[wongarsu]

It appears to me like we did manage to build from-scratch cheap housing at a profit in the 50s-80s in Europe. The key were cheap, dense, ~5 story prefabricated buildings, with some greenery around them. What is now known as commie blocks in the anglosphere.

Turns out that when you build something that's not particularly nice when it's new it becomes unattractive as it ages, which creates unattractive high-crime neighborhoods. Great to solve housing, but very unattractive for anyone else in the area. We basically stopped building them

[bobthepanda]

I would actually say it's very rare for a building type to be in tip-top shape constantly and not fall into some dereliction if anybody but upper-middle income people live there.

At least in the US, a lot of the popular "historic" building types like the New York brownstone had a midlife period where they were deeply unpopular and ill-maintained.

[thrwwyfrobvrsns]

I think this has more to do with the ownership/residence situation. There was a study done of a redlined neighborhood, mid-century, that was slated for razing as part of an urban renewal initiative. The residents were all working-class black families. The houses that were owned by the residents were well-maintained; the ones that were owned by landlords and rented out were of a condition stereotypically associated with urban decay.

This makes sense. Owners, even poor ones, will do their best to maintain their housing; less wealthy owners especially would know that they're likely stuck with their unit and should do their best to keep it comfortable. Renters have no incentive to (it might even be illegal for them to make improvements), and landlords are unlikely to cut into their profits if they can avoid it.

I would say that policy which encourages long-term renting - per-property, as well as per-renter - is deleterious to the socioeconomic fabric. The majority of a housing unit's life should be spent inhabited by its owners, and the majority of a person's life should be spent in a house owned by themselves or their family.

[bobthepanda]

this is really dependent of the type of housing. midlife is when you start needing to replace things and the downsides of the housing become way more apparent.

To give the example, brownstones became unpopular as it became apparent their designs resulted in high heating and AC bills since they were pretty drafty and poorly insulated. Only when they blossomed into being "historic" did people start valuing them enough to start fixing the problems and restoring them.

[thrwwyfrobvrsns]

I think you're talking past me. What does this reply have to do with gp?

[im3w1l]

I think the question is, the people who are a bit bad, but not really bad, like the graffiti tagger, the shoplifter, the guy who gets really loud when he drinks maybe throws a punch once in a blue moon, the drug addict that can hold down a simple job most of the time - do you want them to be homeless or do you want to build cheap housing for them?

[AStonesThrow]

This is Hacker News, where the rich must be taxed and penalized, CEOs, politicians and management thrown into prison for malfeasance, and there oughta be laws about everything, and HOAs are harshing our mellow.

So a "crime-ridden" neighborhood or "slightly bad" people perhaps relies on defining crime narrowly as things that poor people do

[Retric]

You can maintain that housing just fine, the market generally chose not to.

Further it’s not housing that creates poverty, and thus crime ridden neighborhoods. Somewhere is going to be relatively poor and thus both poorly maintained and crime ridden. Cities have seen the exact same building go through cycles of poverty to prosperity and back.