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Comment by twinkletwinkle | Hacker News Reader

Every time you talk about building more housing in a desirable place, there's always someone who brings up the argument "But if you build more housing then even MORE people will want to move here". Nothing wrong with some empirical evidence.

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Actually the usual argument, as per the article, is more like "only rich people can afford to live in new housing, therefore building new housing doesn't help poor people", which is of course false.

Edit: Unsurprisingly, the top post on this very page is now a form of this argument.

They're not wrong. There will be more people moving there if prices are lowered, and over the long run unless Portland can absorb the entire movable population whatever it is, it will be helping to lower rent everywhere in the country. So thanks!

What I think you're saying is, prices drop in Portland, so people move there from city X, which drops demand in X, so prices drop in X.

One problem, though, is "stickiness". I wouldn't move to a different city for $1/month. I probably wouldn't move even for $100/month. Why not? Well, I'm not single, and I have kids. It's not just that I'd upset everyone's routine - I'd also have to move all this stuff. I'd also have to sell my place and buy (or rent) a new one. Total cost to me: Probably in the $20,000 range. I'm going to do that for $100/month? No way. Even for $1000/month, it would take 20 months to pay back, not counting the time and aggravation.

So cities are "sticky". I'm stuck here; it takes a seriously better situation to break me loose.

Many people have lower thresholds than I do; but for most people, the threshold is some way above zero. (Exceptions do exist; if the current situation is socially or emotionally difficult, they may move to something even if it's economically worse.)

- "But if you build more housing then even MORE people will want to move here"

Isn't this actually true?

I would love to pay less rent, and don't mind having higher density. But I can also see why someone doesn't want those.

No, the number of people who want to move there will probably not increase,. There will be more people actually moving there, which is a different thing. Wanting to move there is what raises the prices.

It's called induced demand. Luckily though, it lags market supply by a bit.

Or more importantly making traffic worse, especially if the traffic is already bad.

Build near mass transit and in walkable neighborhoods and restrict the number of parking spaces. Make streets safer to walk and bike. Adding more housing units doesn't need to mean a linear increase in cars as well.

That works if you have the land to do that. The Virginia side of the DC area has lots of high rise apartments and skyscrapers built around the metro station and it definitely works to keep cars off the road but I don't know of the same thing can be done in the bay.

> I don't know of the same thing can be done in the bay.

Walk by any of the BART stations in the East Bay (even Downtown Oakland), and you'll see vacant fields and mostly empty parking lots. The area near MacArthur BART could be densified to a crazy degree without displacing a soul.

Balboa park station is surrounded by single family homes. Colma is inhabited by people who no longer need transportation.

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