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On June 13 2017 00:13 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 00:07 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:04 farvacola wrote:
You should support affordable housing and anti-gentrification efforts as well then. Absolutely not. I do not even slightly support anti-gentrification. Trying to force an area to not have increased market value is counter productive and has no long term goal. We don't gain anything by artificially allowing poor people to have some designated population density. They don't need to live in Portland when there are nearby areas they could otherwise live. If you think anti-gentrification efforts are aimed solely at artificially tamping down market values, you need to do some more research into what the affordable housing movement includes. Further, this notion that poor people would be "artificially" allowed to live in places subject to affordable housing initiatives completely ignores the extent to which commercial entities are "artificially" allowed to swallow up urban real estate and the hefty tax subsidies needed to stimulate gentrification in the first place. Most urban real estate markets are already heavily clouded with commerce friendly artificiality, so in many cases, affordable housing is merely trying to level a playing field already heavily skewed towards commercial interests, interests that do very little relative to long term neighborhood/community health. New York, Boston, and San Francisco are great examples of real estate markets on the brink of disaster due to this "let the market roll!" attitude.
I'd much rather let some tax money help fuel gentrification than leave urbanized areas as slums. These new, high-end mixed use developments that are revitalizing formerly down-trodden urban areas are a godsend. There's no way that low-income housing would have similar positive externalities. That said, affordable housing is clearly an issue that must be addressed in some shape or form. In my experience, however, local politicians -- even the liberal ones -- aren't willing to give more than lip service to it. They know where their tax base is.
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On June 13 2017 00:16 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 00:13 farvacola wrote:On June 13 2017 00:07 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:04 farvacola wrote:
You should support affordable housing and anti-gentrification efforts as well then. Absolutely not. I do not even slightly support anti-gentrification. Trying to force an area to not have increased market value is counter productive and has no long term goal. We don't gain anything by artificially allowing poor people to have some designated population density. They don't need to live in Portland when there are nearby areas they could otherwise live. If you think anti-gentrification efforts are aimed solely at artificially tamping down market values, you need to do some more research into what the affordable housing movement includes. Further, this notion that poor people would be "artificially" allowed to live in places subject to affordable housing initiatives completely ignores the extent to which commercial entities are "artificially" allowed to swallow up urban real estate and the hefty tax subsidies needed to stimulate gentrification in the first place. Most urban real estate markets are already heavily clouded with commerce friendly artificiality, so in many cases, affordable housing is merely trying to level a playing field already heavily skewed towards commercial interests, interests that do very little relative to long term neighborhood/community wealth. So then explain to me what a community gains from anti-gentrification efforts. Portland does not have the issue Vancouver BC had where foreign investors were just buying up land. In Portland, it is just a ton of people with a lot of money who all want to live in Portland. It is purely replacing lower income people with higher income people and I am struggling to see the downside.
The most important thing I'd iterate here is that Portland is a fucking incredibly unusual place; its extremely vibrant local government and robust public review of most public initiatives changes the picture somewhat relative to urban housing. Nevertheless, the idea in pushing anti-gentrification efforts in a place like Portland would revolve around striking a balance between monied increases in land value and the rights of those with pre-existing interests in urban housing (which mostly consists of poor people, but the stubborn homeowner problem is also a factor).
Outside of the few cities with unusually high amounts of local civic engagement like Portland, the incentives relative to controlling gentrification become even more clear in the sense that huge numbers of people oftentimes get priced out of their homes without ever even having a say in the matter. Aside from the obvious moral problems with this, boom and bust fluctuations in real estate valuation encourage bubbles like those forming over cities like San Francisco and the borough of Brooklyn. In that sense, the 2008 crisis and its fallout are also good reasons for strong regulatory approaches to urban affordable housing.
I'll bookend this and tacitly agree with xDaunt in saying that HUD's approaches have been historically shitty and, given the ease with which local interests are captured relative to real estate, solutions will likely come from a consensus broader than that reached at the local level.
