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America overall is urbanizing as rural areas are vacating towards cities and their suburbs. Growth of places like Vegas, Phoenix, DMV, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Nashville, Austin, Charlotte, where homes are much more moderate than higher priced cities like LA, NYC, SF where homes are more expensive. America is overall a much richer nation than the years before and the jobs that young people today are getting especially in science and tech fields are better than manufacturing job workers of yesteryear. So people are attracted to urban cities and get paid well for it, while those who are in the service industries and manufacturing are losing out. This will continue into the future decades as LA will continue to attract more high paying jobs, and higher educated people to work those jobs The people who are not up to par will be left behind to either move somewhere far or out of state or worker more but achieve less as a result.
LA is a different beast of a City metropolis. Think about how huge the Metropolis is of the 5 counties of about 19 million people. Everyone can think of very good areas, good areas, ok areas, bad areas and really bad areas. Because of the cost of living, poorer people are forced out, richer moving in and people in the middle are in constant flux on where to live. They are moving to poorer/less desirable areas and turning (gentrify) them into ok and good areas. You see this with Hollywood, Echo Park, Venice, Palms, Koreatown, Highland Park, West Adams, Baldwin Hills, North Hollywood, Inglewood, Downtown Long Beach and other areas. More money means cleaner, safer, streets, nicer schools, nicer shops/restaurants. Currently it is spreading to Historic Filipinotown, East Hollywood, Westlake as the edges of gentrifying areas are moving.
Anyway, the people who will struggle are those at the bottom levels. Is there a fix? NOPE.
Housing is a commodity. people own the rentals and people own housing. They charge a price for what they can get for it. $1000 rent, $2000 rent, etc. Or $500,000 home in Inglewood, or $800K home in Echo Park or $1M+ in Venice. There is often some government hand that can force things like rent control/or rent caps, but overall it is a free market for people to rent what they want and sell what they can get. And it is just escalating because there is more demand that supply. Simple as that. Despite building a lot over the past 5-10 years, it is not enough.
Growing up, I lived in an immigrant community of East Hollywood and NELA where apartments were packed with people. 5-6 people in a 2 bedroom unit. Common. Today, many home and apartments are occupied by 1-2 people in a similar 2 bedroom. Friends I grew up with, they left the nest of their parents and moved into their own homes while their parents still live in the same homes but with less people. Of course there are those that many people living in the same house with more people but it isn't a lot that I know of. People are socially and economically upward on the ladder. Sure their parents were poorer but the kids are able to move up and out on their own. This causes a lot of strain on the housing market. Because before, the family of 5 in a single house are now the same family of 5 in 3-4 houses. Yet there aren't a lot of houses or enough housing for them all. A lot of people dont seem to understand this concept especially those arguing no more housing and more density. Even if there were no transplants or new immigrants coming to LA, the kids of locals would still need housing for them in the future. So if there are 10million LA County residents and each year 20,000 graduate highschool/college and get a job and move out, thats about 20,000 new housing units that need building each year for them. 20,000 every year. Thats just a guess. I dont know the exact numbers. My neighborhood of 30,000 people would need to build a 200 unit apartment building every year just for the people who graduate school. (yeah they can live at home, but I think some would love to move out). Yet the more I think about it, maybe only 50 units get built a year in my area. So where are the other 150 going to live?
There will always be an endless need for more housing in cities that dont lose population or see an increase of population.
I think it is still the case, that government dont really build public housing like it did many decades ago. Now it is just section 8 vouchers. LA just gives incentives that would allow more units in a complex than allowed if those were allocated as affordable housing (im not sure of the details), Thats why whenever you see a new apartment complex, there is this mention that like 10 percent of them are going to be affordable while the 90 percent is market rate. (or luxury as many say). This is the only way to get affordable housing for new construction. Some developers are given city/county land at low prices to build affordable housing. But it is hard to find a non-profit developer with the kind of cash to build affordable housing units. Even the public housing areas of Jordan Downs, and the one in Boyle Heights want to rebuild the entire area but only keep the same number or slightly more units as affordable while triple of the other new housing are market rate.
Not sure if there is a great solution. Though I did see this article of a modular 110 unit apartment building in Leimert Park. 8 months construction, no parking, and targeted towards lower middle income with some units for very affordable. https://urbanize.la/post/modular-apa...e-leimert-park
Can you imagine if this was replicated all over LA within 5-10 minute walk of a Metro rail line? We can get thousands of units a year especially in lower income neighborhoods as affordable housing.
