Being able to live in your dream home in your dream neighborhood is something people work their entire lives to achieve -- regardless of whether they dream of living in the city or the suburbs. Governments, by contrast, dream of balanced statistical reports. Developers dream of balance sheets. It's not just the economic investment that homeowners are protecting, it's often also the sum of their life's work.
153
I started out in very substandard apartments at age 21 and then moved to better and and better neighborhoods as my income improved over the years. I'm not interested in any scheme that would make my current neighborhood more like my earlier neighborhoods. I worked my way out of those for a reason.
85
@M. Casey, you certainly have tidy stereotypes. Current homeowners are "protecting ... the sum of their life's work." Evil governments just "dream of balanced statistical reports". Do you mean the statistics about people who were raised in the Bay Area but will never be able to afford their own home? Or people who wish they could afford to move here and work in our thriving job market? These are actual people, in case you didn't know. Not just statistics.
17
@M. Casey
The greatest harm to the economic security of home ownership in the post-war era was the 2008 financial crisis. That economic disaster was the result of excess capital and corporate greed, not overproduction of housing supply.
5
The problem can only be addressed at the local level if at all. Here in Columbus, the population is growing 15,000 or more per year, but there is no real plan where all these people will live and the need for affordable housing is recognized by many as a growing problem, but solutions are expensive and politically difficult. We have no problem creating new housing for young professionals and the upper middle class--let's face it, opposition is modest to high end housing except as it might be displacing poor folk. Communities have to organize around this issue if any progress is to be made for everyone else's housing needs. The politicians are not likely to lead until there is a tidal wave.
15
"Rent control is a stupid idea ..."
Rent control laws are in effect in many US cities, but they vary quite a bit. In SF, for example, rent control doesn't apply to any building built after a specified date (I don't recall the date, but it's several decades back), which means fewer and fewer residential buildings are subject to rent control as time passes. Often there are proposals to apply rent control to newer buildings as well but, so far, landlords have successfully blocked those efforts.
I don't believe rent control is the answer, but I will note that rents are extremely high in this town. When I moved here several decades ago, sale prices were high (by the standards of those days, at least) but rents were fairly low. I still remember a cartoon posted in a local restaurant: a young couple was sitting at the dinner table and the husband said: "I guess we're going to have to keep living in Pacific Heights until we can afford to live in Pacific Heights."
That may seem nonsensical, but I knew what he meant: "We're going to have to keep renting in Pacific Heights until we can afford to buy in Pacific Heights."
Rents have "caught up" here. I won't bore you with horror stories, except to say there are plenty of them. If I were just starting out, I'd either move in with my parents or look for a place outside of the city.
3
"People just want the litter, the dog poop, the parking seekers, the kids and the concrete to go elsewhere."
Bob Robert seems to have appointed himself as the official "NIMBYist" spotter here.
I think most NIMBYists (myself included) would admit to being a NIMBYist. Our point is NOT that we're NOT NIMBYists. Our point is that there are good reasons to be a NIMBYist that don't have anything to do with racism or any of the other usual qualities that are too-often assigned to NIMBYists.
People who worked hard to buy a home in a neighborhood they like want the neighborhood to stay nice. Plenty of low-income residents could move in and still keep the neighborhood nice and, conversely, plenty of upper-income residents could move in and trash the neighborhood. One never knows. Nevertheless, since we almost never learn anything about prospective neighbors, we tend to pre-judge those prospective neighbors based on categories -- such as this one: a large proportion of poor people living in one's neighborhood is likely to result in more crime and more litter.
This doesn't mean all poor people are criminals, or that they litter more than rich people do, but crime and litter are more likely in poor neighborhoods than in non-poor neighborhoods. That's been proven in many studies, and few of us need studies to expect that. No question that we keep out many good people, and we know that in advance, but we have no choice but to "categorize" prospective neighbors.
14
This reminds me:
"You can talk about diversity all you want, but when ... when a new neighbor moves in and paints his house Pepto-Bismol pink with lime green shutters and an orange front door - the yearning for more diversity ends."
Many years back, my wife and I had dinner at the house of friends who lived in a large house in Haight-Ashbury. They told us that a much-earlier owner had decided one Saturday night that he and several friends would, that very night, paint the entire house a flat black -- inside and out, windows included. (Apparently he'd got a good deal on a large quantity of flat black paint, and the paint store had thrown in numerous brushes and rollers.)
Not exactly "Pepto-Bismol pink with lime green shutters and an orange front door," but I'll wager that the neighbors were quite alarmed when they woke up Sunday morning and looked out the window.
5
"In the Bay Area, NIMBYism is strong in leftish San Francisco. And it's also strong in affluent suburban rightish Danville..."