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On June 13 2017 00:26 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 00:16 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:13 farvacola wrote:On June 13 2017 00:07 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:04 farvacola wrote:
You should support affordable housing and anti-gentrification efforts as well then. Absolutely not. I do not even slightly support anti-gentrification. Trying to force an area to not have increased market value is counter productive and has no long term goal. We don't gain anything by artificially allowing poor people to have some designated population density. They don't need to live in Portland when there are nearby areas they could otherwise live. If you think anti-gentrification efforts are aimed solely at artificially tamping down market values, you need to do some more research into what the affordable housing movement includes. Further, this notion that poor people would be "artificially" allowed to live in places subject to affordable housing initiatives completely ignores the extent to which commercial entities are "artificially" allowed to swallow up urban real estate and the hefty tax subsidies needed to stimulate gentrification in the first place. Most urban real estate markets are already heavily clouded with commerce friendly artificiality, so in many cases, affordable housing is merely trying to level a playing field already heavily skewed towards commercial interests, interests that do very little relative to long term neighborhood/community wealth. So then explain to me what a community gains from anti-gentrification efforts. Portland does not have the issue Vancouver BC had where foreign investors were just buying up land. In Portland, it is just a ton of people with a lot of money who all want to live in Portland. It is purely replacing lower income people with higher income people and I am struggling to see the downside. The most important thing I'd iterate here is that Portland is a fucking incredibly unusual place; its extremely vibrant local government and robust public review of most public initiatives changes the picture somewhat relative to urban housing. Nevertheless, the idea in pushing anti-gentrification efforts in a place like Portland would revolve around striking a balance between monied increases in land value and the rights of those with pre-existing interests in urban housing (which mostly consists of poor people, but the stubborn homeowner problem is also a factor). Outside of the few cities with unusually high amounts of local civic engagement like Portland, the incentives relative to controlling gentrification become even more clear in the sense that huge numbers of people oftentimes get priced out of their homes without ever even having a say in the matter. Aside from the obvious moral problems with this, boom and bust fluctuations in real estate valuation encourage bubbles like those forming over cities like San Francisco and the borough of Brooklyn. In that sense, the 2008 crisis and its fallout are also good reasons for strong regulatory approaches to urban affordable housing. I'll bookend this and tacitly agree with xDaunt in saying that HUD's approaches have been historically shitty and, given the ease with which local interests are captured relative to real estate, solutions will likely come from a consensus broader than that reached at the local level.
The recent trend in New York has been to provide a certain percentage of Affordable housing units within new high rise units and the rest can be market rate. This allows for a more economically diverse neighborhood, granted the competition for these is intense and they are often given out on lotteries, so there will always be winners and losers.
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On June 13 2017 00:26 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 00:16 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:13 farvacola wrote:On June 13 2017 00:07 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:04 farvacola wrote:
You should support affordable housing and anti-gentrification efforts as well then. Absolutely not. I do not even slightly support anti-gentrification. Trying to force an area to not have increased market value is counter productive and has no long term goal. We don't gain anything by artificially allowing poor people to have some designated population density. They don't need to live in Portland when there are nearby areas they could otherwise live. If you think anti-gentrification efforts are aimed solely at artificially tamping down market values, you need to do some more research into what the affordable housing movement includes. Further, this notion that poor people would be "artificially" allowed to live in places subject to affordable housing initiatives completely ignores the extent to which commercial entities are "artificially" allowed to swallow up urban real estate and the hefty tax subsidies needed to stimulate gentrification in the first place. Most urban real estate markets are already heavily clouded with commerce friendly artificiality, so in many cases, affordable housing is merely trying to level a playing field already heavily skewed towards commercial interests, interests that do very little relative to long term neighborhood/community wealth. So then explain to me what a community gains from anti-gentrification efforts. Portland does not have the issue Vancouver BC had where foreign investors were just buying up land. In Portland, it is just a ton of people with a lot of money who all want to live in Portland. It is purely replacing lower income people with higher income people and I am struggling to see the downside. The most important thing I'd iterate here is that Portland is a fucking incredibly unusual place; its extremely vibrant local government and robust public review of most public initiatives changes the picture somewhat relative to urban housing. Nevertheless, the idea in pushing anti-gentrification efforts in a place like Portland would revolve around striking a balance between monied increases in land value and the rights of those with pre-existing interests in urban housing (which mostly consists of poor people, but the stubborn homeowner problem is also a factor). Outside of the few cities with unusually high amounts of local civic engagement like Portland, the incentives relative to controlling gentrification become even more clear in the sense that huge numbers of people oftentimes get priced out of their homes without ever even having a say in the matter. Aside from the obvious moral problems with this, boom and bust fluctuations in real estate valuation encourage bubbles like those forming over cities like San Francisco and the borough of Brooklyn. In that sense, the 2008 crisis and its fallout are also good reasons for strong regulatory approaches to urban affordable housing. I'll bookend this and tacitly agree with xDaunt in saying that HUD's approaches have been historically shitty and, given the ease with which local interests are captured relative to real estate, solutions will likely come from a consensus broader than that reached at the local level.
