tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153985804832811048.post7358492642798084090..comments2024-03-18T16:22:10.302-04:00Comments on Urban kchoze: Affordable housing and subsidized housing: Should governments intervene directly in housing?simval84http://www.blogger.com/profile/10615053214354191224noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153985804832811048.post-51474174780477695972015-08-06T01:15:38.036-04:002015-08-06T01:15:38.036-04:00I can't get the point at all. What I suggest i...I can't get the point at all. What I suggest is that the government to put on a corporation where higher and lower classes can get for help. Also, government should provide <a href="http://houseforsaleexpert.tumblr.com/post/118269359620/house-for-sale-in-the-philippines-affordable-than" rel="nofollow">affordable house facilities</a> for its people.James Abramhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13970758040515187677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153985804832811048.post-25792723964967290502015-03-04T11:56:42.440-05:002015-03-04T11:56:42.440-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153985804832811048.post-80061548371344011772015-01-30T01:30:45.053-05:002015-01-30T01:30:45.053-05:00I've come to a similar tentative conclusion ba...I've come to a similar tentative conclusion based on my thinking thus far. Though I wouldn't necessarily restrict it to being a 'public housing corporation'. A non-profit housing corporation with social goals could work. And a variety of them would be nice.<br /><br />Massachusetts has a set of such non-profit housing development and management groups called 'Community Development Corporations' that fit into this sort of mold in some ways. However, my experience is that they largely focus on maintaining existing subsidized housing while looking for occasional opportunities to obtain more. There are some notable examples of community planning conducted by CDCs as well. I think there's a lot more for me to learn about them, and also a lot more that they could probably strive to do in the matter of creating a strong baseline of 'market-rate' attainable housing supply, but without pressure from the relentless upward drive of the bottom-line profit-making motive.<br />Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02027332620204904993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153985804832811048.post-52145497902035473182015-01-23T13:33:11.615-05:002015-01-23T13:33:11.615-05:00Another key point that people seem to miss is that...Another key point that people seem to miss is that restricting development also restricts who gets to be a developer in the first place. So the more restricted the market, the larger the fraction of development that ends up being done by large evil corporations from out of town, as opposed to local upper-middle-class professionals buying up Speculative Low-Rise Apartments being built by local contractors.crzwdjkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06394805356595604336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153985804832811048.post-27747015135480604502015-01-23T13:30:48.485-05:002015-01-23T13:30:48.485-05:00In the extreme case, you go full-Socialist and the...In the extreme case, you go full-Socialist and the government takes over the housing market entirely and is responsible for all construction, maintenance, allocation, etc. as was the case in the Soviet Union. That model definitely had some advantages, in that a lot of housing did get built, most of it of better quality and much larger quantity than what it replaced. Of course, this had all the usual downsides of socialist allocation (basically, incentivizing people to find ways to game the system), and to some extent it was reliant on the propiska system of internal migration controls, which basically prevented newcomers from showing up in the cities in the first place unless there was room for them. Of course such a system would definitely not be acceptable in any free country for obvious reasons.<br /><br />I think the other part of the problem is that housing regulations and the politics surrounding them are at least as much about enforcing standards of middle class propriety as they are about providing enough housing, ensuring safe and sanitary conditions, promoting "housing as an investment" (itself a middle class value), and so on. To a certain extent, Japan could allow things like danchis because the post-war housing shortage was so dire that they couldn't afford to waste resources on middle-class propriety. The US, meanwhile, had an endless supply of land, and an endless supply of economic opportunity in still-growing cities where housing was still cheap. Things got too expensive in NY? Just move to LA! Can't afford LA? Move to Vegas.crzwdjkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06394805356595604336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153985804832811048.post-77946453332041785932015-01-23T13:03:09.420-05:002015-01-23T13:03:09.420-05:00"...if the amount of products one can build i..."...if the amount of products one can build is limited, then the market tends to concentrate on the most profitable product they can build. In most cases, that is luxury..."<br /><br />This is a critical insight that many people don't seem to understand. These are those who think that restricting redevelopment will preserve affordable housing because "the developers will only build expensive new stuff." Of course they also forget that if a neighborhood is in demand, then "rich people" will find a way to live there one way or another and still cause displacement. At least when allowing new development there's a *chance* that it will be enough to satisfy demand, otherwise there's little hope. Jeffrey Jakucykhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04092631645389171565noreply@blogger.com