[turtledove]

You could have a lottery, adjust prices within a regulated range, offer incentives for less desirable lots.

You could reward developers for lots that have long wait lists and lots of interest, incentivizing developers who build places people want to live.

[marvin]

Offer incentives for less desirable properties, eh? That sounds suspiciously like having different prices, just with extra steps.

[turtledove]

I suppose, in the same way negative interest rates are just interest rates with extra steps.

Start from a position of "everyone gets a home" and then ask "in that case, how do we make sure folks who end up in less desirable homes are compensated?"

I suppose you could frame it in the language of prices, but in this case the price is paid to the tenant.

[sokoloff]

Indeed, it would be a tragedy if someone’s taxpayer-provided housing was insufficiently desirable that we must create a bureau to determine how much additional largess they should receive. That system seems likely to end well.

[paisawalla]

Ah hmm, that's interesting. How have lotteries for highly desired goods worked out in other centrally planned regimes? Did we find a pretty broad socioeconomic distribution among dacha owners in the USSR?

[p1esk]

Did we find a pretty broad socioeconomic distribution among dacha owners in the USSR?

Yes.

[headsoup]

What if someone less fortunate 'wins' the mansion on the beach. How do they afford the future upkeep?

[refurb]

That’s exactly what Singapore does with new public housing - it’s a lottery.

And now they are “clawing back” future price appreciation because it’s literally like winning the lottery if you get a place in a prime location as public housing is heavily subsidized.

If you get selected for a prime area apartment it’s a huge financial win 5 years down the road when you sell at market prices.

And oh yes, Singaporeans game the hell out of the system. From carefully falling under household income limits, to bidding on a new public housing unit despite owning one now.

The government is constantly trying to keep up with all the new incentives each new rule creates.

[turtledove]

This is a fair question, and one I'm not entirely satisfied that I have the answer for. Ideally, in my mind, I wouldn't own my home but I'd also be on the hook for maintenance and upkeep. But I recognize this does not meet everyone's needs and needs more thought.

I would also hope that we would tend to build fewer mansions in favor of more multi family complexes, cohousing, coops, and small community oriented housing on the beach.

[agentgumshoe]

You know this kind of leads towards communism... Which I think is the key problem with any kind of shared equality by force system, it will work nicely so long as no one running things decides they don't want it to, then it works really poorly.

[turtledove]

Looking at any single step on a path and rejecting it because the extreme end of the path isn't desirable is a quick way to never make any progress.

We can improve things, we can do social good, and never slide to authoritarianism. (I assume you are talking about authoritarian communism vs, eg, council communism.)

[headsoup]

Of course we can, but doing it at a society scale is very difficult and you have to be vary careful about who is on charge - or ends up with most influence - as history has consistently shown.

I think it's easy (well reasonably) to do if resources are plentiful, but what do you do if there are more people than resources available to support them, who starts making the hard choices?

[carom]

How often would people have to move?

[turtledove]

When they wanted to. Forcing people to move is, imo, needlessly cruel.

[carom]

Isn't that unfair to someone else who wants to live there? It just seems like the first to arrive is the lucky one.