consider each area as important I just don't think we should structure policy so tiny areas are incentivized to fight each other and the loser is where everything "bad" gets built."

I'm not disagreeing with the result. What is the solution to the factions not fighting? I haven't heard one so far, so I'm disagreeing with your stated cause of it.

"My point is that we should be more permissive with where we build affordable housing, including and especially in more exclusive areas."

That's not a solution because there's no path to achieving it and ignores the established legal processes, such as appeals, that society has decided are fair. As you've pointed out, the exclusive areas fight it. My solution isn't worth going over in detail again, but has been raised in similar discussions on here. Basically, these problems are the result of population distribution. Creating incentives to repopulate and employ shrinking cities will provide the best overall results through economic reinvigoration of places like the rust belt, take advantage of vacant housing, and have less barriers to development of new housing.

"It totally matters because if it is the result of policy then it is something we can change."

It wasn't posed as a policy issue. It was posed as an architectural vs stability issue. Stuff like not dealing with bad neighbors or landlords can't be cured with policy anyways. Many utilities charge a connection cost per building, where you have an apartment building paying lower per resident fees than a home. And higher density often requires larger infrastructure, so it's not just cost per stretch.

"Zoning policy in general increases the supply of single family homes relative to multi family homes, decreasing their cost."

Maybe that's happened in your area, but not around here. Most of the townships around here permit higher density housing in many areas, but it's rarely built. The predominate thing bring built is single family. The zoning does nothing for the cost - the cost of a townhome is significantly cheaper than a single family home. The mortgage guarantee applies to mortgages on other residential property types as well. The tax break when selling also applies to other residential properties like condos and townhouses. I have friends and family who live in condos and townhouse- loans were not difficult to get at all. There's no merit here to support that SFHs are favored over higher density ownership.

"they still put their thumb on the scales in favor of home owners at the expense of renters who are much more likely to live in multi-family housing."

I'm not sure what you mean here. Many areas even have rent control and rent assistance. I don't see anything being done to benefit home owners at the expense of renters.

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