Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Call me radical, but I want to take a different approach here. In my opinion, gentrification has been caused mostly by the desire of new generations to live inside city centers, and in a closer proximity to work. The reason why housing is so expensive is because that there is little left of our older and more urban areas, while our population has nearly triples since the 1920s. Therefore, I propose simply expanding the city center, into the now decaying inner suburbs, to do this, transit will have to be greatly improves first off. This is why I support the majority of transit expansion that there is. Next, something has to be done about NIMBYs in the areas. The end result would be something like Arlington.
While I know at this point I may not be making sense to some, what I am trying to get at here is to meet the demand for urban living, with the needed amount of supply. Once the supply is higher, prices will fall, making the city affordable, to the masses.
While this is very long term, I also support using rent controls on a vast scale, as well as creating protections for local, and landmark important businesses (CBGBs), and requirements to construct affordable housing.
Call me radical, but I want to take a different approach here. In my opinion, gentrification has been caused mostly by the desire of new generations to live inside city centers, and in a closer proximity to work. The reason why housing is so expensive is because that there is little left of our older and more urban areas, while our population has nearly triples since the 1920s. Therefore, I propose simply expanding the city center, into the now decaying inner suburbs, to do this, transit will have to be greatly improves first off. This is why I support the majority of transit expansion that there is. Next, something has to be done about NIMBYs in the areas. The end result would be something like Arlington.
While I know at this point I may not be making sense to some, what I am trying to get at here is to meet the demand for urban living, with the needed amount of supply. Once the supply is higher, prices will fall, making the city affordable, to the masses.
While this is very long term, I also support using rent controls on a vast scale, as well as creating protections for local, and landmark important businesses (CBGBs), and requirements to construct affordable housing.
That's what it comes down to: if we want to fend off gentrification, we have to add supply in easy proximity to desirable locations. But that's a bit counter-intuitive to many people; they're being told that the solution to capitalism-gone-wrong is freer capitalism. What they miss is that it is government policy, not the actions of the market, that create the problem of gentrification.
Call me radical, but I want to take a different approach here. In my opinion, gentrification has been caused mostly by the desire of new generations to live inside city centers, and in a closer proximity to work. The reason why housing is so expensive is because that there is little left of our older and more urban areas, while our population has nearly triples since the 1920s. Therefore, I propose simply expanding the city center, into the now decaying inner suburbs, to do this, transit will have to be greatly improves first off. This is why I support the majority of transit expansion that there is. Next, something has to be done about NIMBYs in the areas. The end result would be something like Arlington.
While I know at this point I may not be making sense to some, what I am trying to get at here is to meet the demand for urban living, with the needed amount of supply. Once the supply is higher, prices will fall, making the city affordable, to the masses.
While this is very long term, I also support using rent controls on a vast scale, as well as creating protections for local, and landmark important businesses (CBGBs), and requirements to construct affordable housing.
Many of the people who live in cities do not live in any closer proximity to work than anyone else.
While this is very long term, I also support using rent controls on a vast scale, as well as creating protections for local, and landmark important businesses (CBGBs), and requirements to construct affordable housing.
Rent control ruins cities. It creates a dual market for housing while reducing the number of apts on the market. Those lucky enough to get a rent controlled apartment rarely leave/upgrade their apartment even when income increases. This creates an over priced "uncontrolled" market due to the lack of normal turnover in the controlled market.
Just adding supply doesn't necessarily reduce rents, especially if the costs of new construction mandate a relatively high rent to pay for the new building. Government policy dictates the actions of the market, so while government policy can add to the problem of gentrification (as it did during the redevelopment era) it can also mitigate the problems of gentrification.
There isn't a perfect solution, and "in my world" solutions don't mean much, because it's easy to imagine a world where chocolate cake is packed with vitamins and bacon cheeseburgers are health food, but imagining it doesn't make it so. Repairing the problems of cities makes them more desirable and thus more expensive, means to control housing prices distort the market, building regulations to ensure safety make housing more expensive, relaxing those regulations makes housing less expensive but potentially more dangerous. It's a matter of tradeoffs and finding a middle ground, and in our super-polarized environment, middle ground is very hard to find these days.
Just adding supply doesn't necessarily reduce rents, especially if the costs of new construction mandate a relatively high rent to pay for the new building. Government policy dictates the actions of the market, so while government policy can add to the problem of gentrification (as it did during the redevelopment era) it can also mitigate the problems of gentrification.
There isn't a perfect solution, and "in my world" solutions don't mean much, because it's easy to imagine a world where chocolate cake is packed with vitamins and bacon cheeseburgers are health food, but imagining it doesn't make it so. Repairing the problems of cities makes them more desirable and thus more expensive, means to control housing prices distort the market, building regulations to ensure safety make housing more expensive, relaxing those regulations makes housing less expensive but potentially more dangerous. It's a matter of tradeoffs and finding a middle ground, and in our super-polarized environment, middle ground is very hard to find these days.
Allowing supply to track demand reduces rents over the long term in inflation-adjusted dollars. It is government policy--zoning, codes, and fees--which define the market, but also distort that market. In many impacted areas, looser, more flexible, and more predictable zoning would lower planning and construction costs, resulting in more supply coming on line.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