I can only opine on SF (where I've lived and worked for several decades), but it doesn't surprise me to read that about Danville. NIMBYism is strong pretty much everywhere, and among all ideological groups -- and I have no complaint about that.
As one commenter noted, development may yield benefits for people who move in, but not for the people who already live there. Those who don't live here appear to believe those of us already here should do whatever we can to facilitate their arrival here. To that, I ask: "Why would we do that?"
If it's any consolation, certain areas of SF get almost no opposition to growth plans. The recently completed Sales Force tower in SF has received a great deal of criticism recently, but it sailed through the project-approval process with very little opposition because it's located in an area that long ago was earmarked for high rises. The same can be said (thankfully, on a somewhat smaller scale) about the "corridor" that includes Van Ness Avenue and one block to each of the east and west. A very large amount of building is occurring in that "corridor," again with little opposition. The anti-development types (I'm one) assume that our odds of blocking other projects will be higher if we pick our battles carefully.
8
Sometimes NIMBYists get broad support from non-NIMBYists.
A good example of that happened about 2 years ago in SF. The developers of a high-end residential project called "8 Washington" proposed to block the view of an existing SF resident, who didn't like that one bit and had gobs of money to spend on advertisements and other forms of opposition. Somehow the 8 Washington project ended up on the ballot, and SF voters rejected it handily (I was one of those voters).
The developer complained loudly, as you might imagine, but real estate developers don't elicit much sympathy in this town (or anywhere else, I'll guess).
The point here is that those of us who generally oppose development in SF don't oppose only low-income projects. We oppose high-end projects too. I couldn't care less whether the wealthy SF resident who financed the opposition to 8 Washington has a good view or not, but I do care whether some developer blocks views. I care about those views for anyone who might enjoy them -- rich, poor, or in between.
12
Correct:
"We want poor people to have affordable housing, just not in our neighborhoods. They can live on the other side of town. NIMBY"
In SF, it turns out that voter approval is required to develop land owned by the Port Commission. As you might expect, land owned by the Port Commission tends to be on the water. As it happens, that land is mostly along the south side of the Bay -- not the side where the well-to-do residents of SF live.
As a result, whenever a proposition is on the ballot to develop some Port-Commission parcel, SF voters practically trip over themselves to approve it. Most such projects (all, to date) have included large numbers of low-income housing units.
Why are these projects so quickly and overwhelmingly approved? Because voters want there to be low-income housing in SF, and they're relieved to learn that it's going to be somewhere else, far away from where they live.
Frankly, I'll admit that that's why I've always voted "Yes" on these Port-Commission projects. I suspect that's why most SF voters vote "Yes."
4
All of this goes back to the fact that America spent decades subsidizing suburban-style development at the expense of building world class cities. Seattle is a shining example of a city trying to find a middle ground (unsuccessfully IMHO) between restrictive and unrestrictive zoning that's left some neighborhoods looking like Manhattan and others less than a mile away looking like Suburbia. We need less restrictive zoning that encourages mid-rise density, instead of only skyscrapers, like they have in just about every world class European city. I'd trade in my single family home in the middle of Seattle to live in a more diverse, culturally rich and walkable neighborhood in a heart beat.
12
Neither liberals nor conservatives should try to use the housing construction issue to score points for their team. In the Bay Area, NIMBYism is strong in leftish San Francisco. And it's also strong in affluent suburban rightish Danville, where most developers wouldn't even try to build an apartment building of any significant scale. And of course no one will own up to being a NIMBY, they just happen to oppose every proposed housing development, whether they do so in the name of the Sierra Club or of the Homeowners' Association.
Part of the problem is that homeownership is a key part of many Americans' retirement plan (myself included). If we knew that we would have adequate income and health care, there wouldn't be so much hysteria about "protecting" property values.
Whether a neighborhood is pleasant and safe is not based on whether it is single family or multi-family dominated. Some single family neighborhoods are nice, some aren't, some apartment neighborhoods are nice, some aren't.
The idea of a suburb is getting increasingly murky. People say "We're a suburb, you shouldn't build an apartment building." People say that, in, among other places, Palo Alto, which has 2.5 jobs for every employed resident, and a massive daily in-commute. There have been large numbers of apartment buildings in Bay Area suburbs for 60 years (and a few before that).