How are you defining "monied" interests? Do you live in or around Portland? You seem to know a lot.
From the home owners I've spoken to, this has been amazing for them. Triple digit value increases in like 5 years. Are you referring to renters when you say people getting run out of their own homes?
xDaunt's post is true for me as well. In Portland specifically, a lot of really shitty areas sure are amazing now. From my perspective, Portland as a whole is much more expensive, which means a ton of money is getting dumped into it. A lot of people move to Portland specifically for the purpose of having easy access to all the places to spend money at. Whether brunch of shows or what have you, Portland is a money drain for young people with disposable income. The amount of money going into the city is insane. It is becoming really, really nice in a lot of areas that would have had no business being nice 10 years ago.
On June 13 2017 00:43 Trainrunnef wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 00:26 farvacola wrote:On June 13 2017 00:16 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:13 farvacola wrote:On June 13 2017 00:07 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:04 farvacola wrote:
You should support affordable housing and anti-gentrification efforts as well then. Absolutely not. I do not even slightly support anti-gentrification. Trying to force an area to not have increased market value is counter productive and has no long term goal. We don't gain anything by artificially allowing poor people to have some designated population density. They don't need to live in Portland when there are nearby areas they could otherwise live. If you think anti-gentrification efforts are aimed solely at artificially tamping down market values, you need to do some more research into what the affordable housing movement includes. Further, this notion that poor people would be "artificially" allowed to live in places subject to affordable housing initiatives completely ignores the extent to which commercial entities are "artificially" allowed to swallow up urban real estate and the hefty tax subsidies needed to stimulate gentrification in the first place. Most urban real estate markets are already heavily clouded with commerce friendly artificiality, so in many cases, affordable housing is merely trying to level a playing field already heavily skewed towards commercial interests, interests that do very little relative to long term neighborhood/community wealth. So then explain to me what a community gains from anti-gentrification efforts. Portland does not have the issue Vancouver BC had where foreign investors were just buying up land. In Portland, it is just a ton of people with a lot of money who all want to live in Portland. It is purely replacing lower income people with higher income people and I am struggling to see the downside. The most important thing I'd iterate here is that Portland is a fucking incredibly unusual place; its extremely vibrant local government and robust public review of most public initiatives changes the picture somewhat relative to urban housing. Nevertheless, the idea in pushing anti-gentrification efforts in a place like Portland would revolve around striking a balance between monied increases in land value and the rights of those with pre-existing interests in urban housing (which mostly consists of poor people, but the stubborn homeowner problem is also a factor). Outside of the few cities with unusually high amounts of local civic engagement like Portland, the incentives relative to controlling gentrification become even more clear in the sense that huge numbers of people oftentimes get priced out of their homes without ever even having a say in the matter. Aside from the obvious moral problems with this, boom and bust fluctuations in real estate valuation encourage bubbles like those forming over cities like San Francisco and the borough of Brooklyn. In that sense, the 2008 crisis and its fallout are also good reasons for strong regulatory approaches to urban affordable housing. I'll bookend this and tacitly agree with xDaunt in saying that HUD's approaches have been historically shitty and, given the ease with which local interests are captured relative to real estate, solutions will likely come from a consensus broader than that reached at the local level. The recent trend in New York has been to provide a certain percentage of Affordable housing units within new high rise units and the rest can be market rate. This allows for a more economically diverse neighborhood, granted the competition for these is intense and they are often given out on lotteries, so there will always be winners and losers.
So for a given building, floors 2 and 3 would be low income housing? Or something like that? I think that would make sense.
