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Comment by kurthr | Hacker News Reader

Really? It seems like once a group of people have lived somewhere for a generation or two and have a $Trillion invested in a place they probably are going to make it hard for new comers to make radical changes.

Kinda like a giant codebase that's been maintained for 50 years and has a million regular users is going to make updates difficult.

Find a place people don't already want to live and make that better with great new housing designs? Why do does someone deserve to move somewhere new and live there cheaper than the people who already live there?

Now, that said there are huge distortions to the market driven by taxes and leverage. Many expensive places have 10% unoccupied housing. Think about how much that is. Imagine the time, cost, and disruption to build even 10,000 units of housing, when there are 40-50k units unoccupied.

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> It seems like once a group of people have lived somewhere for a generation or two and have a $Trillion invested in a place they probably are going to make it hard for new comers to make radical changes.

Few if any of them actually invested that money. Rather they bought when it was cheap and then sat on it (either individually or as a family passing it down through inheritance) as the price went up - worse still they vote to grandfather in cheap property tax rates for people who bought early, so they're not even paying their fair share at the most basic/direct level.

> Find a place people don't already want to live and make that better with great new housing designs?

In today's vetocracy that's pretty much impossible - you'd have to find somewhere where not a single person already lived. Even then, as soon as you started doing it someone would move in and then block you. (Set a rule that requires development to continue? There's already a statewide rule that cities just flaunt)

> Why do does someone deserve to move somewhere new and live there cheaper than the people who already live there?

Being able to move in at the same price would be plenty. Up until the '50s people moved where they liked and build what they liked where they liked, without any permitting or anything. Now it's illegal to build practically anything - the vast majority of housing stock is only legal because it's grandfathered in, and would be illegal to build anew.

> Now, that said there are huge distortions to the market driven by taxes and leverage. Many expensive places have 10% unoccupied housing. Think about how much that is. Imagine the time, cost, and disruption to build even 10,000 units of housing, when there are 40-50k units unoccupied.

Unoccupied housing is a scapegoat. A healthy market needs some liquidity. If you legalise building new houses then unoccupied houses cease to be a problem.

Because existing cities are where the jobs are located. That’s why people move there: to have a job and a shot at a better life. Some of us feel strongly that ‘current’ residents should not have the right to effectively exclude others from the pursuit of happiness and opportunity.

Current zoning is especially odious in who it affects. The people it excludes from high opportunity areas are the poor and disadvantaged. Supply restrictions in the face of high demand lead to high home prices, effectively shutting out the poor and young from a better life for themselves.

Allow remote work for everyone who does not need to be physically present onsite to do their job.

And in your Zoom utopia, how does remote work help health care workers, police officers, construction workers, elderly care workers, massage therapists, mechanics and so on and so on? How does this help younger people wanting to date, start a family, or just have a reasonable social life?

I have a more simple proposition: instead of allowing remote work, how about we allow new homes to be built so the wealthy stop bidding up the price of all the old homes and remodeling them?

how does remote work help health care workers, police officers, construction workers, elderly care workers, massage therapists, mechanics and so on

I literally excluded all these people in my statement. Was it that hard to parse?

No it wasn’t hard to parse. What it was was hard to fathom that someone really thinks remote work is a general solution to high housing costs. Therefore I explicitly pointed out common occupations to remind us all about the larger picture.

Well paying IT or white collar jobs that can be done anywhere are in the minority, and further the people that do hold those high paying jobs are frequently the very same people bidding up the price of existing homes in high opportunity cities, and pushing poorer people out in the process.

You do realize that well paid people who spread out because they can work remotely create jobs for poor people outside of big cities? And in big cities demand for housing falls because there are fewer people? How is it not a win-win scenario?

I don’t think the person you’re arguing with is against remote work or wouldn’t agree it’s a win-win. I think (and I agree) they are saying that it just doesn’t come close (on its own) to fixing housing on its own for the majority of workers, for whom remote work cannot ever make sense.

