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bequanna

It would take many, many thousands of homes.

Demand is so much greater than supply almost everywhere in the US.

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> It would take many, many thousands of homes.

Yes. It would. And we need to build them.

People act like this is some wild new idea rather than the way every city in human history worked until around 1970 when Americans realized blocking new housing was a way around the Supreme Court’s then-recent ban on overtly discriminatory housing policy.

Ahh… planet earth has limited amount of space. We need less people instead.

If need to build then we need to build vertically.

Vertical is the answer. California needs to get over it's aversion to high rise apartments and invest a in flourishing downtown residential system instead of relying on a 1950's mindset of home ownership.

The current system is deliberately exclusionary and self preserving, but it will also fail the state in the long run. That, sadly, seems fine to many people.

People also need to learn that vertical doesn't mean high rise apartments. There's a big gap between single story detached houses and high rise apartments. Townhomes, condos, row houses, and so on can all fill that gap.

Vertical still means “close proximity to neighbors” which is what a lot of people object to when it comes to urban living. I will never again voluntarily live in a building with a shared wall or ceiling.

Same here. This is exactly what I don't want. Sure you can cram a lot more people into a smaller space and make it cheap if you want, but it causes more problems than it solves. Maybe in some futuristic utopia this would work, but not in this reality.

I do not see that happening in California without some virtually magical building material. California is wary of earthquakes, noise, toxics, fire, and crime. Perhaps other states will create cheap high density paradises to suck the population away.

Here's a list of high rise buildings in a very dense, very seismically active country.

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

It’s true that space is limited but there’s no reason to believe that we have used up so much of it that there’s no more left and we have to reduce our existing land use.

Every human and human created thing on the planet undoubtedly takes up a tiny fraction of the earth’s surface, even if you exclude oceans.

I am, of course, open to seeing any facts that you have that demonstrate there is no more room left on the planet for additional housing.

It’s not just about housing. It’s also about other resources like food, wood, etc. Animals species are going extinct, deforestation, etc. All because there are too many people on this planet. Proof is everywhere.

> Ahh… planet earth has limited amount of space. We need less people instead.

We have plenty of space. Plenty of resources to support some multiple of our current population. We really need to just be more efficient and less impactful on ecosystems. Totally possible, but difficult.

The problem specifically is that people like living in cities because that's where all the opportunity is. And cities are still growing.

If that isn't addressed, fine, then that means the only solution is to plan and zone for higher density.

If the qualities that make large metros pleasant places to live are distributed more evenly across the whole of a country, such that places in the "middle of nowhere" are desirable, then the current affordability crisis wouldn't be so dire and we wouldn't need to be forced to make drastic changes in policy.

The thing that makes it more desirable IS other people and the inherent economy in being able to reach so many more of them in the same area. These areas tend towards being areas that are presently near hubs of travel and transportation something that has been true for thousands of years. None of this is going to change.

>> Demand is so much greater than supply almost everywhere in the US

It really isn't.

Demand is so much greater than supply in the places you want to live, not in the places I want to live.

Even in the rural areas I’m familiar with, there is an extreme shortage of high quality housing.

On the other hand, if you want to move to Detroit or Philly…

There is soooo much pent up demand. We need to build like crazy, probably for years.

Companies which build houses also buy the current houses so it won't happen.

We need to continue to build more, affordable housing in desirable areas near public transit, and break the current cycle of the same companies buying as building.

This makes sense only if we assume laws of supply and demand magically doesn't work for housing.

What companies are building and buying?

I’m not familiar with an builders who are interested in holding properties any longer than necessary.

No they don't. Builders are desperate to get homes off their inventory. they dont speculate they want CASH.

And then what? After we are done building for everybody?

House prices are definitely not dropping in my city, even though housing supply is going up about 2.5% per year (urban sprawl in outer areas, plus some densification). Christchurch, New Zealand.

I think because immigration grows NZ population fast enough to absorb the new housing.

Good information on NZ house policy and growth: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/upzoning-new-zealand

No. Just put the houses somewhere in California away from SF/LA, and you wouldn’t need too many to satisfy demand for people willing to live away from those two areas.

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