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On June 13 2017 00:43 Trainrunnef wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 00:26 farvacola wrote:On June 13 2017 00:16 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:13 farvacola wrote:On June 13 2017 00:07 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:04 farvacola wrote:
You should support affordable housing and anti-gentrification efforts as well then. Absolutely not. I do not even slightly support anti-gentrification. Trying to force an area to not have increased market value is counter productive and has no long term goal. We don't gain anything by artificially allowing poor people to have some designated population density. They don't need to live in Portland when there are nearby areas they could otherwise live. If you think anti-gentrification efforts are aimed solely at artificially tamping down market values, you need to do some more research into what the affordable housing movement includes. Further, this notion that poor people would be "artificially" allowed to live in places subject to affordable housing initiatives completely ignores the extent to which commercial entities are "artificially" allowed to swallow up urban real estate and the hefty tax subsidies needed to stimulate gentrification in the first place. Most urban real estate markets are already heavily clouded with commerce friendly artificiality, so in many cases, affordable housing is merely trying to level a playing field already heavily skewed towards commercial interests, interests that do very little relative to long term neighborhood/community wealth. So then explain to me what a community gains from anti-gentrification efforts. Portland does not have the issue Vancouver BC had where foreign investors were just buying up land. In Portland, it is just a ton of people with a lot of money who all want to live in Portland. It is purely replacing lower income people with higher income people and I am struggling to see the downside. The most important thing I'd iterate here is that Portland is a fucking incredibly unusual place; its extremely vibrant local government and robust public review of most public initiatives changes the picture somewhat relative to urban housing. Nevertheless, the idea in pushing anti-gentrification efforts in a place like Portland would revolve around striking a balance between monied increases in land value and the rights of those with pre-existing interests in urban housing (which mostly consists of poor people, but the stubborn homeowner problem is also a factor). Outside of the few cities with unusually high amounts of local civic engagement like Portland, the incentives relative to controlling gentrification become even more clear in the sense that huge numbers of people oftentimes get priced out of their homes without ever even having a say in the matter. Aside from the obvious moral problems with this, boom and bust fluctuations in real estate valuation encourage bubbles like those forming over cities like San Francisco and the borough of Brooklyn. In that sense, the 2008 crisis and its fallout are also good reasons for strong regulatory approaches to urban affordable housing. I'll bookend this and tacitly agree with xDaunt in saying that HUD's approaches have been historically shitty and, given the ease with which local interests are captured relative to real estate, solutions will likely come from a consensus broader than that reached at the local level. The recent trend in New York has been to provide a certain percentage of Affordable housing units within new high rise units and the rest can be market rate. This allows for a more economically diverse neighborhood, granted the competition for these is intense and they are often given out on lotteries, so there will always be winners and losers.
This is probably about the best solution that can be reasonably expected.
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one of the issues is that it's not always slums or urban wasteland turning into new developments, it's regular middle class-ish neighborhoods that are suddenly getting priced out. it's great for homeowners, but not so great for the significant proportion of people who rent. in atlanta rent has been bumping up double digits in a lot of places.
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On June 13 2017 00:46 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 00:43 Trainrunnef wrote:On June 13 2017 00:26 farvacola wrote:On June 13 2017 00:16 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:13 farvacola wrote:On June 13 2017 00:07 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:04 farvacola wrote:
You should support affordable housing and anti-gentrification efforts as well then. Absolutely not. I do not even slightly support anti-gentrification. Trying to force an area to not have increased market value is counter productive and has no long term goal. We don't gain anything by artificially allowing poor people to have some designated population density. They don't need to live in Portland when there are nearby areas they could otherwise live. If you think anti-gentrification efforts are aimed solely at artificially tamping down market values, you need to do some more research into what the affordable housing movement includes. Further, this notion that poor people would be "artificially" allowed to live in places subject to affordable housing initiatives completely ignores the extent to which commercial entities are "artificially" allowed to swallow up urban real estate and the hefty tax subsidies needed to stimulate gentrification in the first place. Most urban real estate markets are already heavily clouded with commerce friendly artificiality, so in many cases, affordable housing is merely trying to level a playing field already heavily skewed towards commercial interests, interests that do very little relative to long term neighborhood/community wealth. So then explain to me what a community gains from anti-gentrification efforts. Portland does not have the issue Vancouver BC had where foreign investors were just buying up land. In Portland, it is just a ton of people with a lot of money who all want to live in Portland. It is purely replacing lower income people with higher income people and I am struggling to see the downside. The most important thing I'd iterate here is that Portland is a fucking incredibly unusual place; its extremely vibrant local government and robust public review of most public initiatives changes the picture somewhat relative to urban housing. Nevertheless, the idea in pushing anti-gentrification efforts in a place like Portland would revolve around striking a balance between monied increases in land value and the rights of those