[lkbm]

That's part of it, but I definitely have known quite a few renters who opposed building more housing. Denial of supply and demand, as well as general dislike of "rich developers" is strong in many groups.

Incentives are typically the strongest force to watch, but so are various cultural/political narratives people come up with. People clearly don't all vote in our own economic interests in many situations. I'd assume this is largely because in the current information ecosystem, people don't understand what's in their economic interests.

[leaves83829]

This! >> I'd assume this is largely because in the current information ecosystem, people don't understand what's in their economic interests.

It's wild that even renter's aren't voting for more housing. I think it's because basic economics isn't taught in k-12 or even college anymore and this is causing a lot of problems.

Of course, there are other solutions too, like starting new cities and incentivizing companies to move there in the beginning. People follow jobs, they have to, now more than ever. if companies move there, people will follow. How is that we used to be able to create new cities and yet now, we all the sudden can't. has our material wealth really dropped so low that we can't afford to build new cities?

and what about down-sizing? in hong kong, you could create bed sized units at a fraction of the cost of a full sized apartment. microapartments? etc? all NOT legal. i think it's wrong of the city to decide that for people. individuals should be able to decide whether they want that or not, rather than being forced onto the streets.

[pandaman]

Many people are not driven entirely by their economic interests, thus you can see people wearing clothes not from the Walmart bargain bin, driving cars with electric windows, and eating out instead of cooking rice and beans at home. Renters, just like home owners, want to live in the most comfortable home they can afford in general.

People who lament the lack of rentable pods and don't understand why anyone would pay more for a bigger house in a quitter neighborhood or just for a nice view exist, but you are in the minority. Thus renters are not going to vote to live in a ghetto so they could save a few hundred on rent.

[robocat]

> It's wild that even renter's aren't voting for more housing. I think it's because basic economics isn't taught in k-12...

Teaching economics is not the solution (see papers on financial literacy). Rationality is hard and even highly educated people have terrible models of cause and effect. Even your own dependency analysis implies that voting for X helps to get Y (which hasn't been my personal experience).

[Forgeties79]

Do you recall exactly what kind of housing they were opposing? Because that is a major piece of context we are missing here. I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who simply said “no more housing.” It’s usually much more specific than that, such as opposition to house flipping and STR’s, or wasteful planned communities of McMansions and concrete.

[4fterd4rk]

Generally these people oppose the building of "luxury housing" because they don't get how ALL housing increases supply/reduces market price. Also the idea of a developer building a kind of... predistressed property has never made any sense to me.

[Forgeties79]

> ALL housing increases supply/reduces market price.

I can tell you firsthand that that is absolutely not true. The massive rush to renovate or build new short-term rentals in the 2010s had a disastrous impact on rental prices around my city, especially coupled with historically low interest rates that made these enterprises far less risky. It’s also incredibly disruptive to neighborhoods/communities, not just because of bad guests but because it can rapidly drive up value, leading landlords to sell and/or rapidly drive up rent which means kick out lower income tenants whether it’s intentional or not. Most of the STR’s in particular were also not being done by locals. 70%+ were out of town developers. Currently almost 90% of STR’s here are whole home which means not local owner/operators living there. It’s just hotels by a different name taking up housing in residential neighborhoods.

When interest rates and home insurance went up a few years ago, coupled with stricter rules for getting an STR license, a lot of people sold their properties (usually rentals/STR’s), and the price to buy as well as rent noticeably came down pretty rapidly. It’s still too high, but the drop was noticeable and quick. The purpose for construction absolutely factors in to these discussions.

[zozbot234]

Taxing short-term rentals would handily address these issues while still allowing people to derive some income from their otherwise vacant pieds-a-terre and vacation homes.

[Forgeties79]

But that’s the thing, that’s not what these properties are generally here. These are homes bought in cash by developers in neighborhoods occupied by residents. People lived in these homes prior and somebody else would have likely bought and lived in it if they left.

When my wife and I were buying our first house we had two houses taken out from under us because somebody came in with an all cash bid tens of thousands higher than ours. Both are still Airbnb’s.

[zozbot234]

> These are homes bought in cash by developers in neighborhoods occupied by residents.

This happens because hotel accommodation is generally overpriced. But if you tax the airbnb rentals, it deters profit-minded developers from engaging in this practice, while still allowing it as a last resort for homes that cannot be rented long-term and would otherwise sit empty.

[4fterd4rk]

STRs reduced the supply of housing. You’re making my point.

[Forgeties79]

I think we might be talking at cross purposes

[lizknope]

The local subreddit for my area always has tons of negative comments about any new housing development.

Some people complain it is "luxury" or even just normal and not "affordable."

If it is single family housing then people complain about the lack of density. If is apartments or condos they complain that there is already so much traffic in that area and adding thousands of new people will make it even worse.

When small old houses are bought up, torn down, and a new apartment / condo complex goes in they complain about the lack of character and soulless new development that all looks the same.

I have to agree with some of the other comments that many people never learned supply and demand or are completely incapable of understanding a for profit business.

I've seen comments about memory / RAM prices going up. Gamers are now so anti-AI because it is making their GPUs more expensive and now memory, flash, and hard drive storage as well. I've seen comments that say the government should step in and force companies to make GPUs at affordable prices. We can argue over whether health care or clean water are a human right but some people seem to think cheap GPUs are a human right.

[gravypod]

An ex of mine mentioned to me that she was going to join a local community group trying to prevent development on an empty lot near her apartment. I asked why she would want to do that? Her concerns, and the concerns of the people she was showing me on facebook, were:

1. "They didn't do an environmental review" 2. She didn't want to hear construction noise. 3. She didn't want the construction to cause rats to leave the lot and go to buildings. 4. She also said she didn't want her rent to go.

I believe it was this lot: https://web.archive.org/web/20250821002539/https://www.nytim...

I think it is common for people to organize, even in the most urban and educated areas in America, against their own interest.

[lkbm]

Apartment complexes. Mostly "luxury" apartments, but including ones with some % of affordable units. Some were replacing houses, but mostly replacing parking lots, vacant lots, or even older, smaller apartment buildings -- in a neighborhood that was already almost entirely apartment buildings.