6
Mixed zoning also helps the community support itself through property taxes and supports cultural diversity. It's worked out well in Long Beach and at Hunter's Point in San Francisco. Of course, developers get guaranteed HUD loans and make big bucks off it, but that was not the intention of the policy back in the 80's when it came into being. Remember the scene in 'The Wire' wear they blow up the Towers? 'There goes the neighborhood'. I'd prefer the existing mixed zoning over the proposed dedicated affordable rental housing near our place in the California Bay Area, but the issue for the local homeowners is kind of clouded by the hunger in the county government for more affordable housing. In fact, there's tons of people living in their cars and campers along the road off the highway. Those folks need affordable rental units, but I wish it could be dispersed more appropriately, with more urban neighborhoods absorbing their share. I worked for the military for a long time and I'd really welcome more diversity to this mostly old white semi-rural community, but not in concentrated chunks of people in precarious circumstance. This is a temporary thing, sooner or later there will be a bust, or at least more companies will off-shore their operations to Reno, like the Back to Bangalore exit from San Jose in 2000. BA was like a ghost town -- libraries closed, schools cut music programs, etc. That's when blight sets in, and recovery ain't easy.
2
If most people answered honestly they would say that they would like to live in a gated community (for the suburban types) or a high end apartment with private parking and a doorman (for the city loving types). Very few people actually want to live in mixed communities with rich and poor together. This all comes down to selfishness. We want poor people to have affordable housing, just not in our neighborhoods. They can live on the other side of town. NIMBY
5
Isn’t this article missing something very big? People buy homes when they are ready to start a family, and your home’s school zone has everything to do with the education your children will receive and their chances in life. Parenthood and school zoning are huge variables that correlate with home ownership and deserve to be explored.
12
The central problem is determining the limits of a local community's right to discriminate. In some cases, such as racial discrimination, the answer is clear cut. If an HOA agreed to ban non-whites from their community, they'd be taken to court and forced to revise their stance and face serious consequences. Other discriminatory measures are less clear. Can a wealthy community discriminate against poorer people and make it extra hard for them to enter their neighborhood? What if a community decides what an 'ideal' resident is and discriminates against potential residents who don't line up with their vision? (This happens a lot actually). How about a community that bans renting/leasing?
These are the kinds of questions that have to be answered at the federal level to combat nimbyism. At the end of the day, imo, it comes down to people wanting to control things outside of their direct ownership, which is wrong. Get over it folks, you only own your condo/home/yard, NOT the whole neighborhood. Improve the community by taking part in the community, not by trying to keep other people out of the community.
5
Four years ago I became a first-time homeowner. I live in one of the most diverse neighborhoods I've ever seen, in the Bronx, so if I harbored any racist tendencies, the joke would really be on me.
In any case, I don't. Nor do I dislike multifamily housing--I live in an apartment in a six-story building, surrounded by others like it. But when I purchased my apartment, I considered very carefully the potential for the area to change.
Homeownership is a long game. When we sign on the line for a 30-yr. mortgage, many of us would like to know what we're signing up for. If we buy a single-family home in an area of quiet, leafy, single-family homes, we probably don't want to wake up one day (still paying for our single-family home) in a forest of high-rise towers. If I buy an apartment with a park across the street, I would prefer for it not to be a shopping mall one day.
The factors by which individuals and families choose to invest in communities need to be considered. It's not always a matter of prejudice.
30
@Amv That is what the article is saying: you might have a lot of reasons to not want your neighborhood to change: whether because you want the value of your property to go up, because you don’t want tall buildings around you, or because you don’t want poor people in your community. These changes might go against your personal interest, but that doesn’t mean as a society we should not allow these changes.
You are buying a house, you get a house. That does not mean you should be able to control your whole neighborhood and who lives in it.
11
The type of housing most affordable is rental housing. However developers will not build affordable housing in cities like New York and San Francisco because of rent control. No prudent developer would risk there own capital when a local government can effectively devalue the investment by forcing price controls on rents that can be charged. Even if new new construction is exempt from rent control at first what is to prevent future rent control from being forced upon housing owners at a later date? This forces the development of more expensive housing only for people who can afford to purchase their housing. It is ironic that liberals who favor rent control only help people who already live in their locality at the expense of those who do not live there. For people who do not have rent controlled apartments the elimination of rent control would greatly help their ability to find affordable housing by giving developers an incentive to build more rental units, but it comes at the expense of VOTERS would already are benefiting from their rent controlled units. Rent control is effectively another regulation to limit growth of the housing stock.
7
@j. harris Rent control is a stupid idea that does not solve the problem of housing, it only helps a certain number of people (locals) at the expense of others. We agree about that.
However saying that developers would not build rental properties in New York because it is not profitable, that is obviously false…
The benefits of affordable housing for low and middle income families may be clear, but in order for things to change, what needs to be addressed is the cost - perceived or actual to existing homeowners. Does anyone believe that concerns about home value or quality of life - whether it's loss of green space, more traffic, or buildings that look out of proportion to the neighborhood are all about racism?
I know in my town, affordable housing is made affordable by allowing developers to bypass zoning laws so they can build many more non-affordabe units, in addition to the "affordable" ones. They then get to make a lot of money, while the town then needs to find ways to accomadate the increased demand for classrooms - which costs the town money.