with pre-existing interests in urban housing (which mostly consists of poor people, but the stubborn homeowner problem is also a factor). Outside of the few cities with unusually high amounts of local civic engagement like Portland, the incentives relative to controlling gentrification become even more clear in the sense that huge numbers of people oftentimes get priced out of their homes without ever even having a say in the matter. Aside from the obvious moral problems with this, boom and bust fluctuations in real estate valuation encourage bubbles like those forming over cities like San Francisco and the borough of Brooklyn. In that sense, the 2008 crisis and its fallout are also good reasons for strong regulatory approaches to urban affordable housing. I'll bookend this and tacitly agree with xDaunt in saying that HUD's approaches have been historically shitty and, given the ease with which local interests are captured relative to real estate, solutions will likely come from a consensus broader than that reached at the local level. The recent trend in New York has been to provide a certain percentage of Affordable housing units within new high rise units and the rest can be market rate. This allows for a more economically diverse neighborhood, granted the competition for these is intense and they are often given out on lotteries, so there will always be winners and losers. This is probably about the best solution that can be reasonably expected.
There is really good data showing mixed incomes with residences helping upward mobility and increasing stability for the lower income families. My wife used to work affordable housing non-profit in Boston and their entire focus was getting people away from the idea of big box affordable housing units. It is really hard to sell to some politicians because it is politically easier to create a new building and make it all affordable housing.
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If anyone wants to read more on the affordable housing issue, I recommend the demographia reports:
http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf
Mostly what I'd like to see more of, is to NOT prohibit the creation of affordable housing by restrictive zoning laws which have that effect (even if it is not their intent, which is usually some vague "preserving community character"). too many places do that.
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On June 13 2017 00:45 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 00:26 farvacola wrote:On June 13 2017 00:16 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:13 farvacola wrote:On June 13 2017 00:07 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:04 farvacola wrote:
You should support affordable housing and anti-gentrification efforts as well then. Absolutely not. I do not even slightly support anti-gentrification. Trying to force an area to not have increased market value is counter productive and has no long term goal. We don't gain anything by artificially allowing poor people to have some designated population density. They don't need to live in Portland when there are nearby areas they could otherwise live. If you think anti-gentrification efforts are aimed solely at artificially tamping down market values, you need to do some more research into what the affordable housing movement includes. Further, this notion that poor people would be "artificially" allowed to live in places subject to affordable housing initiatives completely ignores the extent to which commercial entities are "artificially" allowed to swallow up urban real estate and the hefty tax subsidies needed to stimulate gentrification in the first place. Most urban real estate markets are already heavily clouded with commerce friendly artificiality, so in many cases, affordable housing is merely trying to level a playing field already heavily skewed towards commercial interests, interests that do very little relative to long term neighborhood/community wealth. So then explain to me what a community gains from anti-gentrification efforts. Portland does not have the issue Vancouver BC had where foreign investors were just buying up land. In Portland, it is just a ton of people with a lot of money who all want to live in Portland. It is purely replacing lower income people with higher income people and I am struggling to see the downside. The most important thing I'd iterate here is that Portland is a fucking incredibly unusual place; its extremely vibrant local government and robust public review of most public initiatives changes the picture somewhat relative to urban housing. Nevertheless, the idea in pushing anti-gentrification efforts in a place like Portland would revolve around striking a balance between monied increases in land value and the rights of those with pre-existing interests in urban housing (which mostly consists of poor people, but the stubborn homeowner problem is also a factor). Outside of the few cities with unusually high amounts of local civic engagement like Portland, the incentives relative to controlling gentrification become even more clear in the sense that huge numbers of people oftentimes get priced out of their homes without ever even having a say in the matter. Aside from the obvious moral problems with this, boom and bust fluctuations in real estate valuation encourage bubbles like those forming over cities like San Francisco and the borough of Brooklyn. In that sense, the 2008 crisis and its fallout are also good reasons for strong regulatory approaches to urban affordable housing. I'll bookend this and tacitly agree with xDaunt in saying that HUD's approaches have been historically shitty and, given the ease with which local interests are captured relative to real estate, solutions will likely come from a consensus broader than that reached at the local level. How are you defining "monied" interests? Do you live in or around Portland? You seem to know a lot. From the home owners I've spoken to, this has been amazing for them. Triple digit value increases in like 5 years. Are you referring to renters when you say people getting run out of their own homes? xDaunt's post is true for me as well. In Portland specifically, a lot of really shitty areas sure are amazing now. From my perspective, Portland as a whole is much more expensive, which means a ton of money is getting dumped into it. A lot of people move to Portland specifically for the purpose of having easy access to all the places to spend money at. Whether brunch of shows or what have you, Portland is a money drain for young people with disposable income. The amount of money going into the city is insane. It is becoming really, really nice in a lot of areas that would have had no business being nice 10 years ago.
