[tmh79]

Strong disagree, the solution to affordable housing includes a very large amount of private/free market housing, but the free market won't really address the needs of people below 30% of the median income. Additionally, good affordable housing is one of the best anti poverty tools that we have. IMO the long term solution is robust private market housing construction for the middle class, and a robust public housing construction system for those who truly need it.

[barry-cotter]

> the free market won't really address the needs of people below 30% of the median income.

It will if it’s not illegal to build. SROs are illegal. Boarding houses are illegal. Houses below a certain minimum are are illegal.

https://www.economist.com/special-report/2020/01/16/what-is-...

> From 2013 to 2017, Tokyo built many houses as the whole of England.

> House prices in Tokyo are now 9% lower than they were in 2000, while in London they are 144% higher, adjusted for inflation.

[micmil]

Anyone using Japan as an example of housing prices does not understand Japanese housing.

Zoning in Japan is done at a national level, not local. Once an area is designated for housing, housing goes there. Because of this there is a constant flow of new housing, which drives the price of old houses down.

This is not possible anywhere zoning is done at a local level. Anytime one person has the ability to stop another from building you immediately create NIMBYdom and where the NIMBY exists, more housing does not because the NIMBY cares about nothing but their own property value. But that also feeds into the insane American idea of housing as an investment rather than a place to keep birds from crapping on you.

Until the NIMBY is eliminated, and housing is no longer sold as an investment, housing costs will not go down.

[Redoubts]

So why can’t we use Japan as an example? That seems like a laundry list of good ideas.

[leppr]

> the free market won't really address the needs of people below 30% of the median income.

Why? Do you think a poor person's vote is worth more to the government than their wallet would be to a house builder?

Is it impossible to make an acceptable house at 30% the cost of a median earner's house?

Your reasoning is valid for people whose productivity approaches zero, in which case welfare can indeed be needed. But the current housing problem is systematic and touches a far bigger percent of the population, and thus shouldn't be solved with charity.

[generatorguy]

Imagine you are a property developer. You borrow money to buy land and want to build as many housing units on that land as you are allowed to and sell them for as much as you can. Buying granite counter tops in bulk and selling the housing units as luxury is going to make you a lot more than trying to cater to the bottom of the market, so nobody does, unless forced.

[dodobirdlord]

Do it enough times and there will be an oversupply of such housing, pushing price down to the cost of land + construction. With no profit margin at that price developers will target higher and lower price points. The solution is always just more construction.

[formerchamp]

Public housing is a complete failure and the epicenter of violence in every city. Name a current project in ANY big city you'd raise your family in?

[zokula]

Gemeindebau in Vienna Austria.