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A comment on Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes. Parent comment

Re:Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell develope... by rayiner on Monday December 02, 2019 @07:09PM (#21688539)
> How do you avoid a race to the bottom in terms of housing quality when you allow said micro-apartments? Do we want a culture where the poor are living in barely livable wage slave pods while the rich are living in abundant villas

The “race to the bottom” is called the market price and quality. One of the big progressive mistakes was instituting all sorts of bans on cheap, low quality housing. Bans on week-by-week rentals, etc., made it hard for poor people to live near where jobs are. The alternative has become fighting for a tiny supply of subsidized housing, or going to locations where there are few jobs.

The problem with government subsidized housing is: where will you build it? At least the market creates an incentive to put the housing near where the jobs are. Political control of where housing gets built and how much results in poor people being segregated away from jobs, opportunity, etc.

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Re:Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell develope... by pcwalton on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @02:09PM (#21695508)
This wasn't a progressive mistake. In California it's been consistently shown in opinion polls that Republicans (wealthy suburban Republican homeowners) are more strongly in favor of exclusionary zoning than Democrats are. It's just that the problem is most acute in big cities, which trend Democratic.
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Re:Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell develope... by xyzzyz on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @02:16PM (#21695587)
Right. The Republicans, who are in control of both California's state legislature and city governments, are blocking Democrats from passing any policies. The Democrats push hard to pass laws for more inclusive zoning, but since California is such a red stronghold, there's absolutely nothing they can do.
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Re:Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell develope... by rayiner on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @05:33PM (#21697566)
I’m not talking about zoning. I’m talking about regulations on housing quality. Tenement style housing wasn’t pleasant, but it was better than having no housing or only having housing far away from jobs.
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