The closest I've been was living outside Seattle for a few years, but for some odd reason, a ton of kids I went to high school with in Ohio moved to Portland, mostly to do heroin and shit stir. I've also done some work with municipal finance and administration, and among scholars in that field, Portland is a key item for study because of its oddity. (by monied interests, I mostly mean commercial real estate developers, but other interests with significant resources are also at play).
As for your description of Portland's recent success, I can't really dispute the reality of what a booming urban economy looks like to those in a position to benefit. I'd only remind you that many of the folks caught most off guard by the 2008 bubble felt similarly emboldened by what looked like an awesome real estate market with no end in sight. Without looking into it too closely, I'd bet you can find busts to accompany Portland's booms, likely in the form of area suburbs suddenly inundated with folks priced out of their urban digs. Further, Eastern Oregon has its share of crazy rural poverty, and in my mind, one can't look at the success of a state's cities without also looking to its farms.
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On June 13 2017 00:51 ticklishmusic wrote:
one of the issues is that it's not always slums or urban wasteland turning into new developments, it's regular middle class-ish neighborhoods that are suddenly getting priced out. it's great for homeowners, but not so great for the significant proportion of people who rent. in atlanta rent has been bumping up double digits in a lot of places.
So if a family rents a house for $1500/month and someone offers that home owner $2500/month, by what set of ethics can that home owner be disallowed from renting to the $2500/month tenant? This is the case that never makes sense to me. In Portland, there is extremely widespread disdain for home owners who rent to someone more expensive than their current tenant. But if someone offered me the ability to generate an additional $1000/month, I don't think I would ever bring myself to say no. My local government telling me I need to rent to someone poorer feels like madness.
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Mohdoo: The political realities of your area differ from the urban areas like NYC and Boston. In these cities, the cost of housing is rising so fast that the people who make it function(public and private) cannot afford to live there. There is a housing shortage. Cities need things like garbage removal and street cleaning to function. To give you an idea, to find cheaper housing outside of Boston one would to move so far it was an hour and a half to get into the city. Public transportation does not support moving that far away, so the person is screwed unless they can find a new job outside of Boston.
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On June 13 2017 00:57 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 00:51 ticklishmusic wrote:
one of the issues is that it's not always slums or urban wasteland turning into new developments, it's regular middle class-ish neighborhoods that are suddenly getting priced out. it's great for homeowners, but not so great for the significant proportion of people who rent. in atlanta rent has been bumping up double digits in a lot of places. So if a family rents a house for $1500/month and someone offers that home owner $2500/month, by what set of ethics can that home owner be disallowed from renting to the $2500/month tenant? This is the case that never makes sense to me. In Portland, there is extremely widespread disdain for home owners who rent to someone more expensive than their current tenant. But if someone offered me the ability to generate an additional $1000/month, I don't think I would ever bring myself to say no. My local government telling me I need to rent to someone poorer feels like madness.
all the new apartments going up are "luxury", which carries a premium beyond what a regular old house or apartment would. it's a little ridiculous - my new place has a bocce ball court, which is wholly unnecessary (but since it's there and i'll be paying for it i'll use the heck out of it) but that plus other features allows the place to charge me a couple hundred extra. because the area is so hot, the apartment co's can pull shit like that. meanwhile the supple of regular no frills attached housing is getting slimmer and slimmer. i can afford this, and i'm willing to pay because it makes my work commute much easier, but it's pushing out a lot of other people who may not have the financial flexibility that i do.
