Should European housing politics be Americanized?
worksinprogress.co
worksinprogress.co
The problem here was never zoning, it was a lack of building.
For one, Cities in the netherlands are already quite dense, and the dutch are focused on building family houses attachted to each other mostly (row housing).
Also, thanks to the massive agricultural sector and a lack of oversight on industry, the netherlands has a massive problem with nitrogen in its soil which prevents building because building stuff generates more nitrogen.
Speculation and the liberalisation of the housing market has also massively contributed to price increases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_crisis_in_the_Netherl...
The Netherlands is a very densely populated country compared to the most of Europe. Furthermore, there are industrial hubs bringing in polluted air through the wind from the west, south, and east, making up a significant source of the nitrogen compound deposition. All efforts to solve the problem have so far upset very powerful lobbyists whose income relies on being allowed to pollute more to stay ahead of the competition (not to mention caused violent protests).
There are many factors to the housing problem, it's not just nitrogen compounds. In my opinion, the entire construction sector coming to a standstill after the 2008 crisis was probably what kicked off a storm of seemingly unrelated issues, from population pyramids to the water table levels to investors using property to accumulate wealth to hyperintensive farming practices.
New measures to supposedly solve the nitrogen compound crisis have been announced. By the looks of it, I expect the agriculture lobby to riot again, and new elections by the start of next year when the government inevitably collapses itself again in an attempt to use populism to gather more votes.
Even with the stuff in the sibling comments, the Netherlands also famously makes new land.
Why isn’t the latter an effect of the former? I believe the Netherlands restricts building height by parcel unless a deviation procedure is granted, something I understand to be expensive and risky.
No it doesn't. And America doesn't dominate social media in Europe, except repeated administration scandals, paedofiles and history's largest pedo ring cover-up.
Every European you meet on social media is necessarily the subset of Europeans who adopted social media. A subset of the population adopting a subset of the stuff doesn't mean adoption in general is as universal as you might assume.
e.g. podcast I was listening to the other day had a German complaining about their bank, after the bank suggested they send a fax.
Most Europeans probably know more American politicians than they do their own, and have opinions about every American event.
During US elections it's impossible to talk to anyone without their starting to opine about things they have no control over within a minute.
American culture wars are polarising societies that share nothing with the American one.
The last thing Europe needs is more Americanisation.
True, but that's because of considerable joint effort headed by the likes of Thiel, Musk, Bannon, ...
But like, did that polarized angry rhetorics actually solved the American issue?
The issue was already polarized by the NIMBY’s. They just had a political monopoly. Pro-growth policies have resulted in new housing and abated price increases in several American cities.
There are no countries in europe who’s native language is english, and all online discourse would be in european languages.
( apart of course from the uk, but the author makes the distinction)
And Ireland. Yes they also have the Irish language codified as primary in their constitution, but in practice 95% speak English, 39.9% claim some ability to speak Irish, and only 1.7% actually speak Irish daily.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Ireland
IMO, one of the things Europe does wrong is something the US also does wrong: There's plenty of cheap housing around, it's just in Detroit, Liverpool, and Chemnitz. How do we make those places desirable to live in once more?
The economic illiteracy is just that bad.
Are home prices just outside the city center stagnant?
Pick the low-hanging fruit. More housing outside the city centre (with requisite transit infrastructure) still means more-affordable housing. That, in turn, should relieve pressure on the centre.
This is obviously untrue if the prices have risen.
We do really need to have a serious conversation about single-family homes; you will even find them right next to metro stations. Some of these low-density neighborhoods really need to be demolished and reconstructed into higher-density housing that can still reasonably house a family.
The city centers are the most expensive, because vast majority wants to live there. Further away is less expensive and even mode further away is even more expensive.
Most if not all european city centers are no dystopia. They are perfectly compatible with having familly.
But in contradiction to the article, just up the road from me, practically a small town was built of high density housing in what i would still consider “the city”, but with amenities and improved public transport factored in
Do you have a source showing price increases correlate with migration? (The article seems to show a timing relationship between zoning and prices.)
Let's say a couple have two children. From t=0 until approximately t=20, all four people require one housing unit.
If that same couple does not have children (guess what's happening in every single western country!) and we instead lean on migration to increase the population for them, at t=0 you have at least 2, maybe 3 housing units required for the same number of people. It's not complicated.
> at t=0 you have at least 2, maybe 3 housing units required for the same number of people
Plenty of families immigrate. And at least in America, immigrant households seem to be denser than native-born ones. You’re assuming immigrant households are smaller than average, which would indeed be surprising unless they’re all quite wealthy.
As a multi-decade effect? No, not really. Absent migration I don’t think home prices would be flat in Europe.
In some cases, in the short term? Sure. But to answer to what extent is it a distraction versus actual driver of home unaffordability, you need numbers. The article provides compelling evidence for zoning. Given the animus against immigrants in Europe, I’d guess I’m assuming if these data existed they’d already have been found.
Answer true or false. One couple+one child requires less housing (in the short-to-medium term) than one couple+one immigrant.
If two couples and two children take up one unit of housing while providing three units of labour, that’s more space efficient than the one couple + one child if even both parents work.
This sort of napkin math doesn’t work for these problems. Particularly when we’re essentially debating elasticity with respect to demand versus supply.
Japan also famously builds lots of housing. (Agree they are a good example, though, for measuring these effects.)