The Department of Housing and Urban Development should build housing | Hacker News Reader

The Department of Housing and Urban Development should build housing

theatlantic.com

42 pointsvwoolf11 comments

Didn't we try that already and stop because of implicit segregation? [0][1]

[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe

[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster-Douglass_Housing_Pr...

The so-called "implicit segregation" is only more evidence that the so-called "race" problem United States is a class problem, to a degree so overwhelming and predominant that it serves as an undeniable predictor, and logically as a cause. Given that, it's abundantly clear that public housing is way overdue.

We don't need this. The solution is to create a regulatory and legal environment that encourages building--not to directly enter the construction market.

There should be legislation to give control over zoning and development regulation to HUD. Building just a quarter of the 2.4 million needed homes will take a minimum of $120 billion. We need some way of forging bipartisan support for fixing zoning regulations. I believe interest rates are coming down as well. If we can act fast, I think this will be a solved problem in a decade

I could hardly imagine a worse situation than federal control of zoning. Some Donald Trump appointee deciding that they can build a toxic waste dump next to my house or some idiot from Wyoming deciding that the downtown center needs to have 3 parking spots per unit.

I live under a consolidated city/county government in the sun belt and the city bends over backwards for developers like there's no tomorrow. The suburban voter effectively gets to decide whether they can clear more forest to build a huge development on a rural 2-lane road. The people who vote for this live 20 minutes from the terrible decisions their representatives make, I can't imagine what it would be like if they lived 20 hours away.

Japan has federal zoning, and it works very well.

60% of Japan lives in just 4 Metros (Tokyo-Yokahama, Osaka-Kyoto, Nagoya, Fukoka). 33% of Japan lives in the Tokyo metro alone. The US is nowhere near as consolidated as Japan. Japan is also a de facto One Party State.

> Some Donald Trump appointee deciding that they can build a toxic waste dump next to my house

Yeah but someone, somewhere, has to lose occasionally or we can't have any infrastructure.

> believe interest rates are coming down as well

This will destroy housing affordability.

I've saved plenty of money and so have many other of my high earning peers.

Based on what we saw during the pandemic, the moment interest rates drop we are making sure to buy as much property as we can, because an interest rate drop only extends our ability to buy more.

Clearly there is no ability to build additional supply anymore due to the labor shortage, so we may as well buy what we can so we or our future children don't get left out.

If interest rates drop, it's absolutely game over for the majority of Americans and home ownership, because those of us with dry powder will execute.

The housing market needs to crash for prices to return - either by forcing owners to accept a massive haircut on valuation by keeping high interest rates (the same thing Volker did) or by building more - which is basically impossible as there is a labor shortage and material shortage along with harsh zoning laws.

If the govt gets into housing the calculus changes. See public housing in Austria or Singapore.

As I've mentioned before, Singapore's model cannot be replicated in the US legally speaking.

I cannot speak to Austria's but I would not be surprised either.

None of this resolves the very real labor and material shortage that exists in the US. And let's be honest, we all know the Federal Government is NOT re-entering public housing construction in the aftermath of projects like Calibri-Green and Pruitt-Igoe.

The US used to build public housing, but it became a legal minefield by the 1990s due to shoddy construction, corruption, and memories of redlining.

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