Also I might add that it seems like* most people who work remotely do not even choose to fully “maximize” the benefit by moving to truly super low cost of living locales, I’m assuming it’s for social, family, and perhaps status reasons. So, yes, economic activity outside fancy areas is being stimulated, but not to a huge degree.

*source: thinking of everyone I know at my fully remote company. Only a few live in places like West Virginia. Many live in the Bay Area, L.A., NYC, and like Connecticut.

Yes, some people won’t move. But that should be an option. An office job should not be the main reason people live in big cities.

Exactly. Remote work is (or at least will be) a net win. But it doesn’t address the fundamental problem behind high housing costs: too few homes in areas people are willing to live.

A huge issue for these small towns are in fact these high income remote workers or vacationers. They quickly drive up costs of things like housing but also entertainment and food in the towns they migrate to, where the workers often end up rent burdened living on top of each other, not able to save much money.

Your premise is wrong and the pandemic has proven otherwise (except maybe for NYC). People will choose to move out of the city if given the choice.

Once it transitioned to an epidemic people came back. Not necessarily the same people who left, but housing prices are back up to pre pandemic levels if not higher is my impression.

This is mostly because money lost a lot of its value (eaten by inflation, and overly generous policies during corona to fix the restrictions they themselves created)

These people already exists somewhere else (ie: any town, mid-west). Remote work will move health care and police workers to these places again (or keep them there) because the remote workers will create demands for these professions.

Many of the jobs done in hubs can be done anywhere else; they are the "remotest" jobs out there. Tech, Finance, Media, Research, etc... Many of these jobs can be done remotely and that will benefit everybody.

Of course, except for the big hubs landowners who are essentially exerting a tax on the high-income individuals.

Why can't these remotest jobs just be done anywhere in the world? Why restrict it to people who are citizens/residents of the US?

They can and already are suggesting this is not a real threat. And annoyingly, the jobs that could be outsourced, were already.

And that is with corporations playing with the existing visa system AND illegal immigration.

In short, remote addresses a lot of issues for an average worker. It does mess with existing system for corps.

> how does remote work help health care workers

Are you really asking this question? Cost of living, especially housing, is based on supply and demand. As remote workers move out from expensive areas the cost of living goes down.

And real estate investment funds and landlords don't like this...

Remote doesn't necessarily mean "living in the middle of nowhere".

Case in point: I've moved to a city 40% the size of the one I grew up in so as to be able to afford housing at all and it's been great. A friend who stayed there recently purchased a 25% smaller apartment for 40% more in comparison to mine. It's not even funny at this point.

You have generally more time for all the things you mentioned when you don't commute 2h a day.

As for new homes: even now investment demand will gobble up any new housing that's built, as the former grows much faster than the latter. Induced demand for housing if you will.

Remote work isn't really a solution.

Cities exists because they do something economically and socially valuable for humans. It becomes possible to support some infrastructures and services, such as theater, grocery stores, etc.

All remote work does is distribute some functions to less populated areas without solving the core problems that plague modern cities everywhere with gridlock and vetocracy. Otherwise, remote works would still be roughly be distributed to the same cities instead of going elsewhere.

If we want to unlock the most value, then yes we do want to solve commute 2 hours a day, especially for people who still need to commute. Yes, we do want cheaper housing in the most desirable cities. Yes, we want those remote workers living there anyway.

<< Cities exists because they do something economically and socially valuable for humans.

And they will continue to exist. Because of remote, they will maybe shrink in size, which is not a bad thing.

<< If we want to unlock the most value, then yes we do want to solve commute 2 hours a day, especially for people who still need to commute.

And that part is definitely solved by remote.

This is what anti city people don't get. My mom grew up in a small religious village and left for the big city because she wanted a life.

My sentiment is that we've been getting diminishing returns from cities for quite a few years now and it's time to put some pressure on those who benefit the most from the current situation.

It so happens that the same people insist that we all, especially specialists with considerable disposable income, return to offices.

To reiterate a point I already stated: you won't get cheaper housing when it's seen as an opportunity for passive income. Only making these properties valued less can help here and remote work is the tool for that.