Let's admit that local funding of schools via property taxes means that there is a heavy reliance on "unaffordable" homes to fund the schools and services that make a neighborhood attractive. Having good schools with lots of affordable housing can get expensive, especially if property taxes are high, and people move out of the neighborhood once their children are no longer of school age. Investing in children's education, while good for the country, is funded by individual towns, who don't typically reap the dividends.
Perhaps if not only real estate developers profited - maybe if there was a new park, better public transit, new school etc. neighbors would be more amenable.
12
@DebbieR That is a very good comment, that shows that our fiscal system creates an incentive for people to create rich ghettos.
Anything that is funded through local taxes creates an incentive for people to fight anything that would let poor people in, because poor people will get the same service by paying less; mathematically richer people end up paying more, or getting poorer service. In that situation, high housing prices is a win-win: higher property value for the homeowners, and better public services. Conversely if we had a system where funds where pooled at a higher level (the whole city, the conurbation or even the state) depending on the population, then more people means more money. People will still want rich kids in their schools, but at least the poor don’t slash their budget anymore.
It also means that when there is a new development, people have an incentive to push for more offices and retail space (that bring tax money without using much) and less housing. Which you can see happen in Palo Alto for example.
5
The hodgepodge of building codes, zoning restrictions and such makes most actions that could make high quality housing more affordable almost impossible.
Prefabricated housing- not HUD code trailers- sited on permanent foundations can deliver much more cost efficient housing to the masses, but the neighborhood, by neighborhood, town by town restrictions of HOAs and codes make that difficult. We should have a uniform national building code for single family residential housing and additional requirements to that code only where local conditions require it- such as earthquake risk areas or places with high snow load potential. HOAs should lose the right to react any building that meets the new code.
The future of housing is factory built modules transported to the site, placed upon sturdy permanent foundations. Panelized or SIP construction would be another more cost efficient method. Both have the potential to be more solidly built and more energy efficient. The age of the stick built home should have ended some time ago.
3
@David Gregory it’s the cost of land, more than that of construction, that makes housing expensive.
6
@Hcat Land values are high, but so is the cost of labor at least in states where unions rule the construction trades.
1
@Michele You are reasoning at constant costs. Higher construction costs (or higher taxes) do not necessarily mean that the cost of an apartment will be higher, because the cheaper construction costs (and taxes) are, the more valuable land is.
If I can build for 30 apartments that I can sell for 100, then I am ready to buy the land 60 (so I can get 10 of profit). If it only costs 20 to build that these same apartments that I can still sell for 100, then I am ready to buy the land 70 (for the same profit).
The idea of competition driving down prices to the cost of production only works under certain conditions. The fact that land is so scarce in big cities means that landowners effectively have a monopoly on it, so these conditions are not met. The only way out is to allow a better use of land (through more density) so we don’t need as much land, making it not as scarce anymore. If you could just buy a house in San Francisco, demolish it and build an apartment block instead while ignoring the complains of NIMBYists there would be no shortage of land, and indeed developers would build until prices are down to construction costs.
Two points:
1. Although San Franciscans claim to be -- and are -- quite liberal, every single large-project developer has opted NOT to include affordable housing in new residential projects. Maybe this wasn't necessary -- the higher-priced units would have sold easily without it, but obviously that's not what the developers expected.
2. Most of us -- anywhere -- would like to live around people from different backgrounds. Honest, we would. But making that choice with one's principal residence is a huge gamble that few people are willing to take. You may hope for good new neighbors with diverse backgrounds and income levels, but end up with crime, noise and litter. If that happens, you're stuck. You can't really change your mind, since moving isn't easy and houses themselves don't move at all. Nor can you expect your new neighbors to move. As a result, most homeowners err conservatively on the side of opposing newcomers because those newcomers MAY be undesirable -- even though they know that most or all newcomers would turn out to be desirable. It makes good sense to me that they would, and I'm one of those resisters.
7
@MyThreeCents Well, that matches perfectly the definition of a NIMBYist: these people will need to live somewhere, you just don’t want them to live next to you, because of your own self-interest.
Even though everyone agrees that mixing income levels is much better for society in general; this is exactly why locals should not be the ones deciding who will move in their neighborhood.
6
Although I'm currently not a NIMBYer and have never been one, I can see how I could possibly become one so I'm hesitant to cast judgment on them.
As a single man trying to find my way in the world, I've lived in some squalid conditions with some pretty strange people (men) who I imagine might be the type that respectable homeowners fear would move in if some of these housing projects were completed in their backyard.
