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A comment on Mass Timber Is Great, but It Will Not Solve the Housing Shortage. Parent comment

Re:Mass Timber Is Great, but It Will Not Solve the Housing S... by rootusrootus on Wednesday March 13, 2024 @02:07PM (#39695097)
I'd guess that is the point of the comment. In the US we can blame zoning, NIMBYs, and car-centric society for housing problems. But what about those other countries? What's the reason there?

I suspect important drivers of home pricing are:

- Young people not getting married and starting a family right out of school, making average household size drop considerably

- Increased standards for construction and rental quality

- Everyone wants more space, houses are pushing twice the size they were 30+ years ago

I think these are more plausible than just zoning and cars. I'd guess those are only serious problems in a handful of very dense cities which are constrained geographically.

The household size issue will probably level out, you can't really go below 1. Lowering standards won't happen. But smaller homes might. Bring back starter homes.

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Re:Mass Timber Is Great, but It Will Not Solve the Housing S... by geodel on Wednesday March 13, 2024 @03:28PM (#39696231)
Agree with all of it. I will give an example of place where in practice there is no NIMBYism, one can build more or less any shape or size of building depending on lot size. Apartments are priced as much as $200-250K which adjusted to purchasing power parity would be like 2 million dollar condo/home in US. Now they are suffering huge water shortage due to over exploitation of resources.

This is leading to people running away from the city[1]

1. https://www.deccanherald.com/india/karnataka/bengaluru/techi...

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Re:Mass Timber Is Great, but It Will Not Solve the Housing S... by slothtrop on Wednesday March 13, 2024 @02:38PM (#39695556)
> What's the reason there?

The same. Canada's population grew by 3% last year but housing supply remains inelastic. Small developers have difficulty getting loans, zoning, NIMBYs sue projects, etc.

> I think these are more plausible than just zoning and cars.

It may be more complex than "just" zoning, but it's certainly more-so zoning than the conceit that people want larger houses. People want houses period.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mass Timber Is Great, but It Will Not Solve the Housing S... by sydbarrett74 on Wednesday March 13, 2024 @02:42PM (#39695620)
Another thing to add is that Boomers would rather age in place than be shipped off to a nursing home until they require extensive care hard to administer in a non-hospital setting. There's nothing wrong with that sentiment, but it does somewhat restrict the housing inventory that otherwise would be freed when they downsize or move into a facility.
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