We should have housing policies like Tokyo

Great Debates
121

I have covered this in previous posts. Please check them out, and if you want to debate it, quote the parts I’ve argued that I disagree with - but I’m not just going to repeat myself.

But when Nobel Prize winning economists like Krugman and the architect of the Swedish welfare system, Gunnar Myrdal, tell people it is foolish to think that rent control is good economic policy, people should listen.

I do not. When speaking of the mayor saying that he’s aware of construction projects being delayed or cancelled, I linked to the article that reported the mayor saying that thing. I did not read a HUD webpage and fictionalize the views of the San Jose mayor.

What sense does that possibly make? If rent control helps people, why should it apply only to old housing?

My theory is that as locales realized that rent control is a failed policy, they relaxed those rules to encourage investors to build units that they would not have. This theory seems to be common sense, and fully supports the consensus of economists. Plus, I can’t think of any other rational explanation for old vs. new policy.

122

Dunno about the situation in San Jose, but here in Paris rent control overwhelmingly applies (or rather, city halls *tries *to make it apply ; and the landlord unions dogs them at every turn) to buildings that fall under monuments historiques, i.e. housing old and pretty enough that they’ve become living museums that simply can’t be torn down or even remodelled ; as well as other housing which can’t be demolished or built higher for other reasons. The most common of which being that, Paris being built over a rabbit-hole mess of older Paris and subway lines and catacombs and disused mushroom-growing tunnels or limestone quarries like many old European towns, if you start messing around in there with heavy machinery or try to dig foundations deep enough for a big-ass tower, half the neighbourhood risks becoming one big cave-in.

123

This is a different thread. “My post (from years ago) is my cite” doesnt work.

Appeal to authority fallacy.
In what post did you make that cite about the mayor of SJ? “Fictionalize”?

Your theory is totally incorrect. The law is the same, more or less, since put on the books.

124

All you have to do is look on the last two pages of this thread for my posts.

Are you seriously saying that it is a fallacy to refer to the conclusions of award-winning experts in their field, on a matter that is precisely within their field of expertise?

Click back one page and look at my post where I mention the mayor.

You aren’t defending why it make sense only to have tenants in old buildings covered by rent control. Answer the question.

125

Like increasing accessibility to affordable housing.

126

You cant provide a link?

You cant provide a post #?

answer mine first.

127

Go to page two. Hit control F, search for mayor. Click that link in my post.

If you don’t read what I have written in the last 24 hours, I’m not going to do the work to repost what I’ve already provided, make a link to what you’ve ignored, or physically move your eyeballs for you.

128

Going back to the beginning, direct comparisons of Japan to Western developed countries tend to be suspect.

I agree with the broad consensus of economists, nearly universal, that rent controls don’t work. If they are very ‘mild’ and/or lots of go arounds, then they don’t really do what their proponents want them to. A supposed finding that NY rent controls* didn’t prevent a lot of building has to be compared to the fact that it hasn’t been perceived to control rents all that much overall either. What most real systems of rent control do is bifurcate the market into a higher priced ‘free market’ segment and a lower priced controlled segment. Absolutely comprehensive control doesn’t exist in the US. Nor of course is any form of control common in the US. It’s mainly in a couple of the very most expensive places (NY and SF areas), yet strangely does not make them not be expensive. :slight_smile:

I think actually it’s pretty obvious to common sense that rent controls can’t accomplish a lot. Which isn’t to say they can’t accomplish anything for anybody ever. There are few even obviously bad policies, overall, which can’t get over that hurdle.

As to landlords supporting rent controls that’s virtually never really true, but not really relevant. In general as has been stated, landlords would prefer to charge infinite rent, tenants would prefer to pay nothing. So obviously LL’s don’t like controls at less than infinite, just like they don’t like the fact that rents are far below infinite in the 90 whatever % of US rentals with no rent control. But rent control is a visible policy that could be changed. Anyway finding some odd landlord who likes rent controls doesn’t show that it’s a good policy, which it’s pretty obviously not. Or at best a policy with very limited benefit.

*which includes the older system ‘Rent Control’, and the newer one ‘Rent Stabilization’. At this point Rent Control is practically irrelevant but Rent Stabilized units number over 1 million, and that system was just pretty drastically tightened, in terms of go arounds, earlier this year. Though there will still be a large non-controlled segment, where rents will go because the supply via RS units being decontrolled will decrease, and nothing in the law changed to encourage construction of market units. In fact the narrow defeat of a provision what would have made rent increases more than 1.5 the inflation rate illegal anywhere in the City will probably have a significant chilling effect on all construction.

129

This just illustrates your anti-Mac bias. It’s like, command + F there :). Because I’m helpful, here is a link.

