Hacker News Reader

Comment by Spooky23 | Hacker News Reader

That graph doesn't tell the story, it's just picked because single family is the simplest indicator and has well defined economic benefit. The figures always incorporate new housing units -- a 20 story high-rise does not look like a single family home in the stats.

You can look at the raw data and see single/multi/large residential starts: https://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/pdf/bpsa.pdf

Single family construction is the canary in the coal mine because the costs are escalating to the point where more and more people are priced out. New construction is $150-275/sqft (10% more if no garage is present). When I started working in 2000, it was about half that. Per-unit costs drop with multi-family, but it's still creeping up there. The minimum price for finished new construction condos in my area (which is usually a 50th percentile market in the US) is about $350k.

View on HN

People don't need single-family homes. People in other countries do just fine with multi-family dwellings: high-rise condos, apartments, etc. In cities which are steadily increasing in density, single-family homes are utterly wasteful, and completely unnecessary. You can only fit so many of them in a given area, whereas with a high-rise, you can fit hundreds of people into the area used by a small handful of single-family homes.

Except a lot of people prefer single-family homes?

It doesn't matter what's efficient if it's what is in demand.

It does matter what's efficient because inefficiency in this matter is a burden to society.

I bet that you do something that's "a burden to society," broadly defined, and aren't willing to give that up.

But my somethings aren’t enforced on everyone else via zoning regulations in the Bay Area.

This entire thread is full of statements about the effects that the lack of housing supply is having on American families. I shouldn't need to bury the point of my comment by restating them needlessly.

Which is where public policy comes in, and it can come in at a very refined level.

For example: sulphur dioxide emissions. You can't just pump unlimited sulphur dioxide into the air, because that's a burden to society, but there's some level of emissions that's considered "safe", so you just issue permits to create those emissions and let those permits be traded on the open market. If your business requires pumping sulphur dioxide into the air, fine, but you have to pay the costs of doing that.

A similar approach can be made for anything, ranging from non-renewable resource consumption to CO2 emissions to the public costs of maintaining infrastructure. The beauty of this is that we don't have to act like commissars arguing about whether to restrict the availability of meat or single-family homes or pickup trucks or anything else. If it's more expensive for society to support a single-family home, the tax structures should reflect that fact, so if someone still really really wants a single-family home and they can afford it, at least we can rest assured that they're paying their fair share for all the resources and externalities involved.

I probably am less sanguine than you that public policy can in fact lead us to "rest assured that they're paying their fair share."

But certainly public policy can and should play a role here. The point is, just saying, "Well, your decisions impose a burden on everyone else" as though that were the end of the discussion proves too much. You have to lay out the costs and benefits.

Or you can route the costs to the people who are incurring them and let them lay out the costs and benefits for themselves.

There are pros and cons to both options. High rises bring exploding population, lack of green areas and noise, congestion and different set of limitations and high prices.

But high home prices in a tech center can bring medium to long term system level benefits, too. They help distribute work options and wealth generation to other cities. If one builds monster high rises to house 20M people in urban SF it might still suck in young smart engineers two decades from today. But if instead you price them out, they might gravitate to other, cheaper cities and help those thrive. It is painful to be priced out of the city where ones job is, but with jobs plentiful it is also an opportunity to look elsewhere. One might end up happier in the end. My 2c.

High rises can actually extend green areas, presuming the city planning isn't completely dumb or bought out.

Unfortunately developers is live to fill every space in with small flats to sell more of them and with high rises likewise. As long as pricing holds up.

The thing that cannot be provided with single homes is services availability, since they cannot be built close at all. This necessitates big road infrastructure and pedestrian hostile design.

> High rises can actually extend green areas, presuming the city planning isn't completely dumb or bought out. Unfortunately developers is live to fill every space in with small flats to sell more of them and with high rises likewise.

Agreed on both points. And IMO, the second part quickly negates the advantages. What I have seen is that once you start on high rises sooner or later (usually during property price peaks) we have most green areas built over and what is left is either far far away or feels like an overcrowded zoo between concrete walls.

On pedestrian hostile design -- the small city I live in has sidewalks practically everywhere and while I do drive to the store from my condo I can walk to my work. And if I drive, the short, non-congested, <2 mile trip is still a pretty efficient commute. And my kids can still play outside with other kids with no playdates arranged weeks in advance.

Urban life can be pleasant and good for society, too; but small towns and suburbs are not an evil it is often portrayed to be.

Surburbs are what drive the need for everyone to have a car, which has an enormous impact on the environment and society. As a result, we have global warming, high pollution, insanely-long commute times, and massive sprawl.

People need capsule living accommodations, a glucose drip, and not much more. The bonus is that you can buried in the coffin sized living quarters.

Need is a terrible way to characterize what people live in.

Of course they're wasteful, it's also why people don't live on large estates anymore. People in many territories live in high-rises due to a variety of other reasons, usually a local governing drive for higher density because it's obviously more efficient, but the thought of "what's the minimum I need to live in even if I can afford more" is not usually one of them.

I hate this "need" argument because it's nonsensical and just ends up being turned into whatever living accommodations the arguer thinks is best. Minimum living space is well studied and it's shockingly smaller than even most of the arguers making a need-based argument would be willing to admit.

Housing projects for everybody!

Heh, 20 years ago $145/sqft got you a custom home w/ vaulted ceilings, imported granite from the Pyrenees Mountains, mud-set features and million dollar views. Todey it doesn't even get you a renovated shack in one of the "gentrifying" 'hoods. Don't know who to thank, the investment banksters or the 'sharing' economy. Perhaps, when the scalea tip past a certain point Glass-Steagal protections will be reimplemented. Preferably, before outright revolt.The Great Recovery is neither for most people in the US(& the world).

In coverage I've followed, what houses that are being constructed are largely being targeted to the luxury market with the entry market being under or unserved. That sort of fits with higher square footage costs.

That’s not because people suddenly don’t want houses. It’s because costs have inflated up and wages are lower and less secure.

There’s a lot of noise here about how houses are fundamentally wasteful, we should all be living in apartments, etc. Thats all reflective of a young audience dealing with reality.

Houses are no more or less practical than they were in 1978. The difference is that on average, each household today is poorer than the last two generations in real terms.

I agree with you completely. The allocation of resources to the luxury market is almost completely been up to the collective decision making of developers building the houses.

Jobs and affordable real estate are in a teasingly inverse relationship. There is plenty of cheap real estate if you don't mind less than ideal areas with few jobs. That can work out for retirees but they wind up being ghost towns. Booming cities are at times like a monkey's paw wish - you can get great pay, prestigious work, plenty of variety in services and there are many jobs but everything is inflated.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com