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Comment by PeterStuer | Hacker News Reader

The article seems to have it arse backwards. Yes, a lot of times this is a situation of "Distributed Costs and Concentrated Benefits", but with the benefits going to the property developer, and the costs to the impacted community. NIMBY is the catchy phrase constructed by marketing to discredit serious concerns people have when they are on the receiving end of someone's 'unacounted externality'. Technology has made it marginally cheaper to organize a resistance, but it is still an uphill battle because of the natural imbalance in the cost/benefits situation.

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I completely agree that development creates negative externalities which are legitimate complaints for neighbors. However, restrictions on development create a regressive tax in the form of high rents, which is, as the article describes, distributed broadly. What's needed is some sort of cost-benefit balance between the two.

For example, I rent a 400 sq foot apartment in SF for $3k. The operating and capital cost of the physical apartment is probably on the order of $1000 (I have rented similar places in Montreal, which has ample housing, for <$1000). That means that the other $2000, or about 2/3 of my rent, is the result of apartment scarcity caused by development restrictions. If new development is more costly, we could imagine my rent would be $1500 at market equilibrium if there were no barriers to development and the city was covered in high rises from bay to ocean, so I am effectively paying $1500/mo for restrictions on development.

Those restrictions have value in the form of reducing community impacts, so the question becomes, should the community as a whole pay a 100% "tax" on its rents to avoid additional development? The policy also closes off market rate housing in the city to any who can't afford the rents, which could be a feature or a bug depending on your outlook.

I believe there is a goldilocks regime between the two extremes that we should strive for, but our current system doesn't provide a mechanism for us as a society to make a balanced cost/benefit tradeoff.

Do you happen to have another example of an city with a similar weather and employment profile that is significantly cheaper? Regardless of development?

Is there unanimous agreement that high rents(which are occurring throughout the US and abroad right now) are solely due to lack of development?

You shouldn't be concerned about unanimity. You should be concerned if it is true or not.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgXjY3cWIAAVfCM.jpg:large

Unfortunately we can't run experiments on this question. Every city is unique, and people tend to think very special.

This is a pretty good resource: http://marketurbanism.com/2015/11/05/how-land-use-regulation...

> I believe there is a goldilocks regime between the two extremes that we should strive for

Is that where life becomes so unpleasant for the people who live there that the rents crash? I think you run into a traditional work migration problem here, because the young people who are moving to SF from suburbs and small towns across the nation generally have no intention of staying in SF and raising a family, so will be tolerant of far worse conditions than people who intend to actually make a life there.

That's probably because people can't make a life there.

To be honest, the costs in many cases aren't actually that high, and nearly all the worst of the NIMBY places have prices that are going up and up: selling out and moving is going to be a financial win.

"NIMBY" has become like "PC" and other catchy terms of its ilk. On the one hand, they refer to principles/values that can often be legitimately criticized--at least up to a point. On the other hand, they've become these reflexively applied dismissive labels that imply nothing about the opposing side's arguments have any legitimacy whatsoever because NIMBY or because PC.

I never knew the term before moving to the Bay Area and seeing first hand the extreme resistance to high density housing because of concern X. Nobody cares about Warrantless wiretapping or grass roots political movement, but I've seen home owners rally the troops to stop a new 4-story "high rise"

It's hardly new. I've heard it applied to everything from large suburban-style developments in a rural town to a big casino in the next town over. It's basically come to mean someone whose desires and preferences for building in the local area are different from mine.

What exactly are these costs, and what's the most effective way to mitigate them or spread them more fairly?

Sparse housing has costs, too. Very big costs, like commute time and pollution.

The fact that a developer might get rich in the process of creating dense housing is not really a problem for me.

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