If a group of people is working remotely,for example at a smaller village, then health care workers, massage therapists ..etc can also move, cause there's more money at that small village ?

In vail and other places its already like this. It turns out, wages for workers don’t go up to match the multimilliondollar home valuations. Now Vail has to effectively build dorms for their workers in a sort of company town situation since they can’t find housing in summit county they can afford to rent on the wages they make. And those dorm projects are met by pushback from homeowners.

I am not sure I understand why we can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Like with everything else, life is complicate and housing is not that different. Remote could absolutely lower some of the pressure in the cities.

Unless, naturally, there is another objection to addressing something as quickly adoptable as remote for a good chunk of workforce -- no reasonable person would dispute that not all jobs can be effectively done that way.

> Because existing cities are where the jobs are located. That’s why people move there: to have a job and a shot at a better life.

I don't know, I live in a big city but I mostly work from home despite the office being 20 minutes away by metro. Because today's hotdesk flexi hipster office is a nightmare for actually doing work.

I moved here because I love living in a big city. Always having stuff to do. All the things to discover. Amazing public transport so I don't need a car (I absolutely hate driving). 20 bucks for a monthly pass and my shoes cover my entire travel needs for a month. Literally all the shops I need right around the corner. I can roll out of the disco at 6am and into my bed. It's amazing. I love being in the middle of life.

A lot of my friends love having a huge house in a quiet village but I don't understand that at all. I come from a quiet suburb but I've always hated that kind of environment. Even though I was happy there when I grew up.

Also I have pretty niche interests. It's just really hard finding a makerspace or a BDSM club in a small town. Here I have many to choose from in both categories :)

Also, small towns tend to be very big on the 'family values' mindset which isn't something I fit into, if that wasn't already clear from the above. In a city people know where to keep their opinions on how other people live their lives. In small towns they'll constantly gossip behind your back. I've lived in one for 10 years and hated that.

Anyway my point is, there's many reasons people want to live in cities that have nothing to do with their personal chance at jobs or money. It's really a very different type of society and environment that's really desirable for some people despite the crazy house prices.

Keep in mind that ten percent figure is not ten percent totally unoccupied for the entire year.

The process of leasing is not immediate. In a similar way to how 0% unemployment is not actually desirable or remotely achievable, you want some slack in housing markets so that people actually have price competition and choice.

You should look at before and after pictures of cities in China over the last 30 years.

Those cities have been around much longer than Seattle.

Percent unoccupied is a bit misleading because it’s point in time. If the average tenant stays for 2 years and it takes 2 months on average to replace the tenant (given repairs, maintenance and marketing) that’s 8.3% unoccupied at any given time (2/24)

But the restrictions are on this very same group. They can’t sell or develop their property as they choose.

In practice it is governance by those with the most time on their hands. Why does this small group get to restrict property rights for the rest of the group?

As a counterpoint — Paris’s bike infrastructure changes.

Despite all the talk of less regulation in the US it seems our cities and suburbs are much more protected and lethargic to change many European counterparts

Median homeownership rate in the US is 13 years. In many big cities there are more renters than homeowners. Owning for a generation or two is the exception, not the norm.

People want to live near evisting jobs so your someplace new will be a suburb and generally has constraints because of that. You have to get people into the city for example which forces car dependance for example.

In his example you also need to attract employers, other people. Being first advantages.

But you won't as employeers go where the employees are.

Sure but if your preferred design is as great and appealing as you say then after a few generations, your new city might be getting the jobs.

Would you like to be the first and start a new city? Would you move to the middle of, say, South Dakota and start New New York City? If it’s as simple as you say, in a few generations your new city, lotsoweiners, will be getting the jobs.

We can look at mining towns to see projected growth. Mining towns have to start where the ore is, and they generally can pay a lot more than average to attract people. However such towns tend to die when the mine closes unless there is some other reason for the town to exist. That other reason is not how nice the town is, but geography. Note that I said town above not city.

Cities exist for geographical reasons, if you don't have the great port (either ocean or river) to attract people 300 years ago to settle there you won't get people today.

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