Re:Mass Timber Is Great, but It Will Not Solve the Housing S...
by lolinder on Wednesday March 13, 2024 @05:18PM
(#39697660)
> Affordable isn’t only about price, but price relative to income.
> Not everyone can have a location independent job. Many places that seem “affordable” lack decent paying jobs.
We don't have to hand wave about areas that "seem 'affordable'": we actually have the data for both income and home prices. The math isn't complicated: housing is affordable to the average person in much of the US [0].
The conflict here isn't driven by people who couldn't afford to move elsewhere, the conflict is driven by the sheer number of people who choose to live on the west coast. One group of those people already owns homes along the west coast and wants their neighborhood to stay the same. Another group would really like for there to be affordable housing along the west coast.
But at the end of the day, there isn't anything stopping either group of people from getting a job in one of the green or yellow areas in the map below and living there with a very decent ratio of income to expenses.
> Not everyone can have a location independent job. Many places that seem “affordable” lack decent paying jobs.
We don't have to hand wave about areas that "seem 'affordable'": we actually have the data for both income and home prices. The math isn't complicated: housing is affordable to the average person in much of the US [0].
The conflict here isn't driven by people who couldn't afford to move elsewhere, the conflict is driven by the sheer number of people who choose to live on the west coast. One group of those people already owns homes along the west coast and wants their neighborhood to stay the same. Another group would really like for there to be affordable housing along the west coast.
But at the end of the day, there isn't anything stopping either group of people from getting a job in one of the green or yellow areas in the map below and living there with a very decent ratio of income to expenses.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fg...