Comment by TacticalCoder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TacticalCoder | Hacker News Reader

Official EU number: in 2021 18% more migrants found their way to the EU compared to 2020. 2.3 million. That's 350 000 more migrants year-to-year from 2020 to 2021. (the official EU site do not give the numbers for 2022 / 2023 yet).

Repeat that for three years and it's the basically this part from TFA:

> Nearly 900,000 people sleep rough or stay in homeless accommodation every night in the EU

Maybe, just maybe, that the EU should stop trying to absorb ever more people year after year because, obviously, there's an ongoing housing crisis and that there's simply no room at the moment to house all these people?

P.S: if I can add something to my already depressing comment... A huge number of the houses and apartments in the EU are way too big and way too old and people don't even have enough money to fix these so that they'd consume less energy. When the prices of natural gaz and electricity skyrocketed I had people around me with yearly bills raise of 4 000 EUR, 5 000 EUR and even one 7 000 EUR year-on-year. These are insane amounts for middle-class europeans. So the issue is not just "not enough housing" in the EU. It's also "way too old and way too energy-hungry housing which cannot be fixed anytime soon".

If you haven't noticed there's a war in Ukraine. If you think those refugees should be turned away I don't know what to say to you because "If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all"

Housing was shit show even before the war. Blaming things on immigrants is poor taste and bad logic.

OP mentioned a reasonable argument for the lack of supply.

A country ought to first serve its citizens before citizens of another country. Analogous to you’d first take care of your own kids before aiding others.

Yes Ukraine is in a war and one should help, but you should help yourself first so you can help others.

You’re right but the fact that poverty exists in a country has never been used as an excuse to turn away refugees who might otherwise die in a war.

We tackle difficult problems simultaneously, not in sequence.

Let’s jump to the root cause right there - the problem is Russia. Crushing that problem will free up plenty of space and make the energy and food shortages world wide normalize.

Screaming at refugees is a diversion, especially since they rarely compete in the normal housing market in most countries.

> It's also "way too old and way too energy-hungry housing which cannot be fixed anytime soon".

The obvious thing to do with the Ukrainian refugees was to put them to work retrofitting insulation. But it's better to keep everyone impoverished and cold, in the minds of politicians.

I understand and empathize with your view. I question the assessment that the properties are too large. the amount of square footage needed depends on how you live and what you do with that space.

When I lived in smaller urban apartments, I tended to the monastic. I gave up hobbies and stop making things. the larger the living space, there is more room my life for hobbies, makerism, romantic partners and pets. I suspect I'm not the only one. My experience leads me to believe that in your living space, is gotta be enough room for each person to have their own space that contains their clutter and can have some space from their partner without leaving the house.

OR maybe build more houses?

Europe has been building houses for thousands of years. How do you think we got so many people? It didn’t solve the problem. It only encourages population growth. Building more roads doesn’t reduce traffic, and building more housing doesn’t reduce the demand for housing. It does hurt the planet and remove a lot of green space, though. Look at India and China.

> building more housing doesn’t reduce the demand for housing

This is so obviously contrary to experience and common sense I'd characterize it as delusional.

then by your logic, if we have traffic congestion we should build more highways.

But we all know that building more highways creates more congestion because of induced demand. I suspect housing also experiences induced demand. At the same time, you could be right that if you build housing for 10 times the need, then you would reduce the demand for housing. Just like if you built highways 10 times bigger, we would not have congestion.

So what are you suggesting? Reduce housing?

What is the suggestion then? Either we increase supply of houses to meet increased demand from higher population, or you decrease demand by evicting illegal immigrants or killing some people.

Can’t beat demand and supply dynamics with fairy dust.

Well I'm not against that. But they won't be build in a day.

Note that Ursula Von der Leyen (president of the European Commission) recently said the EU would "tone down immigration" or something like that: but she only said it because the far-right political parties are the big winners of this SNAFU.

Also when you build more housing, you have to be careful about the solution you're offering too: in France for example absolutely horrible buildings, communist style (big concrete blocks making the individual feel like not an individual and no nature), have been built on the outskirts of Paris (the "HLM") and these depressing places became no-go zones where even cops don't dare to go anymore.

So it's not sufficient to "build gigantic buildings and put all the poor people in there": you have to find a balance with nature, a mix between social classes, etc. or you'll only reproduce the worst of the worst failure France managed to create.

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