I have one “weird” and “radical” proposal: public housing to rent. Not to but. At affordable price. That would lower the price of every house, flat, …
Quick reminder: The Nazi German government emptied out Eastern European towns and villages taken by the Wehrmacht during various campaigns, most notably Operation Barbarossa, for resettlement of “pure” Germans to those occupied lands (called Lebensraum)… this started almost literally once these occupied towns and villages were far enough from the front lines. Also, the whole point of the US Government’s genocidal forced march of native tribes, often referred to as the Tail of Tears, was to clear said native tribes out so the Southern aristocracy could seize the land for plantations worked by chattel slaves… whole swaths of what is today Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi were settled by whites as a result.
Many a “populist” (read: Fascist or proto-Fascist) operate their politics in this manner. Promise either cheap land (or, at the very least, housing) to the workers and others by committing what is, on it’s face, a genocide. There’s more modern examples (two in particular, going on right this minute for all the world to see), but I don’t want to get the ban-hammer so I won’t name them directly (I forgot to check the instance in which I am commenting before doing so, but not taking my chances).
Donald John Trump comes from a family of real estate speculators.
Akira Toriyama once said he based the character of Freeza on Japanese real estate speculators, who he called “the worst kind of people.” (Source)
Am I saying Trump is Freeza? No, Freeza is several orders of magnitude more competent on his worst day than Trump was when he peaked in 1951. But I think it’s important to underline, for the people in the back, what level of cartoonish evil we’re dealing with, because for some reason people will read stuff like this and it won’t sink in. Maybe DBZ will help.
I don’t know. I’m tired, y’all.
Wouldn’t you want 5 more chairs, so the parents could sit too?
If they really wanted to change regulations they’d push changing zoning regulations in cities to allow building anything other than detached single family housing. That would be totally reasonable and help alongside tax incentives. But I have a feeling that’s not what’s meant by changing regulations…
They said “making federal land available”. I take that as they want to sell off land in places like national parks to be developed.
Which, needless to say, is an awful idea.
The american dream isnt raising a family in an apartment, and a lot of people were raised on that dream.
We need to change the perception of condensed housing I think before there is support for that.
Before you can start to change public perception it needs to be legal to build densely. Parking minimums and a variety of other commercial building code regulations make this much more expensive in the US, all while the people nearby in single family homes fight any new builds due to their poor perception of condos and apartments. Just removing the stigma is only one part of the equation.
The best way to change perception of mixed use residential areas is having people live there.
The bigger issue is that these buildings don’t work by themselves. The biggest issue with suburbia is car dependency, which can only be countered by walkable cities and public transport (both of which require higher population densities)
I thinks that’s one of those state’s rights things where federal government can’t just tell a town how to zone it’s own land unless they’re taking it away from the town like for a national Park or something.
It’s actually an instance of super small government. Those regulations are dictated by city’s and counties not by states
I don’t know how it is in the USA but here in France we kinda have the following issues:
- People leave the countryside and small cities en masse
- Houses rot empty anywhere that’s more than a commute away from a big city
- There’s a huge shortage of housing in the cities
We need people coming back to the countryside and small cities but all the employment is bundled away in big cities…
I’m here in Georgia, USA. The small towns in my state, those well outside the major metro suburbs, are either emptying out OR the state is bringing in non-union factory and data center jobs to dominate the local economy with the promise of jobs and economic revitalization. These companies are given huge tax incentives to build (or relocate) and thus contribute nothing to local coffers directly (necessitating higher property and sales taxes on locals). Currently, there’s a car plant being built near where I live. The locals in the rural areas were shocked to find out after construction began that their water wells might stop working as the factory and it’s subsequent suppliers setting up in the area will be draining the county dry… the state said they could. They’re out of pocket to drill deeper wells and the state doesn’t care… at the state level, they’ve actually made it harder (legally through environmental review) for local municipalities to direct the development of water infrastructure but easier for private developers (who have fewer reviews to go through) to just build whatever water infrastructure they see fit. Meanwhile, back in town, a handful of out of state multibillion dollar corporations are buying up any and all real estate that isn’t nailed down and renting it back to us at exorbitant prices.
WFH, better communications, give benefits to anyone opening business in a small town, …
it’s sorta like that but with way more opioid deaths
edit: and instead of rotting empty, megacorporations buy the empty homes and turn them into airBnBs to keep the house prices high. maybe that happens in france too?