130

I view all keys as equals, no better and no worse than others. Whether command or control, let us all rejoice in the multi key nation that has given us so much.

Except PrntScn. Fuck that key.

131

It seems a better compromise on rent control would be limited term rent control.

Make it for 5 years or so, rent can only be raised by 5% (or so) a year, and at the beginning of the fourth year, the tenant is given the terms for the next period, and has a year to decide if they want to pay the increase or move.

That gives some stability to the renter, but also prevents people from staying forever in a place at a fraction of market value.

Also, micro-housing should be approved and encouraged, especially in and around high job areas. If you live less than a block from where you work, and can get all the amenities you need within a short distance, some may not mind having little more than a bed and a bathroom.

132

Man, tying a number must be HARD. Psst the answer is 100.

*Mayor Sam Liccardo, who led the push to study the policy, said the restriction may possibly be hurting housing production in San Jose. The mayor said he’s heard of developers not moving forward with housing projects potentially because of the Ellis Act ordinance…Liccardo said he knew of at least three housing projects negatively impacted by the law. But the city’s housing director Jacky Morales-Ferrand said that the department can’t say whether the projects Liccardo referred to didn’t move forward because of the Ellis Act ordinance.

“Ellis is designed to make developers pay,” she said. “But is this Ellis ordinance designed so it’s acting as a barrier? Is it the fundamental reason that development is not going forward is the question.”*

Note the following words “may” “possibly” “heard of” . Liccardo is a known tool of the developers. Note that the experts disagreed with him.

The Ellis Act Ordinance only applies when a developer plans to demolish rent-controled apartments from the rental market. This ordinance requires 50% of new apartments built on the site of previously rent-controled apartments be subject to the Apartment Rent Ordinance.

Later in that same link *"Thousands of new affordable units

On Monday, San Jose’s Housing Department announced that it had dedicated $100 million to build 1,144 affordable units. Just a day later at the Feb. 5 City Council meeting, the council made a commitment for additional funding for 249 of those units.

The three developments, located on Page, North 21st and Balbach streets, are the first wave of 11 new affordable housing projects. If all 11 move forward, it will push the city over 20 percent of the way to meeting its goal of building 10,000 new affordable units by 2022. S*

133

Meh. You know, not everyone who wants to live in an urban area near their office is a childless singleton, content to cram themselves into something resembling their college dorm room. I’d like to see more 3+ bedroom homes for people like with kids who actually like city living.

And when those “evil greedy people” can’t make a quick cheap buck, they don’t invest in new developments that would increase the number of units available.

Depends what you mean by “suburb”. I was reading an article awhile back about a growing trend of development in suburban “satellite cities” around major metropolitan areas. For New York City, that would include smaller cities like Jersey City, Hoboken, Fort Lee, Weehawken, Secaucus and Newark in New Jersey; White Plains, NY; Stamford and Norwalk in Connecticut. Probably a number of others I can’t think of off the top of my head. The characteristics of these smaller cities include the following:

  • Home to large corporate offices
  • Development of “downtown” areas with their own restaurants, bars, shopping, and other amenities
  • Rail and other public transportation links to New York City. Many of these cities have their own major transportation hubs.
  • Massive influx of multi-family condos and even luxury high rise buildings.

To your point, what I see when I drive around the tri-state area are a fair number of 20+ story condo towers plopped in what appears to be the middle of nowhere.

134

I have nothing against residential suburbia! I grew up in residential suburbia, and I’ve lived in residential suburbia for most of my adult life, including right now.

But it’s a tremendous waste of scarce infrastructure to surround a subway stop with single-family tract housing. The best way to fully utilize it is to enable as many people to live or work within walking distance of that stop as want to live or work there. You want several thousand, not several dozen, people walking to that station every day.

And since I said “within a quarter-mile” that’s not exactly going to create Mumbai. Well, maybe a number of very, very small Mumbais.

Though again, if I were the housing god, I’d have some rule for extending the radius once the quarter-mile was built to sufficient density that there were no longer any obvious tear-down-and-build-higher candidates within the circle.

135

Its harder than you reading the thread, I guess.

Now that I answered your question - before you asked it by the way - will you respond to my question - do you actually believe it is a fallacy to cite award winning economists on matters within their expertise?

Ad hominem, and then pending your answer to the previous question, it may qualify as your version of an “appeal to authority.”

When markets work, the government doesn’t have to subsidize real estate developers. You ought to be outraged that your tax dollars are going into landlords’ pockets in this way.

136

Indeed, going back and scanning every one of 134 posts is hard than you typing in “100”.

