[jrmg]

This is really the message of Abundance.

I both liked Abundance and think there’s truth to what you’re saying.

But it wasn’t what I took away from the book (perhaps it was in there - but what I really got was ‘for a better future we need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot, and be prepared to enthusiastically think of and promote the greater good rather than protecting every single valuable individual thing’)

[scoofy]

I mean, I agree with what you're saying, but it misses that abundance means abundance. Consumer staples should cost near the price of production, and where margins are out of control, the government should step in and end the rent-seeking... that is what abundance is. If we live in a society where there is no price appreciation in owning an apartment to rent because another apartment can be build next door, then we live in a society where your dollar goes further, and cannot be captured by the wealthy cornering the market.

What we have now is the opposite. We know that housing demand will rise in the future, simply because there will be more people. Instead of the rich investing in housing production to meet this need, we have the rich investing in existing housing because we have effectively stopped production, thus the rich can capture all that value in price appreciation from rent-seeking alone (technically more of it), instead of wasting their time operating a business that builds things.

[mullingitover]

> we have the rich investing in existing housing because we have effectively stopped production

In my quite affluent city, the most affluent neighborhood has yard signs up every fifty feet expressing that they are furious that the city might develop city-owned parking lots (which are nowhere near their neighborhood) to be high density housing.

One-bedroom apartments in the city center are going for over $3,000 per month.

The rich aren't simply locking up existing housing, their principal concern is preventing any housing from being created, even if it has no effect on them.

[yongjik]

I think there should be a relatively simple solution. Tax the homeowners proportional to their homes' market value. Either you get enough tax revenue to build more houses, or the tax burden is too high for those NIMBY to remain at their beautiful suburban homes, and their houses will be back on the market.

But no, when we propose that, all those affluent bourgeois feeding on the young are suddenly poor grandmas just wanting to live the rest of their lives in peace.

Make up your mind, people. Are we going to fix the problem, or are we going to blame Jeff Bezos because some suburban schmucks oppose building apartments. Frankly I don't think Jeff Bezos even cares about apartments. (He has enough money to buy a city block, why would he care.) But it sure feels more righteous to hate Jeff Bezos than argue about real estate tax.

[jrmg]

Are you in California?

Most states (and other countries) do tax the homeowners proportional to their homes’ market value. California with its tax proportional to value at purchase is the outlier.

[GrinningFool]

In the places I have lived, the value of the property for tax calculations was significantly lower than the market value.

[ericd]

I think it’s largely just that people just don’t want to live near poor people, because they think they have bad culture/values/behavior, and will be risky to live near.

Based on comments I’ve seen at city council meetings about this stuff, there’s also some aspect of feeling like infrastructure is already overstressed, traffic is already bad, etc, which is largely an artifact of car-centric development patterns being incredibly wasteful/inefficient, and capping out at relatively low densities. But the existing development pattern is usually not a good fit for mass transit - the utilization is usually too low.

I think the California approach of aggressively upzoning near public transit is pretty good, except that it might cause resistance to public transit expansion.

[mullingitover]

> people just don’t want to live near poor people

This kind of thing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when all the poor people get crammed into one place.

Singapore does it right by having high quality housing which happens to have a certain amount subsidized for lower income people. You get a mix of incomes and not a slum.

A lot of California's housing development also incentivizes this type of arrangement: permitting can be fast-tracked and local NIMBYs can be steamrolled if a development allocates some, but not all, of the development to be designated as affordable.

[ericd]

Yeah, no argument. I think many in the US want the bar to be higher, though - many want expensive single family housing to be the minimum in their area, apartments would be too affordable, even unsubsidized.

[fragmede]

Most of Singapore's housing is subsidized, not just for the poor, but as government housing policy.

[scoofy]

“A society grows great when old men build five-over-ones whose shade will immediately cover their favorite park bench for 4 days per year.”

[jrmg]

I think that’s compatible with my take:

Be prepared to enthusiastically think of and promote the greater good (abundant, cheaper housing in this case) rather than protecting every single valuable individual thing (existing house value, amongst many other things, in this case).