Of course, people like that will organize to block these big bad developers making housing even more expensive and the only people who will be able to afford to live there will be the rich.
What America should do at large is block all non resident investment in non commercial real estate, period. Would do a hell of a lot more for housing than all the nonsense about building more.
Said no one ever.
You may not want to, but you don't speak for everyone. In particular, the 5-over-1 means that there's a business, maybe a cute cafe, or a little market you can access without having to drive a car. Hell, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37124015 is on the front page right now arguing how bad driving is for your mental health.
Some people can't drive, for various reasons (eg the elderly with poor eyesight), and would have a lower quality of life living in a single family home. So please appreciate that while you may never say that, it's entirely your perogative, but yes, said plenty of people.
By the way, the more you develop it, the less tropical it is.
In other words, by refusing to develop, the residents of Hawaii are displacing their own natives, unless they happen to own land. This alternative system where the only folks allowed to own property are those who are born there is something I hear a lot of anti-housing people advocate and it's disturbingly similar to the hukou[1] system, which we probably don't want to emulate.
In many cities you can own land if you don't have hukou, or even Chinese citizenship. It was only in 2012 or so that Beijing instituted a residency requirement (but not a hukou requirement) for buying a house in the city (other cities have similar but still slightly different rules, so you have to do your research). Wenzhou housewives were the scourge of non-Wenzhou Chinese real estate markets before they started investing in real estate abroad.
In a world where this part of Hawaii exists within the US system of property rights, you're arguing that we should grant the current landowners (whoever they may be) perpetual rights to the extract land rents. Of course, given how expensive housing becomes when it is restricted in a high-demand location the implication is that the only folks who will be able to live there are the rich.
Hawaii is a highly limited resource. Simple as that. So you have a choice:
- Develop it more to keep prices a bit down. In exchange you are actively sacrificing what makes it desirable in the first place (beautiful nature).
- Don't develop it further, and accept high prices.
Neither is ideal. I wish we could have 100 Hawaii's and everyone could live in Hawaii.
But out of the two options we have, keeping Hawaii expensive and beautiful is the only one that makes sense. Developing it sacrifices what people like about it anyway.
I also think in general you should listen to what local people want and not advocate for things against their interests. Just as a rule of thumb. The alternative is basically colonization (pushing an agenda against the interests of the people who live somewhere).
Amazing how the carrying capacity of every location just happens to be exactly the number of people who live there at this moment in time.
> I also think in general you should listen to what local people want and not advocate for things against their interests. Just as a rule of thumb. The alternative is basically colonization (pushing an agenda against the interests of the people who live somewhere).
The local people quoted in the article want to be able to live somewhere. Building enough housing for them to live in gives them that, even if they don't understand it because their heads are full of xenophobic nonsense.
The guy who I quoted above is a renter, he will eventually be priced out. The guy who owns the house he was renting will build a new house or sell to someone else and they will rent it at a much higher rate.
For example to me the places I’ve lived -
San Francisco is at a good density. I don’t want more high rises, the Victorians are charming and the sunlight while walking on the streets is already being eroded by ugly 4-story developments.
San Diego - also pretty good as is. Again why ruin the sunlight and nature by going up? Maybe downtown and fill in a bit more but not outside.
Hawaii - Waikiki is crowded and mostly ugly, so I have all the proof I need it’s not desirable to have that spread any further. Congestion traffic is super high due to tourism many times of the year. The charm of Hawaii is directly linked to its lack of development, you can’t convince me (or like 99% of people) otherwise. Just ask around who wants more high rises there, will be an easy poll to run.
Not so surprising at all if you've studied game theory and equilibrium pricing.
Markets find prices, yes, but that's not applicable to what we're discussing. Maybe in some Georgist utopia we might have housing prices being priced purely at their utility.
But that's not the NIMBY complaint. The NIMBY complaint is that wherever they live is at the perfect balance where any more development would only make things worse. Game theory and equilibrium pricing have nothing to do with that because in our current regulatory system, land owners can extract rents by blocking new development.
Every time I post in this Dunning-Kruger tar pit I'm reminded of why I usually abstain.
Yes, you can change the rules to get more people into a place, but you are just looking at a different equilibrium number to be reached. And then people like you will complain it is still too low, and nothing really changes.
I agree wholeheartedly with the second paragraph.