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Comment by daedrdev | Hacker News Reader

From 2019 to 2023, the lowest iconome Americans have had their real (inflation adjusted) wages increase by 13.2%. The US median income is also the highest in the world when adjusted for cost of living.

Perhaps the increase in homelessness is because local NIMBYS efficevly ban new housing projects?

Or perhaps this post is trying to get an emotional response on a complex and extremely difficult to solve issue?

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All of these things can be true. Based on this (https://dqydj.com/historical-home-prices/) for the same time period of 2019 to 2023, the CPI-adjusted median home price in the US went up by roughly 21%. So, the average American can both see their income increase but also find a home further out of reach.

The point of this post and this article is not about how people are doing in inflation adjusted terms, but the startling and sharp increase in wealth inequality we're seeing.

Absolute $$$ doesn't matter if they can't get housing.

One can get from $100 to $200 - 100% increase, yet that changes nothing.

Why are housing prices so high?

Most often media reports over-regulation/regulatory capture type of problems, including but not limited to zoning and NIMBY. I don't see any solution to those in my lifetime. Politicians talks about non-solutions only.

Financialization of homes leading to incentives against construction of new homes at sufficient rates to reduce the supply shortage, among other factors.

Its almost like I predicted your comment and brought up median income adjusted for cost of living in my second sentence.

> Perhaps the increase in homelessness is because local NIMBYS efficevly ban new housing projects?

No. Housing projects lead to nothing but misery and more homelessness.

The increases are almost 100% drug-driven. Because of drugs, people are not _exiting_ homelessness (the average time of being homeless is growing, according to the 2-year counts).

The answers, counterintuitively, to strengthen the NIMBYs and make sure it's impossible to build ANYTHING in cities. Then promote the remote work and suburbs/rural areas via tax incentives.

The US has millions of square kilometers of perfectly good land available for housing. There's zero reason to try to cram people into the Human Cube ( https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/the-human-cube-the-volume-of-... ).

>The US has millions of square kilometers of perfectly good land available for housing. There's zero reason to try to cram people into

Population density makes mass transit feasible.

And?

Suburbs are pyramid schemes that are already beginning to collapse. Infrastructure costs are unsustainably high without density and plenty of cities are going bankrupt when it comes time to replace sewers etc.

> Infrastructure costs are unsustainably high without density and plenty of cities are going bankrupt when it comes time to replace sewers etc.

It's funny that you mention infrastructure. Do you know that one mile of Manhattan subway now costs more than 1000 miles of modern 6-lane freeway?

Suburban infrastructure costs are in line with the _average_ urban costs (some cities like NYC or Seattle have _wildly_ inflated costs). Some costs are slightly more, some are less.

>No. Housing projects lead to nothing but misery and more homelessness.

Now there's a hot take if I ever saw one.

Well, it’s an accurate statement, at least how it’s been historically done in the US.

> make sure it's impossible to build ANYTHING in cities

this will do wonders to the rental market (and car usage and the climate)

Clearly people want to move into cities. The increased prices of housing makes that beyond clear, to deny it is to deny basic economics. Thus why shouldn't we build housing where people show with their money that they want to live? Its worked in several US cities when tried, who have even seen housing prices go down while building very reasonable 3-6 story apartment buildings.

Citation please?

Sure, I was arguing with someone about the US once so I have these sources saved.

Lower income wage gains in the US:

https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2023/

13.2% from 2019 to 2023

Median income (one of the charts if you scroll is median income per courtly adjusted for PPP)

https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2024/06/society-at-a-gl...

Luxembourg is higher, but given they are a very strange city-state I feel like we can ignore them.

Thanks very much, very useful. I notice that the first wage link states:

"Wage rates remain insufficient for individuals and families working to make ends meet. Nowhere can a worker at the 10th percentile of the wage distribution earn enough to meet a basic family budget."

Which is probably a more pertinent fact to note?

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