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IntelligentCicada363 t1_itvgnlm wrote

Reply to comment by 1minuteman12 in Cambridge completely eliminated parking minimums yesterday!! by RealBurhanAzeem

Right, and decades of NIMBYism has led to the need of a “enormous influx” of housing.

The need for housing isn’t a very good argument against policies they make it easier to build housing. In fact… it is just confusing.

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1minuteman12 t1_itvkzrj wrote

I don’t know what you even mean to say. My point is that, although we need more housing, this policy is not going to create anywhere near enough new housing to have a perceptible effect on housing prices. It’s a step in the right direction for sure. We should be moving on from car dependent urban planning anyway.

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IntelligentCicada363 t1_itzdsi3 wrote

There are a large number of policies, including the one being discussed in this thread, that individually don’t move the needle much, but when combined will move the needle in the right direction. However, every single time one of these policies come up, the above argument is used to oppose such policies. “This won’t move the needle on housing, and it will inconvenience me, so I oppose it!” So the policies don’t get enacted, or get neutered, and then the needle never moves because nothing ever gets done.

There are millions of people and hundreds of thousands of homes in the greater boston metro area. Any developer trying to fix prices is just going to be undercut by another developer to make money. The market is too big for the type of collusion (at the scale of the whole region) you are describing.

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1minuteman12 t1_itzfxwc wrote

I’m not opposing the policy, it’s good policy and I support it. My commentary is aimed at the people in this sub who are like “this is it, housing will be cheap now!” If we want a systematic drop in rental and real estate prices we need radical change.

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