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On June 13 2017 01:02 Plansix wrote:
Mohdoo: The political realities of your area differ from the urban areas like NYC and Boston. In these cities, the cost of housing is rising so fast that the people who make it function(public and private) cannot afford to live there. There is a housing shortage. Cities need things like garbage removal and street cleaning to function.
Along with that there's a problem that it costs money to move, by raising rent and evicting people you are putting a financial burden on them that they may not be able to afford, doubly so if they aren't able to keep their same job(s) because of the move. There's ethics to both sides of it.
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United States43973 Posts
On June 13 2017 01:02 Plansix wrote:
Mohdoo: The political realities of your area differ from the urban areas like NYC and Boston. In these cities, the cost of housing is rising so fast that the people who make it function(public and private) cannot afford to live there. There is a housing shortage. Cities need things like garbage removal and street cleaning to function. To give you an idea, to find cheaper housing outside of Boston one would to move so far it was an hour and a half to get into the city. Public transportation does not support moving that far away, so the person is screwed unless they can find a new job outside of Boston.
Surely if the people who make it function cannot afford to live there then they either don't make it function after all or they are massively undercompensated. Simply anchor their pay to the cost of living and if garbage removal is really worth $200k/year then pay them that.
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On June 13 2017 01:08 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:02 Plansix wrote:
Mohdoo: The political realities of your area differ from the urban areas like NYC and Boston. In these cities, the cost of housing is rising so fast that the people who make it function(public and private) cannot afford to live there. There is a housing shortage. Cities need things like garbage removal and street cleaning to function. To give you an idea, to find cheaper housing outside of Boston one would to move so far it was an hour and a half to get into the city. Public transportation does not support moving that far away, so the person is screwed unless they can find a new job outside of Boston. Surely if the people who make it function cannot afford to live there then they either don't make it function after all or they are massively undercompensated. Simply anchor their pay to the cost of living and if garbage removal is really worth $200k/year then pay them that.
How about we give everyone a rainbow while we are at it? Like yeah that's a nice solution in theory, instead a company will still pay the same $10/hr and force people either to cram into apartments with roommates or make long commutes because their alternative isn't a better job elsewhere, it's unemployment.
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On June 13 2017 01:08 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:02 Plansix wrote:
Mohdoo: The political realities of your area differ from the urban areas like NYC and Boston. In these cities, the cost of housing is rising so fast that the people who make it function(public and private) cannot afford to live there. There is a housing shortage. Cities need things like garbage removal and street cleaning to function. To give you an idea, to find cheaper housing outside of Boston one would to move so far it was an hour and a half to get into the city. Public transportation does not support moving that far away, so the person is screwed unless they can find a new job outside of Boston. Surely if the people who make it function cannot afford to live there then they either don't make it function after all or they are massively undercompensated. Simply anchor their pay to the cost of living and if garbage removal is really worth $200k/year then pay them that.
Would be interesting to have all "city functioning" state employees have pay which is an equation directly related to housing cost. Hire an actuary or whatever to give you a good formula from which pay is computed directly related to year by year housing costs.
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On June 13 2017 01:02 Plansix wrote:
Mohdoo: The political realities of your area differ from the urban areas like NYC and Boston. In these cities, the cost of housing is rising so fast that the people who make it function(public and private) cannot afford to live there. There is a housing shortage. Cities need things like garbage removal and street cleaning to function. To give you an idea, to find cheaper housing outside of Boston one would to move so far it was an hour and a half to get into the city. Public transportation does not support moving that far away, so the person is screwed unless they can find a new job outside of Boston.
Hey now, Western Mass isn't so bad 
I know the housing issue isn't quite as bad out here, but we can definitely feel the effect. I just recently moved and every place I looked was quite a bit more expensive for not much improvement. I got really lucky finding the place I did before it got listed.
