Comment by davidf18 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by davidf18 | Hacker News Reader

Tech Tools won't solve the problem properly anymore than better and more firetrucks and fire engines will solve a problem with fires if buildings are built without fire extinguishers, sprinkler systems, and materials that don't burn readily.

In other words, a much better plan would be to solve the systems problem which is this case is the "economic rents" -- market inefficiencies -- which use politics to create an artificial scarcity of housing through zoning density restrictions and overuse of historic landmark status. This use of politics to create the artificial scarcity transfers income/wealth from the apartment renter to the landlord.

It makes people like Donald Trump far wealthier than they'd be if we eliminated the laws that create the artificial scarcity.

There used to be an artificial scarcity of taxicabs in NYC where the number of taxi medallions were limited to 13,000 and the taxi medallion had a market value $1.2 million. Then Uber/Lyft came along and the taxi medallion owners and banks/credit unions that financed the medallion mortgages tried to use politics to limit their use in NYC, but thankfully they failed. Now we have lower fares (but not from taxis) thanks to Uber/Lyft and the taxi medallion "landlord" has seen the taxi medallion value drop to $700,000 or less.

Those who are interested in further understand the issue should see works by Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser, see the NY Daily News op-ed, "Build Big, Bill."

Also, Financial Times Columnist who has a BS and MS in Economics, Tim Harford, had written an enjoyable and brief book about Microeconomics called, "The Undercover Economist."

You seem to be refuting your own argument with the Uber / Lyft example. Are these not tech tools that undermined the rent seeking of NYC taxi medallions?

The reason Uber/Lyft were able to disrupt medallions was primarily due to ending the artificial shortage. Technology was just a means to that end, not the primary factor.

Right, so if there is similarly an artificial shortage of housing as the comment I responded to suggests, what's the fundamental reason the problem couldn't be solved by technology (e.g AirBNB)

Actually, it was solved 100 years ago or so with technology. For example, steel framed buildings and Otis elevators made tall buildings possible and a more economical use of land (eg, less expensive apartments and offices than before these technologies existed).

If you lived in NYC, you wouldn't see Airbnb as a solution but rather a problem created. It allows transients into buildings and we don't want that. We value our safety and pay for it financially.

The real solution is to undo the laws that create the artificial "economic rents" that benefit landlords at the expense of renters. See Economist Glaeser's column I cited above.

Doesn't "transients" just mean homeless people? How many people are using AirBnB? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding

It means people with no ties to the property. Its a lot harder to get away with robbing a neighbor you see every day then it is to rob a stranger who won't be able to find you afterwards. Similarly someone who is tied to the property has a greater interest in ensuring its upkeep.

For one, because AirBnB isn't creating new housing. It's a tech tool that allows users to skirt existing regulation and rent out their property, and is likely to make housing shortages worse rather than better.

You can't really skirt regulation in the same way when it comes to building housing. People are going to notice when you try to erect a 50 floor skyscraper in a historical district.

Airbnb isn't increasing the inventory, just enabling owners lease out existing inventory. Even there, it's focused on short-term rentals instead of long-term.

If you want to increase the number of residences on a given piece of land, you have to replace single family homes with high-rises, no way around it.

Right, but they mainly did that by bringing lots of new supply on the market. It would have had a much smaller effect (though still noteworthy!) if they had simply balanced out mis-utilization[1].

The tech tools referred to in the story are only doing the latter; they aren't adding more rentable space and so are far more limited in what they can do about pricing or shortages.

[1] e.g. redirected taxis from long lines at major pickup points to sporadic pickups at less common places

Sorry, have to follow up -- I erred in that comment. If tech enabled taxis to get better utilization, that would have increased the steady expected revenue during each shift, and increased the medallion prices, not disrupted it.

The only similarity with Uber is that it would have made it easier to get a ride, but the effect would still be opposite of Uber with respect to medallion prices.

No. Uber & Lyft are basically regulatory hacks. They showed up with enough money to just ignore the medallion rules since they were in a slight gray area. Their investment allowed them to get everyone onto their product faster than the changes that were demanded by taxi medallion owners demanded could get through state & city legislators. Public opinion swayed and it became impossible for the taxi medallion owners to lobby for changes that would ban Uber & Lyft. Tech is an enabler in that story, but I don't even think it's the most important part of the story.

Links to article and book referenced in parent:

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1....

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0040JHNR0/

Build big, then what? The subways and footpaths are already at capacity at peak hours. Let the growth go to other cities.

OP's argument is to match supply with demand, not to increase demand (which is more of a function of the job market in the area than anything else)

Demand is not just the job market, but for many of us it is a wonderful place to live. YMMV.

We have a 24/367 Apple Store, 7 stores in Manhattan :-)

This is broadly speaking not true at all. NYC's train system currently runs far below its physical capacity, mostly because of old switching technology.

E.g. Paris steadily runs a train every couple minutes on many lines with no problems, and we could too after deploying switching technology improvements.

And the only pedestrian sidewalk I've ever seen at gridlocked capacity is Rockefeller center in Christmastime.

Paris runs smaller trains at greater frequency (especially on weekends), and it's so much better. I wish we'd run G train-sized trains on the weekends, twice as frequently.

Also, merging LIRR and NJT and through-running RER style is so obvious yet never brought up. Penn is not intended to be a terminal and it shows.

Subways, sure, but the sidewalks can be made better by removing lanes for free parking or so-called "car" lanes in general. It's actually the way it used to be!

http://www.streetsblog.org/2016/07/01/the-new-york-of-2016-n...

The subway problem could be partially solved with true dedicated lanes for buses/trams and offboard fare payment. It's not hard, these are both incredibly common in Europe.

Actually, there are certain express buses SBS-86 on 86th St, SBS-60 that goes from UWS to Laguardia Airport that skip some local stops that already work that way in NYC. There is a dedicated bus lane and riders pay for tickets from street machines.

I think more are planned.

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