California Exported Its Worst Problem (High Housing Costs) to Texas | Hacker News Reader

California Exported Its Worst Problem (High Housing Costs) to Texas

theatlantic.com

12 pointsvwoolf11 comments

In reality, TX cities are largely copying CA cities' worst policies in terms of preventing new housing construction; we need to fundamentally allow landowners to build as much housing on that land as any given land owner wishes to build.

But what about all the “affordable” destination cities? Restrictions there are, in most cases, just as bad. Duplexes and fourplexes are banned in 84 percent of residential neighborhoods in Charlotte. In Salt Lake City, minimum-parking mandates mean that apartments can’t be built without either towering garages or huge lots. In Austin, naysayers have successfully delayed a liberalizing zoning overhaul for a decade. And even in pro-growth states such as Georgia, California-style NIMBYism stands in the way of new housing in most suburbs.

To the extent that these cities were ever affordable, it was because they had undeveloped land on their periphery, where developers could build low-density residential subdivisions—just about the only thing that zoning doesn’t prohibit. But as Dallas is discovering, you eventually run out of vacant land within a reasonable commute of job centers. In Miami, local policy makers are even rolling back flexible-zoning rules in a brazen attempt to block new infill development.

>we need to fundamentally allow landowners to build as much housing on that land as any given land owner wishes to build

Strong Towns has a great line of reasoning against this. If you are in a place that has been severely suppressing supply, letting all the barriers down (officially) will result in towers next to SFH (because most people owning the inflated houses will know to still fight like hell, new laws be damned), which will reinforce development as a bad thing.

Alternative recommendation: some appropriate increment of intensification allowed by right (always allowed to double number of units on a lot, increase number of stories by greater of 50% or two stories, or whatever could sound reasonable in your locale.) Developments meeting the threshold should get approval on a rapid basis.

If you 'let' people build whatever, wherever, the political whiplash will shut it down before anything positive can result.

After spending my teens in a mid 50s suburb (now considered near downtown), I've always lived in inner city neighborhoods. They are MUCH DENSER than current zoning codes permit.

Narrow frontages, separations and streets with garages on back alleys give you lots of density AND neighborhoods people want to live in.

You call it high housing costs, they call it a good investment.

For anyone wanting dots connected, housing cannot both be 'affordable' and a 'good investment', because the latter presumes appreciation (aka 'balooning costs' or exponential growth) in excess of inflation.

Spending more money on what was already there i.e. the land actually makes society poorer because living expenses grow for no benefit.

Move from California to Texas because you don't like the outcomes of the policies you voted for, then proceed to vote for the same policies in Texas.

Why are Californians like this?

564,000 people moved to the Lone Star State from other states in 2018. Of that, 15 percent were from California (84,600)

I supremely doubt of the exceedingly small percentage of Californians, compared to all other states, plus the exisiting population, has enough clout to make changes on this massive of a scale. When you look at that 84,600 from California, that grows almost microscopic as you distribute Californians throughout all the different cities and suburbs cities in Texas. It's not even close to reality that Californians have any significant clout to vote any types of housing zoning things.

>Why are Californians like this?

I don't know. Why is Texas blaming every bad thing on California when it is clearly their own fault? Why is Texas like this? Haha, riddle me that, Batman.

Californians are just the scapegoat for their poor policies. (Not saying that California does not have poor housing policies)

The policies were already like that. The people that left just wanted big houses with a yard and that became untenable in California. The policy exists because those people want that and were attracted to a place that allowed it affordably.

> Why are Californians like this?

They aren't Californians if they moved away from California.

Also all of the people that I know who moved from California weren't liberals. They did act/vote like NIMBYs, but they weren't liberals.

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