Downtown LA is has Citizen M hotel which is a modular hotel being built. Will increase the timeline of a finished project compared to the traditional method. This will also limited parking that I know of since there is a big parking lot behind it that can be used at near corner of 4th/Spring St. https://urbanize.la/post/11-story-ci...wn-los-angeles
I think these modular units are amazing. Maybe using shipping containers and stack them up could be a great thing. They can be build in other areas where housing is cheap so the workers, then just truck them in put it together on site.
If people were more willing to say move to Santa Ana, Watts, Compton, East LA, Cudahy, Huntington Park, would there still be a housing crisis?
Its like what I am saying in the NYC forum. If the hipsters/yuppies be willing to live in Yonkers, Union City, Elizabeth, Bed Stuy, Crown Heights, Gun Hill, there really be not that big of an issue.
If people were more willing to say move to Santa Ana, Watts, Compton, East LA, Cudahy, Huntington Park, would there still be a housing crisis?
Its like what I am saying in the NYC forum. If the hipsters/yuppies be willing to live in Yonkers, Union City, Elizabeth, Bed Stuy, Crown Heights, Gun Hill, there really be not that big of an issue.
Yes there would still be crisis as demand goes up, supply drop rent will go up. If you want cheap rent then you need to move to Clovis, Victorville, Fresno, Palm Springs etc
Yes there would still be crisis as demand goes up, supply drop rent will go up. If you want cheap rent then you need to move to Clovis, Victorville, Fresno, Palm Springs etc
If people were more willing to say move to Santa Ana, Watts, Compton, East LA, Cudahy, Huntington Park, would there still be a housing crisis?
Its like what I am saying in the NYC forum. If the hipsters/yuppies be willing to live in Yonkers, Union City, Elizabeth, Bed Stuy, Crown Heights, Gun Hill, there really be not that big of an issue.
Yes there would still be a housing crisis. People priced out of desirable areas are moving to the next level down displacing people there. It trickles down as the ones who got displaced try to find a cheaper area and displacing people there. The people at the lowest levels have no where to go.
The cycle continues.
I live in a gentrifying area. The first wave of newcomers came rented about 20-40% more than locals about 10 years ago. Then the second wave paid 20-40%more than the first wave and nearly double the locals. But each time, the landlords would just add $100-200 more each year to the point no poorest cant afford it. So they sought the poorer areas of Boyle Heights, Westlake, South LA. But the first waves area getting displaced and moving to Boyle Heights, Westlake, South LA trying to double displace the old locals. Now my area is turning applicable apartments (non rent-controlled ones) into newly renovated ones by evicted current tenants and double rent from $1000/mo to $2000/mo. Plenty of people will rent those.
There isn't enough housing built. Many move out to another county or another state or they move in with roommate, back with parents, etc. The problem will continue because there is always a constant stream of people new immigrants, people moving from other states, locals moving out of parents home after high school and wanting to find a place locally, not move out of state.
America overall is urbanizing as rural areas are vacating towards cities and their suburbs. Growth of places like Vegas, Phoenix, DMV, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Nashville, Austin, Charlotte, where homes are much more moderate than higher priced cities like LA, NYC, SF where homes are more expensive. America is overall a much richer nation than the years before and the jobs that young people today are getting especially in science and tech fields are better than manufacturing job workers of yesteryear. So people are attracted to urban cities and get paid well for it, while those who are in the service industries and manufacturing are losing out. This will continue into the future decades as LA will continue to attract more high paying jobs, and higher educated people to work those jobs The people who are not up to par will be left behind to either move somewhere far or out of state or worker more but achieve less as a result.
LA is a different beast of a City metropolis. Think about how huge the Metropolis is of the 5 counties of about 19 million people. Everyone can think of very good areas, good areas, ok areas, bad areas and really bad areas. Because of the cost of living, poorer people are forced out, richer moving in and people in the middle are in constant flux on where to live. They are moving to poorer/less desirable areas and turning (gentrify) them into ok and good areas. You see this with Hollywood, Echo Park, Venice, Palms, Koreatown, Highland Park, West Adams, Baldwin Hills, North Hollywood, Inglewood, Downtown Long Beach and other areas. More money means cleaner, safer, streets, nicer schools, nicer shops/restaurants. Currently it is spreading to Historic Filipinotown, East Hollywood, Westlake as the edges of gentrifying areas are moving.
Anyway, the people who will struggle are those at the bottom levels. Is there a fix? NOPE.
