Submitted by ValancourtB t3_1032xm1 in rva
STREAMOFCONSCIOUSN3S t1_j2x27jg wrote
Reply to comment by goodsam2 in Your City Is the Most Livable in America, Until We Publish This Article About It by ValancourtB
> We should be adding more due to more demand but we lack the ability to build enough.
> If we built more stuff there could be more for everyone
Are you referring to housing or businesses? If you continue building, is there a risk you erase what is currently nice about a place? What if the low density is what makes a certain place desirable? I know this will get downvoted because most Redditors would like to live in 100 sq ft apartments built 80 stories high, but I'm actually curious what you're saying.
plummbob t1_j2xaigb wrote
Prices tell you if a place is nice or not. So if home prices are higher than the cost of construction, then you're not at risk of making a place undesirable, because if it was undesirable, prices would fall below construction costs.
And there is a missing middle for businesses just like there is for housing. The zoning restrictions basically create a price floor that small businesses/low income people can't ever reach, effectively pricing them out of the market.
goodsam2 t1_j2xdnok wrote
>Prices tell you if a place is nice or not. So if home prices are higher than the cost of construction, then you're not at risk of making a place undesirable, because if it was undesirable, prices would fall below construction costs.
We have elevated construction costs as well with regulations and waiting on them to approve something. This is usually financed and so more time borrowing money means more cost.
This is also why we have made projects so large to need huge financing teams and massive builders rather than some smaller places existing adding an ADU out back for some of these buildings. We have made it big developers by our own choices.
>And there is a missing middle for businesses just like there is for housing. The zoning restrictions basically create a price floor that small businesses/low income people can't ever reach, effectively pricing them out of the market.
Yeah IMO we would get better businesses if we had more cheap places for businesses. That's why food trucks became a thing, startup costs are a lot lower.
Suburbs mostly build out new chains because they can afford the space those places need.
plummbob t1_j2xebfy wrote
Yeah, it's so wack because the same people who complain about megacorps in housing are also the ones that oppose reducing the zoning costs that make them the only players who can afford to play.
Housing theory of everything yall
goodsam2 t1_j2xi9dr wrote
I think there's more to it than housing but I think it's a huge piece. I think all payer rate setting would fix a lot (any MRI is $100 and if insurance or you pay cash the max price is $100 in America.
I really wish a party would take this up rather than wading into industries with Baumol's cost disease. Childcare and long term car whether we like it or not will increase with increasing wages across the board.
plummbob t1_j2xmcr6 wrote
Nimbyism the only truly bipartisan platform
goodsam2 t1_j2xpf00 wrote
I think it's strange democrats have taken up the issue, I hope they can convince Republicans that regulations can keep us down.
plummbob t1_j2xrgmc wrote
My experience has been that yimby nerds like myself are all democrats. My repub relatives all seem to be indifferent or uninterested in the topic, and at least notionally for "the free market"
goodsam2 t1_j2xrsmr wrote
That's why I'm mostly talking about free market elements here, because that's the audience that needs convincing.
It's also a simple let me not compete for your suburban house and let me buy a row house in the fan for a more affordable price.
Land value tax is better economically. The 30 year mortgage was invented by the FDR administration. Zoning is not the free market etc.
airquotesNotAtWork t1_j2z71l1 wrote
Last republican presidential candidate made a big deal about “protecting your suburbs” so doubtful there’s much help from the right.
goodsam2 t1_j2z8jz5 wrote
Lots of people are cross pressured
Charlesinrichmond t1_j2xdtkv wrote
there's a balance. You don't need tiny apartments in skyscrapers to get density, you need the Fan. And is building the Fan really so awful?
Paris is very densely populated. And not known for it's skyscrapers generally.
goodsam2 t1_j2xjawl wrote
I do think we need some actually tiny apartments, SROs, though.
I think if they can make $175 a week work in NYC they can make it work in Richmond for what $100. That would help people from spiraling into homelessness, that would help people who just moved here. That's literally what the song YMCA is about, the song is about the old SROs that existed to help mostly young men get established in an area. It's a free market solution to take a bite out of homelessness.