Some used drugs, others likely suffered some mental health issues, some were chronically unemployed but on the whole they were perfectly alright (and sometimes fun) to be around...as a single man.
But throw in a wife and kids and suddenly I wouldn't feel too good about having these people around just out of an abundance of caution. I don't mean to cast aspersions but once you have something that you're as invested in as a family, your perspective changes.
It's probably unreasonable, blowing something out of all proportion, but it's there and you feel it.
Not that those people moving in to most of these proposed units would be these kinds of men but I'm just saying how a protective mindset can seep in once you've staked a relatively permanent claim on a piece of earth.
6
"Developing every scrap of available land leads to dystopian, traffic-choked messes like LA."
"Dystopian" is unfair, but I will say this about LA, having driven through it twice lately, east to west and north to south:
There are a LOT of cars in LA.
5
True, true:
"Renters are not as invested in the neighborhood as homeowners."
I'm a homeowner now, and would pick up wind-blown papers in front of my house. But when I was a renter many years back, I remember seeing some wind-blown papers in front of my apartment building. I did not pick them up because, I thought, I was only one of seven renters in that building and so it was the landlord's problem, not mine. I fervently wished that he'd pick up those papers, or pay someone to do that, but I didn't wish strongly enough to do that myself.
6
@MyThreeCents If renters are the ones not picking up papers, and homeowners are the ones not letting housing be built, I know which ones are worse for society in general.
1
So much goes into providing the ideal home: affordability, transportation, water and sewer availability, job markets, provisions centers, schools, fire protection, hospitals, recreation availability . . . the list is so long and so expensive.
The disparity in land and construction costs alone is overwhelming and we should include our misguided willingness to build where we shouldn't: wet lands and flood plains.
Secretary Carson knows not whereof he speaks.
6
Any time someone opposes new development they are derisively labeled a NIMBY, but nobody ever looks at the practical reasons that many people oppose development.
I own my home in a somewhat far-flung, relatively low density region of NYC. Several single family homes have bene torn down and turned into multi-family houses and a few apartment buildings. The problem with this is more people = more litter on the streets and in the park, more dog poop on the sidewalks, more people circling the streets looking for parking, more people competing to send their kids to the local school, more concrete where there used to be grass/flowers, traffic lights where there were none before, more traffic at every intersection with a stop sign, or on narrow two lane streets that weren’t designed to handle such high volumes of traffic or double parking (which leads to people getting upset and honking like maniacs), standing room only on the train when there used to be seats, crowds on the buses, when there didn’t used to be any.
All this, but NO increase in resources to address these issues. So in effect, the quality of life for pre-development residents gets worse, but for new people it’s great! And then we wonder why people are anti-development. It would be easier to accept development if we could figure out how to address the sanitation, traffic and transit issues before having people rush in…you know…city planning.
30
@Res Ipsa Well, the reasons that you are giving are NIMBY reasons: “more litter on the streets and in the park, more dog poop on the sidewalks, more people circling the streets looking for parking, more people competing to send their kids to the local school, more concrete where there used to be grass/flowers”. People just want the litter, the dog poop, the parking seekers, the kids and the concrete to go elsewhere.
Saying you don’t want these in your neighborhood without caring about where they would go instead is the exact definition of NIMBYism, so you would be rightly labeled as such.
5
So to be completely candid about this topic, at an abstract level, I 100% am in favor of these policies. I think integration is a great way to learn about other people, become more empathetic, and foster growth and a more inclusive society.
Personally however, I've lived in mixed-income neighborhoods and this doesn't happen. As much as I wish it did, my experience has been that my lower-income neighbors are loud, dirty, annoying, pestering, and what I would consider for any race to be horrible neighbors. Unfortunately, these neighbors are also majority minority.
I have lived in wealthier areas in which my neighbors were asian, white, african american, indian, etc. And in the wealthier areas we all got along great. There were neighborhood parties, kids played together - this was a version of the utopia I wanted.
But when lower-income neighbors came in the picture, the utopia quickly left. Crime went up, noise went up, trash went up, and objectively it was worse. I currently live in the mixed-income location now and desperately miss my prior situation.
So as much as I abhor the idea of Not in My Backyard, I subscribe to it. Not out of any hate or malice, but out of the objective reality that lower income housing has a lot of negatives that are associated with it. It may be a chicken and the egg question, where we don't know what the root cause is, but at the end of the day I don't want to suffer for the sake of having mixed income neighbors.
31
@Hunter “I don’t hate you: I just don’t want you around here”. Objective reality or not, as a society we have to let poor people live somewhere, so as an individual you can’t morally defend the position of just rejecting them out of your neighborhood.
6
"... affluent [people] need to pay some kind of premium to [live in separate neighborhoods]. ... Perhaps higher income taxes, a surcharge on their property taxes, or maybe a sales tax on [luxuries] ..."
