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Comment by timothycrosley | Hacker News Reader

It's more complicated than that. Yes by increasing density, you are increasing supply of housing units, but you are also increasing the demand for your property - as now it's not only a single family that would be looking to buy it but but someone building a highrise. Also, counterintuitively, because your allowing houses to be torn down for apartment buildings etc, the supply of SFH actually goes down, and there will always be demand from some for SFH over condos etc. And since most cities can't keep up with the number of people who want to live in them, by allowing more young people to move to the city in apartments, your also increasing future demand as they grow up.

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> Yes by increasing density, you are increasing supply of housing units, but you are also increasing the demand for your property

So both remain in balance, prices don't increase and you get little or no financial benefits. Also, a house surrounded by high rises in a very busy street has far less relative value than a house in a quiet street where your kids can play around. Cities bring strangers, crime, pollution, noise, etc.

But if you increase job density without increasing housing density, then you reap massive financial benefits from increasing housing prices.

Without bringing job density into the equation, the demand is much much higher from the land value increase when zones move up. Is not at all unheard of for a SFH that was worth max 500K on the SFH market to be bought for over a million by developers when an area has gotten upzoned. Now, going back to jobs, in practicality, allowing upzones, also tends to bring way more jobs - more coffee shops / corporate towers etc.

"Is not at all unheard of for a SFH that was worth max 500K on the SFH market to be bought for over a million by developers when an area has gotten upzoned."

Yes, but that's only for holdouts, which is a game of chicken. And after the developers build around you, you're done, your home value plunges as you're surrounded by traffic and apartments.

"Now, going back to jobs, in practicality, allowing upzones, also tends to bring way more jobs - more coffee shops / corporate towers etc."

The two are unrelated. Cities have a lot of exclusive-use commercial or residential areas. You can increase the same jobs without having more residents, which increases value for the home-owners.

Which is exactly what is happening in the US.

So you think, having more retail space, more office buildings, more construction, etc is unrelated to jobs. Yep makes sense... What do you really think is more valuable a block of houses in San Francisco among many other blocks of houses, or if there was still any, a block of houses where a highrise could be built in Manhattan? Note also what's happening in the US is cities are disproportionately getting more expensive, people want to live near density. Jobs that used to be out in corporate parks, are moving, because non of the younger generation wants that life style. This is also why one of the cities that's increasing density and rezoning the fastest, Seattle, keeps having the highest increase in value for single family homes.

Can you point out concrete examples of home values plunging? Because every time I've heard it mentioned, starting in South Carolina when some black families moved into my white neighborhood, it hasn't happened.

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