I would have lived in one for a couple of weeks after starting my job then moved onto a normal apartment to live with some friends.
You don't have to ban something people don't want.
Edit: I will say that I don't think that many would take them but I think adding some SROs would be really beneficial.
Charlesinrichmond t1_j2y1xpj wrote
agree
goodsam2 t1_j2xb8ar wrote
>Are you referring to housing or businesses?
Both
>If you continue building, is there a risk you erase what is currently nice about a place?
I mean why can't we add something new fan style housing one of the most popular neighborhoods. Most people in urban Richmond city live in 100 year old housing, old factories converted into apartments, or brand new apartments that are a very recent development for the most part. That or shitty cape cods and more everywhere suburban sprawl.
>What if the low density is what makes a certain place desirable?
I mean yes in some cases but how many neighborhoods haven't built anything in decades and you are just yelling stop and watching as things increase as price fundamentally changing the nature of the area IMO more than building ever would have. I mean this view preserves the infrastructure but not the price point at all.
Increasing density has massive network effects, so it would almost all be clustered closer to the center. Most suburbs are too far away to really make sense for much higher density. Short pump to Willow Lawn is 9.8 miles, high density along that corridor maybe but bus times would be absurd. Nobody is adding more than like a couple of duplexes in any free market context to most neighborhoods and 90% of people can't tell the difference between a duplex and single family home.
>I know this will get downvoted because most Redditors would like to live in 100 sq ft apartments built 80 stories high, but I'm actually curious what you're saying.
I mean why don't we have more 2,000 sq ft row houses from this century that are actually urban?
Also people don't want small spaces but the 100 SQ ft places would actually take a huge bite out of the homelessness population, smaller places could be a lot more affordable. To me banning things below a certain size sounds to me like you are saying we should only build mansions, because I don't want to live next to poor people.
IMO the blight on this city is shitty post war cape cods. Which if you like them good, we have a shit ton of them (because they built stuff back then and now we don't). They are old and have no character association especially to Richmond.
STREAMOFCONSCIOUSN3S t1_j2xx9y5 wrote
> mean why don't we have more 2,000 sq ft row houses from this century that are actually urban?
Schools. Make school choice a thing and you'll see young families flock back to urban areas and desire those 2k sq ft houses.
goodsam2 t1_j2xy1kd wrote
I think that answer is changing rapidly, fan museum district with high housing prices lead to good schools.
Suburbs having good schools and cheap housing IMO is a dying concept. High housing prices means good schools. Infrastructure costs are getting to the suburbs now.
Look at great schools for elementary some of the best schools in the metro area in city limits and the numbers are improving, if I had a kid now I would send them in the city rather than out for the express purpose of better school future.
STREAMOFCONSCIOUSN3S t1_j2xz2xj wrote
What about middle and high school? The sad fact is that as long as you have education-focused parents with the means (wealth) to remove themselves from poor students, they will continue to do so, and currently that means moving away from the poor students. Implementing school choice would remove the necessity of moving away.
goodsam2 t1_j2y377k wrote
>What about middle and high school?
It's moving up from the bottom.
>The sad fact is that as long as you have education-focused parents with the means (wealth) to remove themselves from poor students, they will continue to do so, and currently that means moving away from the poor students.
Which means not moving into the suburbs where poverty has been rising faster than urban areas for 2 decades.
Explain to me how we have the fan and entry price is twice as high as the suburbs and has a worse school long term.
>Implementing school choice would remove the necessity of moving away.
I mean yes but also what level of choice are we talking about here. I think we need to keep them in public schools.
STREAMOFCONSCIOUSN3S t1_j2y6nt6 wrote
> Explain to me how we have the fan and entry price is twice as high as the suburbs and has a worse school long term.
Because elementary schools pull from a smaller area than middle and high schools. For elementary, students come from just the Fan, but for MS and HS they also come from impoverished areas surrounding the Fan. Same scenario is true of Tuckahoe Elementary in Henrico county.
goodsam2 t1_j2yb8o1 wrote
The areas around the fan are not that impoverished and are rising quickly as well. If it continues to be an issue I think they push for a rezoning to only keep the richer areas.
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