If it's any consolation, this already happens. Property taxes, for example, are calculated as a percentage of "assessed value." Here in SF, that value is re-set to the purchase price whenever a house is sold, and so buyers of expensive houses pay much higher property taxes than buyers of less expensive houses.
14
A commenter asks a question that I think shouldn't be asked:
"Can you believe that there is no direct railway line between Chicago and Nashville? A high speed rail would get you between the two cities in 3 hours."
Why should we build a railway between Chicago and Nashville in the first place? Or between San Francisco and Los Angeles (even if there WAS a "there" in Los Angeles, which there's not)?
Airports and airplanes can easily adjust to changes in transportation demands. Railways can't. The 2:00 train will still leave at 2:00 every day, whether it's 80% full or 90% empty. In contrast, an airline will simply cancel a flight if demand slackens.
Two commenters took issue with my assertion that developers in San Francisco worry that including low-income housing in a project will make it difficult to sell the higher-priced units. One commenter lives in Boston, and the other in Ann Arbor (both of which places, as it happens, I've lived in).
I don't doubt that higher-priced units can be sold even if lower-priced units are included in a project (though it's possible that prices were lowered on the higher-priced units -- rarely, if ever, will we know). But many SF developers don't expect that -- that was my point. If they did, after all, they wouldn't all pay the higher % of project costs to avoid the requirement that they include lower-priced units in their projects. As I wrote, all SF developers of large residential projects have opted to pay the higher % into a fund that is to be used to build affordable housing somewhere else. (To my knowledge, no lower-priced housing has actually been built with money in that "somewhere else" fund, but that's what it's there for and maybe some day it will be.)
Whether this will continue is anybody's guess. Last November, SF voters approved a proposition that increases both percentages: the % of lower-priced units that must be included, and the higher % of project costs that must be contributed to the affordable-housing fund if the developer does not include lower-priced units. City officials appear concerned that all developers, so far, have chosen NOT to include lower-priced units.
5
The solution isn't building huge multi-family buildings in residential neighborhoods. The solution is to allow small (3-4 plex) buildings throughout a city. This could be accomplished through slight changes to zoning codes.
6
Perhaps the real issue with affordable housing is that Americans are less willing to move these days. Or they are all flocking to the same dense urban areas in the Bay area or around NYC. No amount of affordable housing will solve the problem, and even as a progressive, I don't believe people "deserve" to live in any particular place. The country is filled with affordable housing if you are willing to move. Developing every scrap of available land leads to dystopian, traffic-choked messes like LA.
And "affordable" housing is actually a subsidy for employers who can then pay their employees that much less.
12
Here in NYC they claim the chronic housing shortage is a consequence of a over-regulation and a shortage of land. I don't know about the regulation, but all around Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx and even Northern Manhattan there are huge swaths of undeveloped properties that were once industrial and now lie fallow. Developers aren't interested because the lack of reliable public transportation to those far-flung sites are a deterrent to potential buyers/renters. Develop the public transportation and whole new neighborhoods could be developed without having to alter the landscape of existing communities.
11
@Steve725 There are also vast swaths of land that is close to transportation but is just underused. Look at Astoria, Sunnyside or Inwood: lot of low-rise at a very easy commute from Manhattan.
If we prevent building and create incentives (through high prices) for people to move to cheaper places far away from their work, or not well-connected by public transportation, do we really think that if we will make transportation better? Of course not: it might at best make transportation easier in the area where nothing is built, but in the larger picture transportation obviously gets worse in the city. That is exactly NIMBYism.
1
Having lived here all that time, I'll agree with that:
"San Francisco's population has grown some 30% since 1980, and people who have lived here a while are hard-pressed to cite any benefits that growth has brought."
For the record, though, despite all the articles about "poop on the sidewalks" all over SF, I've never seen poop on any sidewalk. Even once, in over four decades here. Not to say it's not there (my wife reports seeing it, for example), but I've never seen it.
5
@MyThreeCents It's funny how different experiences can be. I've only been in San Francisco for conventions, and I've seen poop on the sidewalk on two different trips (both times on Market Street around Civic Center if you're curious). Mostly I'm just struck by the amount of homelessness though. Beautiful city with a particularly bleak view of the income inequality in the country.
7
You can talk about diversity all you want, but when the rubber hits the road - that is, when a new neighbor moves in and paints his house Pepto-Bismol pink with lime green shutters and an orange front door - the yearning for more diversity ends. We all want neighbors who are just like us, because they will maintain their home, that is theinvestment, just as well as you maintain yours. And this has nothing to do with race!