They ban abortion and then don’t want those babies/future adults housed. Classic.
I still can’t get over the other lack of journalistic integrity for CBS to put that up there. To concede that point. Like it’s a fact. Utter bollocks.
Post-2016 Journalistic Integrity is a cruel joke.
With some few, rare, exceptions.
I feel like at the point you phrase what you’re going to do as “mass” anything you’re doing something wrong.
Can’t think of a single sentence that starts with mass that ends well
Mass spectrometry is an analytical tool useful for measuring the mass-to-charge ratio of one or more molecules present in a sample.
Different definition of mass though.
Down payment assistance is just going to drive prices up.
Yep, the big fix is to tax the hell out of single family housing owned by corporations. But no politician would dare run on that platform.
I’d settle for breaking apart the housing cartel personally. Its already illegal.
But both parties are the same? Right? RIGHT?!
The only thing proposed that’s reasonable is “changing regulation.” It’s too easy to block new housing, and often times it’s just flat out illegal to increase density or build mixed use.
It depends on which regulations. The second part of that “making federal land available” makes me think they want to develop national parks.
But those regulations are largely controlled by local governments, not the federal government. Federal regulations can prevent building new housing in certain areas and conditions (like destroying habitat of an endangered species), but that is much rarer than a city council not approving projects or zoning changes because they want to keep property values high.
And that needs to change. Local communities are harming the nation with their NIMBY shit. Feds should step in.
I mean they kinda are, but those areas just miss out on tax dollars of larger scale developments. I’d rather see more support and for lower cost housing that doesn’t get flipped immediately into airbnbs. Stronger regulations that temper this current market of turning housing into a commodity where speculative reality businesses are out bidding home owners. That goes for single family and multifamily. U can build a huge priced right housing development but if all the units just turn into air bnb or rented out by shitty land lords, then we have solved nothing
In the macro picture, more supply always helps. Flood the market with airbnbs and airbnb owners can’t charge as much so they’ll stop buying so many. More rentals lowers prices so you don’t have to rent from a slumlord.
But I agree, direct legislation is more immediate and effective.
$25k down payment assistance where one bed one bath houses are routinely nearly half a million is a joke tbh.
That’s not everywhere in America. That’s not even most of America.
And while it’s an interesting discussion, it’s not the point of the post.
Honestly I really don’t think that’s effective either. Giving people more money to buy something generally just means the market will respond by charging more money for that thing. The assistance will effectively get “priced in” given time.
It’s honestly the weakest part of the Harris/Walz platform for me. Trump plan is utterly insane top-to-bottom though, and they’re just using immigration as a scapegoat here, which is… something.
Makes sense to me. 25k is an incentive to buy a home, not an incentive to build one or sell one.
Make owning multiple homes more expensive. Fine landlords for unfilled housing, and make the fine is proportional to maximum advertised rate for the unit. Now they have an incentive to keep their units filled, and keep from jacking up rent.
I do think it can help those that are prepared and on the border of approval. But those that aren’t it ain’t gonna do shit.
Yeah, I don’t think the idea is a total non-starter, but I’d definitely like some details. How will this be limited to ensure it’s not being used by investors and house flippers? How will this be ramped down once the housing market settles to avoid it being permanently “priced in”? How will this be paid for and how much will it cost?
Unfortunately American political debates right now are more of a pissing contest about rally turnout than they are about actual policy details, because that’s what sways the voters on the fence for some reason.
I started getting tons of calls because I was approved last year when she announced this. So if it can get me into something I want to know. But it just might be bullshit.
I hate any financial assistance that doesn’t address the root cause, because all it is at that point is more tax and wealth transfer to the rich.
Aaaaaand I know everyone hates when someone points out their hypocrisy so I’m sure I’ll get crucified for this…
This applies to student loan forgiveness too.
Absolutely. I’m for student loan forgiveness, but right now it’s just giving money to banks and then burdening the next generation with the cost.
That’s the feature of these issues, there is no incentive for people “fixing” them to end the grift.
Public Housing broski. Take a look at Vienna for example.
We have that. It’s a little complicated in ways that Vienna probably doesn’t have.
Yes but the real difference is the scale. Approx half of housing in Vienna is publicy owned. This means rent becomes affordable for most as prices depreciate. And it costs the government suprisingly little, saving a lot on crime, homelessness etc etc. Another big part of the market is tightly rent controlled. So you only have maybe 20% of housing that is in similar market conditions to 97% of US housing.