I'm (not so secretly) hoping the Springfield casino spurs some economic activity in the area. For a while I've been thinking it could be an interesting incentive for some better public transport along I-91 and the Pike. There are a whole host of issues with that idea, but we pretty desperately need it. Looking at the Boston commute maps in the morning makes me really happy I live on this side of the state.
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Your tenants have rights as well, don't they? In germany you can neither simply raise the rent above what is usual in the area nor can you throw out your tenants for someone that pays more. I am living in one of the most expensive cities in Germany and if the price changes you are talking about would apply here, the city would half it's students over night and have zero workforce for it's industry or even service jobs.
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On June 13 2017 00:46 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 00:43 Trainrunnef wrote:On June 13 2017 00:26 farvacola wrote:On June 13 2017 00:16 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:13 farvacola wrote:On June 13 2017 00:07 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:04 farvacola wrote:
You should support affordable housing and anti-gentrification efforts as well then. Absolutely not. I do not even slightly support anti-gentrification. Trying to force an area to not have increased market value is counter productive and has no long term goal. We don't gain anything by artificially allowing poor people to have some designated population density. They don't need to live in Portland when there are nearby areas they could otherwise live. If you think anti-gentrification efforts are aimed solely at artificially tamping down market values, you need to do some more research into what the affordable housing movement includes. Further, this notion that poor people would be "artificially" allowed to live in places subject to affordable housing initiatives completely ignores the extent to which commercial entities are "artificially" allowed to swallow up urban real estate and the hefty tax subsidies needed to stimulate gentrification in the first place. Most urban real estate markets are already heavily clouded with commerce friendly artificiality, so in many cases, affordable housing is merely trying to level a playing field already heavily skewed towards commercial interests, interests that do very little relative to long term neighborhood/community wealth. So then explain to me what a community gains from anti-gentrification efforts. Portland does not have the issue Vancouver BC had where foreign investors were just buying up land. In Portland, it is just a ton of people with a lot of money who all want to live in Portland. It is purely replacing lower income people with higher income people and I am struggling to see the downside. The most important thing I'd iterate here is that Portland is a fucking incredibly unusual place; its extremely vibrant local government and robust public review of most public initiatives changes the picture somewhat relative to urban housing. Nevertheless, the idea in pushing anti-gentrification efforts in a place like Portland would revolve around striking a balance between monied increases in land value and the rights of those with pre-existing interests in urban housing (which mostly consists of poor people, but the stubborn homeowner problem is also a factor). Outside of the few cities with unusually high amounts of local civic engagement like Portland, the incentives relative to controlling gentrification become even more clear in the sense that huge numbers of people oftentimes get priced out of their homes without ever even having a say in the matter. Aside from the obvious moral problems with this, boom and bust fluctuations in real estate valuation encourage bubbles like those forming over cities like San Francisco and the borough of Brooklyn. In that sense, the 2008 crisis and its fallout are also good reasons for strong regulatory approaches to urban affordable housing. I'll bookend this and tacitly agree with xDaunt in saying that HUD's approaches have been historically shitty and, given the ease with which local interests are captured relative to real estate, solutions will likely come from a consensus broader than that reached at the local level. The recent trend in New York has been to provide a certain percentage of Affordable housing units within new high rise units and the rest can be market rate. This allows for a more economically diverse neighborhood, granted the competition for these is intense and they are often given out on lotteries, so there will always be winners and losers. This is probably about the best solution that can be reasonably expected.
Agreed, Everyone has a vested interest to make sure that the building stays in good shape. When poor people are put into these housing developments they have a vested interest in making sure that they dont get kicked out for disobeying the rules because the alternative is a shitty slum building where the landlord doesn't give a shit about you, or the government doesn't have the funding to keep the building in good condition. its really a win win. The developers get their tax break too.
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On June 13 2017 01:19 Broetchenholer wrote:
Your tenants have rights as well, don't they? In germany you can neither simply raise the rent above what is usual in the area nor can you throw out your tenants for someone that pays more. I am living in one of the most expensive cities in Germany and if the price changes you are talking about would apply here, the city would half it's students over night and have zero workforce for it's industry or even service jobs.
Depends on the city/state.
The other interesting thing about rents recently is AirBnB's effect. When the apartment next to mine (same building) was vacated the building manager turned it into an AirBnB. So forget even luxury pricing when you can charge like $150+/night for a place.
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EPT