15
Perhaps people wouldn't be as caught up in property values if it wasn't the primary savings vehicle of the lower and middle class. When one-third of your take home income goes to pay a mortgage, you want to protect that enourmous investment. Many people expect to be able to cash out of their homes when they are elderly or leave the property to their heirs to give them a leg up.
16
@Adrienne That might be true for one generation, but look at the next one, and you would actually say that property values are the highest cost for the lower and middle classes.
Keeping property prices up only helps people to the extent that it screws other people: it makes your retirement easier, but it makes the next buyer’s even harder because they’ll have to pay an even higher proportion of their income into their mortgage. Now I’m not saying every homeowner is rich obviously, but in terms of income distribution, rising property prices tend to help the rich (who can own multiple properties) much more than they help the struggling ones (who are more and more excluded from ownership), so the retirement argument does not make sense.
5
I live in a rural area but I used to live in a fashionable part of Atlanta. I can tell you this, NO, don't do it. It hard to describe the many ways this can go off the rails.
6
IF Americans want to protect their property values AND provide equitable opportunities for their less affluent neighbors without inviting them into their de facto gated enclaves they need to pay some kind of premium to do so. What would that premium be? Perhaps higher income taxes, a surcharge on their property taxes, or maybe a sales tax on "luxuries" like landscaping, third cars, or floor space beyond, say, 2000 square feet. But this kind of premium is predicated on the principle that Americans want to provide equitable opportunities for all... a principle that seems to be absent from any public discourse in our current political landscape.
3
Get over it. These developments can work. It takes good people management and proper maintenance.
I live in mixed income, multi-family housing (I pay market rate). I can't tell who pays what. The management does a good job of managing tenants and maintaining the property. there are small office parks on the west side and single family housing developments on the east and south. The office parks are more of a problem- people parking everywhere, delivery trucks, etc. I like my neighborhood- retirees, students, families, people of all ages, friendly.
Previously lived in a different mixed income, multi-family housing complex near here. Same thing- single family housing and small business zones, schools nearby. Good management, effective HOAs.
Back when I owned a house (in a different State), it was in a mixed housing neighborhood- condos, single family houses, apartments, co-op housing, duplexes/triplexes. The bigger problems were with the single family homes- unmaintained yards, the drive-by shooting, and so on. Another good neighborhood with a good mix of people.
7
There are homeless people across the nation because they were "sold" home loans they could not afford and when the market tanked the same people who caused it bought up the foreclosures for pennies on the dollars - from their Robber Baron brethren in the "banks" that WE THE PEOPLE bailed out with OUR hard-earned taxpayer dollars - and now control the rental market, too.
It is truly criminal.
How many Americans own multiple homes and/or housing units? The best way to have affordable housing is to tax the hell out of all "rentals" and homes, except primary residences, and stop giving tax breaks to "landlords". Also, stop allowing them to leverage one piece of real estate to buy more real estate. That's how The Con Don stole OUR money.
14
I think this essay is totally missing the main point of zoning, NIMBism, and public objection to projects. The main point is who has control of a property. The person who owns it, the people who own property around it, the entity that services the property with infrastructure, or general inhabitants of a place.? The balance of power of those stake holders is the key. Many places have lost a balance between interested parties. The balance is also something that would constantly need adjustment. Isn't that what politics is suppose to help with? Otherwise we should all just be warlord fiefdoms.
4
I've been trying to get my city council to put in more low-income housing but so far I only know of 1 building that might be going in a year or two from now.
There is a 25+% poverty rate in my county and low-income housing is sorely needed. City council only has one or two people on it advocating for this though.
I'm not sure of how else to approach this problem so they might be more amenable to providing permits and maybe even helping to fund such a project.
I do get Nimbyism as no one even wants a group home for disabled adults in their community either, even though they are not likely to be much if any problem for the neighbors.
I do get why "Projects" (multiple high-density housing units) is not wanted in better neighborhoods due to having more crime show up in neighborhoods but not having low-income housing availability also causes homelessness and more crime too.
Section 8 housing is hard to come by in many locations, and some have, for all intents and purposes, discontinued section 8 housing wait lists.
I know of only one low-income housing option in my city that is strictly for disabled adults and seniors. Nothing, as far as I can tell, exists for younger families. There is a homeless shelter on the ID side of the border but not much of anything on the WA side.
1
People throw the word "lifestyle" around ambiguously here, just as how the confederate apologists talk about preserving the old southern "lifestyle".
I don't care whether my neighbors are rich or poor, or what color their skin is. However, I do think my concerns about safety, cleanness and quietness are justified. So until we have sensible gun and drug laws, I feel reserved about these mix-income housing projects.