Housing is a commodity. people own the rentals and people own housing. They charge a price for what they can get for it. $1000 rent, $2000 rent, etc. Or $500,000 home in Inglewood, or $800K home in Echo Park or $1M+ in Venice. There is often some government hand that can force things like rent control/or rent caps, but overall it is a free market for people to rent what they want and sell what they can get. And it is just escalating because there is more demand that supply. Simple as that. Despite building a lot over the past 5-10 years, it is not enough.
Growing up, I lived in an immigrant community of East Hollywood and NELA where apartments were packed with people. 5-6 people in a 2 bedroom unit. Common. Today, many home and apartments are occupied by 1-2 people in a similar 2 bedroom. Friends I grew up with, they left the nest of their parents and moved into their own homes while their parents still live in the same homes but with less people. Of course there are those that many people living in the same house with more people but it isn't a lot that I know of. People are socially and economically upward on the ladder. Sure their parents were poorer but the kids are able to move up and out on their own. This causes a lot of strain on the housing market. Because before, the family of 5 in a single house are now the same family of 5 in 3-4 houses. Yet there aren't a lot of houses or enough housing for them all. A lot of people dont seem to understand this concept especially those arguing no more housing and more density. Even if there were no transplants or new immigrants coming to LA, the kids of locals would still need housing for them in the future. So if there are 10million LA County residents and each year 20,000 graduate highschool/college and get a job and move out, thats about 20,000 new housing units that need building each year for them. 20,000 every year. Thats just a guess. I dont know the exact numbers. My neighborhood of 30,000 people would need to build a 200 unit apartment building every year just for the people who graduate school. (yeah they can live at home, but I think some would love to move out). Yet the more I think about it, maybe only 50 units get built a year in my area. So where are the other 150 going to live?
There will always be an endless need for more housing in cities that dont lose population or see an increase of population.
I think it is still the case, that government dont really build public housing like it did many decades ago. Now it is just section 8 vouchers. LA just gives incentives that would allow more units in a complex than allowed if those were allocated as affordable housing (im not sure of the details), Thats why whenever you see a new apartment complex, there is this mention that like 10 percent of them are going to be affordable while the 90 percent is market rate. (or luxury as many say). This is the only way to get affordable housing for new construction. Some developers are given city/county land at low prices to build affordable housing. But it is hard to find a non-profit developer with the kind of cash to build affordable housing units. Even the public housing areas of Jordan Downs, and the one in Boyle Heights want to rebuild the entire area but only keep the same number or slightly more units as affordable while triple of the other new housing are market rate.
Not sure if there is a great solution. Though I did see this article of a modular 110 unit apartment building in Leimert Park. 8 months construction, no parking, and targeted towards lower middle income with some units for very affordable. https://urbanize.la/post/modular-apa...e-leimert-park
Can you imagine if this was replicated all over LA within 5-10 minute walk of a Metro rail line? We can get thousands of units a year especially in lower income neighborhoods as affordable housing.
Downtown LA is has Citizen M hotel which is a modular hotel being built. Will increase the timeline of a finished project compared to the traditional method. This will also limited parking that I know of since there is a big parking lot behind it that can be used at near corner of 4th/Spring St. https://urbanize.la/post/11-story-ci...wn-los-angeles
I think these modular units are amazing. Maybe using shipping containers and stack them up could be a great thing. They can be build in other areas where housing is cheap so the workers, then just truck them in put it together on site.
You said a lot, banana!
I don't think the city is a lost cause but the current leadership needs to be overhauled.
Can you imagine the influx of people to the LA area if it were much, much more afforable for the masses? If we're complaining about traffic now, and the competitive market to buy already expensive homes, or to rent current market value apartments... just imagine how much stressful things would be if housing prices and rents automatically dropped by 30%.
People have a responsibility to live in an area where their quality of life allows them to maintain dignity, safety, and comfort. LA is not for everyone, as we can clearly see every day.
They are cheaper relatively speaking to other parts of the city/county. But the larger point is the housing vacancy rate for the overall city/county is quite low.
Supply and demand is what it is...sure a few hipsters could move to Watts for cheaper housing for THEM but that won't change the overall picture which is a low vacancy rate and high rents/home prices.
Las Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Miami, New York, Portland, Motown, etc. are not getting better, they are getting worse. A slide is a slide.
Imagine if you will that all the problems will just get bigger with time until one by one the cities are written off. Like Baltimore, if the governing class benefits from chaos, there will be no reason to change.
Building, building and yet more building isn't feasible when there just isn't the water for yet more people. We get a significant amount of our water from the Colorado River, and that ain't looking good right now.
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Dystopian
