Comment by TomMckenny | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TomMckenny | Hacker News Reader

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Housing prices in Flint Michigan are also rising, a town not only free of zoning problems but also a shrinking population (among other issues).

And flint is not the only city like this with shrinking population yet rising housing values. A quick google shows me also Rockford, IL, Decatur, IL. Youngstown OH. Saginaw, MI. Binghamton, NY with no apparent end to the list

While it's true that zoning worsens the problem, cities with essentially no zoning rules also have have rising housing prices.

The crux of this universal problem is that housing has been turned into an international investment class rather than being housing.

That and that retirement support is so dismal, individuals must have large returns on home purchase to avoid life threatening poverty in old age.

So of course change zoning rules, it's bound to help some but it's not the core problem.

[1] for the curious, start here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shrinking_cities_in_th...

You’re listing cities that had low home prices, then dropped even further from 2008-2012. A home that sold for $120k in 2008 dropped to 60-70 and may be worth 70-100 today. (I live in Rockford.)

Yes, something other than population, jobs and zoning are determining housing prices. Even a $70k price is twice national average of a generation ago adjusted for inflation.

I’ve read that’s caused by one-income households giving way to two-income. It’s a long-term trend separate from changes in the last ten years.

Interesting idea but dual income household numbers have been flat at about 65% since about 1990.

Flint Michigan is emerging from one of the greatest catastrophes in modern times - their entire water supply poisoned by lead.

This is not the city to use in any argument, unless it involves EPA super sites.

I think that's his point. If the city is a disaster, with a shrinking population, and lax zoning laws -- why are prices continuing to rise?

My point is that this is not a city to use in any argument. Their situation is so unique as to be irrelevant to any aggregate statistic.

It’s a worst case scenario for property values and they’re still going up. That’s a perfectly valid example.

Maybe they went to zero during the crisis and then went up? If they went down, perfectly valid to ignore them, no? I think we should exclude extreme examples in these debates. The data backing the arguments up are random at best

They did not go to zero. They did not even go as low as 2009. The water crises started in Apr 2014 resulting in a brief drop of typical sized followed immediately next quarter by a record breaking rise to record high prices even though sales were low before it.

http://www.city-data.com/housing/houses-Flint-Michigan.html

Well sure, it makes it easier to ignore depending on the point you are trying to make.

> cities with essentially no zoning rules also have have rising housing prices.

those cities may have laxer zoning/land-use laws than other US cities but they're still very strict compared to cities outside US.

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