No, you *didn’t *answer my question. You were being deliberately evasive that appeared to me, just to be annoying.

“When markets work…”, this is a economic fallacy.

Since the inception of classical economics over 200 years ago, one of the
most sacred assumptions has been the hypothesis that an invisible hand
determines market prices and that market prices follow a random walk.
Today, there exists significant statistical evidence that this is not the case and
we need to acknowledge that financial markets are, indeed, predictable. How
is this possible?
…
For Adam Smith and his followers, it was clear that division of labour would
only develop within the context of a free market economy with competitive
prices. At the time, governments had firm control of market pricing. Smith
believed that to unleash the forces of the market and foster competition, it
would be necessary to free markets from this control.
The ‘invisible hand’
Early economists used their theories to argue their policy recommendations,
which in turn influenced the very way their theories developed. Under no
circumstances did they want to develop a theory of the advantages of the
market economy that could be attacked as being unfair, i.e. inequitable to
society. Thus was born the concept of the ‘invisible hand’.
They argued that an efficient market has such a large volume that any one
participant has a negligible impact on the market as a whole. Because any
one participant is so small (relatively speaking) and insignificant, it was concluded that everyone behaves in the same way. Economists thus postulated that man behaves like a ‘homo oeconomicus’ who is rational and
maximises his utility. From this they inferred that everyone reacts in the
same way to market events and that market reactions to outside events are
thus homogeneous, with no secondary reactions. ,"

Your Adam Smith Invisible hand is a outdated concept from 1776, proven wrong by many economists since then.

137

You asked about the link for the mayor quote. I told you I already posted it, and you refused to look.

You asked why rent control doesn’t work. I’m referring you to my other posts in this thread, because I’m not going to lift a finger to retype a single word I’ve posted, nor re-read my own posts that you can’t spend 30 seconds looking for.

Meanwhile, I know for a fact that you haven’t posted anything to substantiate your assertion that it’s a fallacy to quote economists talking about economics.

ETA: what is with the thing where you can go look up and post extended quotes about Adam Smith, but you can’t read my dozen or so posts that answer this question that you find so very important that you are compelled to ask me about every few hours?

138

Yet you yourself referenced the market when discussing why my never rent controlled apartments didn’t have infinite rent. Housing markets work in this country when we allow them to. They work by incentivizing investment in housing when demand goes up.

139

I’m a little confused about Kobal2’s criticisms. Are you attacking free-markets or America? Because, as a student of economics and (not by choice) American, they are not at all the same thing.

I am a free-market apologist, because I believe competition, innovation, and consumer choice yield the greatest good for the greatest number the greatest proportion of the time. The invisible hand of the market does work, in that respect.

However, I am an apologist for the free-market, not an extremist. I think that most of the time, if a person can’t afford something, they should go without it. However, to allow people to starve, die of treatable illnesses, etc. because they are poor is atrocious.

To paraphrase Smith: “We do not enjoy our beer, bread, and meat from the generosity of the brewer, baker, or butcher, but from their self interest.” However, even within the text of Wealth of Nations, he took the trouble to point out that it was not unbridled greed that made the system work, but enlightened self-interest. That first part is as important as the latter.

But, this is largely theoretical. In practice, Americans are not going to allow free-market principles to compete with the established wealthy elites any more than they allow democracy to dislodge dynastic politicos or Christ-like benevolence supplant religious favoritism.

Mentioning medical costs in the U.S. is the very worst way to attack Capitalism. While a quality medical system run or funded by the state could be argued to be better than free-market solutions, free-market medical care is not what the Americans have. Rather the physician shortage was intentionally installed by the AMA’s restrictions on the number of physicians trained, legacy admits ensured that more gifted lower-class students could not short-circuit the entry of less-qualified children of physicians (legacy admissions), and the spiraling costs of medical care were addressed by insurance (an industry that engages in price-fixing and gouging writ into law via regulation).

If you deal with a cartel, you are going to get gouged. If you need to deal with the intersection of TWO cartels . . .

I’m ethnically French as well, and I think it is long past due for the Americans to re-boot their democracy, preferably peacefully, failing that, otherwise. But, I have no faith that they will do so. Americans are too stupid. AN American can be intelligent, collectively, they have shown that there is virtually no abuse they won’t tolerate from the powerful and wealthy, because they are deluded enough to think they they will one day be at that end of the lash and malicious enough to desire it.

“The slave dreams not of freedom, but of becoming the master.”

140

Sure, but that’s different than the "invisible hand market’ where the hypothesis is that if government would just get out of the way with it’s silly regulations,:rolleyes: the magical and mythical "invisible hand market’ would just make everything peachy keen and perfect. :dubious: