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Comment by TedShiller | Hacker News Reader

The pro housing people always think more housing will lower rents. Apparently they’ve never been to a big, dense city.

What is the right amount of housing to lower rents? How many units should we destroy or prevent to make housing affordable?

Does spreading houses further apart make infrastructure per unit more or less expensive?

Are you seriously anti-housing? Are you pro-homelessness? I honestly don’t get how someone can seriously take an “anti-housing” position, which is what I assume you are when you otherize “pro housing” people.

I don't know anyone who's "anti housing". Housing is an essential need for everyone. But putting more housing into an area that is already dense is not the answer, and it never has been.

You should study induced demand. Has building more highways in LA improved traffic? No, it has only made it worse. Ever notice how every airport in the world is always under construction, and still always overcrowded? Yep, induced demand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

"Induced demand" is not inherently bad. It means that people are doing more of something because they can.

Induced demand also only occurs because demand is elastic. It is the natural result of supply increasing.

It is often considered bad in the case of cars by people who are opposed to expanding roads specifically because if reducing traffic on roads or total miles driven is the goal then induced demand will not be a good idea, but it is important to realize that induced demand from expanding roads also means that more people are able to, for example, live farther away and commute longer distances in the same time. In other words, whether induced demand is good or bad depends on whether you want people to consume more of an elastic good or not from a policy perspective, which should probably be no in the case if driving cars.

Housing is something that everyone needs, not something that people adjust consumption of based on availability. It is also something you want everyone to be consuming, so it is extremely weird to apply the idea of induced demand to it, unless you think that not everyone should have access to housing.

Induced demand doesn't say what "should" or "shouldn't" happen. It doesn't have morality, it's a pattern. It says that building more housing in an area with expensive housing won't bring housing prices down.

> Induced demand doesn't say what "should" or "shouldn't" happen. It doesn't have morality, it's a pattern. It says that building more housing in an area with expensive housing won't bring housing prices down.

Here is the definition of induced demand from wikipedia:

> Induced demand – related to latent demand and generated demand[1] – is the phenomenon that supply increases result in price declines and increased consumption.

Notice that it says "price declines" right there.

In practice this doesn’t happen in big cities. It only increases demand.

I am sure cities would be more affordable if we got rid of some of the residential buildings there...

It's the ratio of people to housing that matters. The world has plenty of ghost towns, nearly-abandoned villages, etc. with under 100 housing units...which are dirt cheap, because the people/housing unit ratio is far less than 1.

You mean like Tokyo or pretty much anywhere in Japan?

Exactly, just like Tokyo, one of the most expensive cities in the world

Cost to rent a typical 2br apartment vs. population density.

* City A: $1,903/mo, 6,158 persons / km²

* City B: $3,685/mo, 6,659 persons / km²

Can you guess which is Tokyo (prefecture), and which is Hong Kong?

2019 report from Deutsche Bank https://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/RPS_EN-PROD/PROD000000000049...

Another fun data point: Seoul is ~16,000 persons/km² with rent around $1100/mo.

I’ve been searching all over and I can’t find any evidence that any Japanese cities are among the most expensive, when looking at housing costs.

Can you please share your sources?

Tokyo residents

It's very easy to find affordable living in Tokyo or any other big city in Japan.

Easy depends on your income

Housing like they have in Ukraine. Big hugh apartment buildings would help. (I don't know the water is suspose to come from though? Especially in the Bay Area.)

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