> We all want no traffic, and lots of parking, so low density please, but that creates housing shortages and limits the usefulness of public transport.
Sigh. Democracy is going to hang itself with the bike lanes and public transit, isn't it?
Density increases and ubiquitous transit result in HIGHER levels of housing shortages. Just ask France.
I'm pretty sure you just said "If you make a place nicer to live, then more people will want to live there, so we should stop making places nicer to live."
Anyway, nobody who has ever been to a major French city believes that they've tried to increase core density. They famously have building height restrictions all over the place. Pretty much the entire city of Paris caps out at 7 stories.
>Pretty much the entire city of Paris caps out at 7 stories.
And despite that, Paris is one of the densest cities in the world, and an incredibly pleasant place to live. This should be a good lesson to everyone that "high density" does not have to be synonymous with reams of skyscrapers.
Supply and demand. If you don’t want to increase supply, then you can reduce prices by turning the city into the kind of place that nobody wants to live in.
AKA the gunshots theory of rent control. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/firing-gunshots-to-keep-rent-...
I repeated the same argument here many times. But the reality is that density creates a vicious cycle of price increases. Higher density provides easier access to talent for companies, so they concentrate in urban cores. This in turn results in the only desirable jobs (and housing) being within the commute distance from the cores. So more people move in, resulting in even greater advantage for companies. Rinse, wash, repeat.
Think about this: EVERY large European city now has a "housing crisis". And nice cities just a couple of hours from them have housing that is essentially free. In Japan it's often _literally_ free.
Want an example of a city that doesn't have a housing crisis and is comparable in population to Paris or Berlin? Houston, TX.
Houston, TX has a housing crisis. https://abc13.com/post/more-half-houston-renters-struggle-ho...
They aren't building enough rental housing so rents are going through the roof.
No, it doesn't. The rent growth has been mostly stable over the last 2 decades and generally followed the inflation: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1ZPQy And it increased only slightly recently (attributable to increased density as Houston relaxed the minimum lot requirements in 2014, btw).
Here is the REAL horror show: https://alfred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1ZPRl
Houston is still the second most affordable large metro area in the US. And the per capita square footage is about two times that in NYC.
You're still just saying "If you make a place nicer to live, then more people will want to live there."
Density is not the thing making the prices go up. Local supply lagging behind local demand is what does that. Your two choices are either build more or make living there less desirable compared to somewhere else. There's no third choice.
> nice cities just a couple of hours from them have housing that is essentially free
If nobody wants to live there then tautologically people have decided that they aren't nice.
> If you make a place nicer to live
Dense cities are not nice places to live, especially for less well-off people. Just look at the number of children per capita. You are just _forced_ to live there by economic forces, whether you like it or not.
Japan is really illustrative there. You HAVE to live in Tokyo or other large cities if you want to achieve anything. Yet a young person will not be able to afford anything decent. And forget about families.
Oh, and the construction capacity in and around Tokyo is maxxed out. Parts of the city are literally permanent giant construction zones. They're building housing as fast as possible. Yet the prices are _skyrocketing_.
> Your two choices are either build more or make living there less desirable compared to somewhere else.
You don't have that choice. The construction rate in large cities can't keep with demand if the city is growing.
You can try to streamline permitting (like in Japan), prohibit foreign ownership and/or investment (Vancouver), regulate the rents (NYC), dance around naked under the full Moon - and nothing will work.
> There's no third choice.
False. There is one: make other places nicer by promoting remote work and incentivizing companies to open new offices in smaller cities.
Houston is a great example. It's pretty much the only large city in the US that doesn't have a housing crisis. And it did that (on accident) by not having a real consolidated urban core. Instead, it's a collection of smaller cities, each one with its own business core.
> Density increases and ubiquitous transit result in HIGHER levels of housing shortages.
Density doesn’t cause housing shortage. A housing shortage creates motivation to increase density.
> Density increases and ubiquitous transit result in HIGHER levels of housing shortages.
Wow, that's a new one
Not really. Urbanists admit it, they just don't like to talk about it.
Hell, there are even consulting companies that provide guidance on how to upzone the city to squeeze most taxes out of new density.
that seems like complete BS claim. What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence
increased density and transit increases demand for that area. high demand != shortage.
What are you suggesting exactly? low density and car-dependency is the solution to our housing problems?
> high demand != shortage.
Yes, it just means higher costs.
again, higher costs != shortage. It just means "desirable"
Just build more of the thing that people want!
> Just build more of the thing that people want!
And how do you build more land for single-family houses? Around 80% of people in the US would prefer to live in a SFH.
But even putting that quip aside, you physically can't keep up with the demand. Large cities physically can't grow fast enough to keep up with the demand.
A typical apartment unit now requires about 2 work-years of labor to build. So if you're growing your city by 5% a year, then 10% of the city will be apartment construction workers! And then you'll need to keep upgrading the infrastructure, and this is usually exorbitantly expensive.
To give some perspective: one mile of Manhattan subway now costs as much as 1500 miles of modern 6-lane freeway.