16
This article was really about stuff we already knew: people are primarily motivated by their own interests. This is not a partisan, left vs. right or Republican vs. Democrat thing. The simple fact is that if more, higher density housing is built in a neighborhood, property values of the existing housing stock will go down. As such, existing homeowners will oppose, vehemently, any such development proposals. Corollaries to this are the infrastructure impacts that effect quality of life issues (traffic, schools, and the like).
Renters are not as invested in the neighborhood as homeowners in the sense that more housing in an area means more supply (assuming constant demand) that translates to lower rents.
So, the article implies that at least some of this resistance smacks of racial segregation. That is nonsense. I contend that the thing that motivates people in more affluent areas is less the color of your skin and more the color of your money. The association of black areas with undesirable areas reflects more the economic demographics rather than racial discrimination and "ghettoing" of minorities (e.g. proportionally more blacks are lower income than whites so they tend to live in more affordable (undesirable) areas).
Nothing in this article is surprising except the naiveté of Secretary Carson. Rather than looking to implement mixed income neighborhoods, programs to encourage homeownership would be more effective. Let market forces work.
11
Canada has a program called co-operative housing that mixes income groups so that a household with two lawyers can live next to a single parent on welfare. The program has been very successful.
4
Dah??
Really?
What a major revelation by Stanford researchers.
Perhaps if they had actually lived a life they would not need to do this research.
In Seattle, our city council is made up of communists who want to change many districts, but one in particular, the most vociferous one, lives in a tony neighborhood not scheduled for such development.
I realize that hypocrisy is a basic human thought process and behavior, but when social engineering is shoved down people's throats by phonies, it is salt on the wounds.
6
I have read that some rural areas in the Midwest have declining populations and would like people to move there and live. Perhaps instead of trying to slice up a crowded area, Mr. Carson could do good twice over! With population growth comes a need for services which can fuel jobs. A win-win?
5
@Laurie Maldonado Sorry, you've got it backwards. Population growth won't happen unless there are jobs. Sure, there are a few pioneers who give it a go in a new town, but to repopulate an entire town or city in less than several generations there need to be jobs created on a larger scale from companies or institutions establishing themselves there.
4
People need to realize that just because a rental or multi-family housing goes up next to their home, it does not mean their neighborhood is doomed.
Property values are driven by the desire of people to live in a neighborhood, which is in turn driven by the availability of jobs and amenities nearby.
I live in a dense suburb just outside of Boston. My home has appreciated 50% in value in the past 5 years because people want to live near Boston. All this despite the fact that next door are some rental town homes (oh the horror!) and that the town in general is a mix of modest small homes, fancy renovated Victorians, old apartments, luxury condos, and everything in between.
There is a wide range of incomes with the one thing we have in common is rising housing costs across the board.
I live next door to a UPS truck driver and a stay at home mom. My husband and I both have advanced degrees. Our homes are worth a similar amount - the only difference is that we bought in 2012 and they have had the house in the family since 1950.
6
@NH yes, but these developments and multi-family units are not necessarily an improvement. They increase congestion, traffic, and reduce parking availability. At least Boston has a good transportation system so people have the alternative to ride the underground.
And. yes, most rentals do produce horror because the tenants do not, on average, take care of properties the way that owners do.
12
@NH; Somerville or Cambridge is a far cry from Winchester or Lexington, they were blue collar from day one. And we are talking about poor people, not UPS drivers There is a difference you know.
3
San Francisco's population has grown some 30% since 1980, and people who have lived here a while are hard-pressed to cite any benefits that growth has brought. Instead, we have crowded streets and sidewalks, newer residents who who see the almighty dollar as more important than civic engagement, and a whole host of other social problems.
Very few people—other than real estate speculators—see any benefit to having the population grow. Maybe that's why there's NIMBYism to be found here.
12
@MJ; What exactly was SF known for in the "old" days? Sidewalks and streets that smelled like urine. Nothing's changed.
1
@Ryan: I don't know what "old" days you're talking about, but it wasn't always this way.
The reason is that nobody wants to have another housing experiment negatively affect their property values.
And it is always a domino effect. But first there is one building and it is always a model. And the studies are published about how win-win just such a program is.
But then inevitably, there is mission creep. And suddenly is is re-discovered what kind of activities are involved in having Section 8 neighbors.
As in fill in the stereotype: loud music, late partying, car tuning, unwanted pregnancy, police intervention, drive by shooting, and then as the realtors so nicely put it: broken windows and unkempt lawns.
Housing in this country is tribal. And when you are defending both your largest investment and the schools that your are banking on educating your children, why shouldn't it be?
It is called "moving on up" for a reason.
16
@grumpyoldman, well the name sure fits! Do you have studies supporting this rather gross generalization? I own a home in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood close to the urban core of Phoenix. I'm pretty sure there is still affordable units in my neighborhood, probably some Section 8 or other tenant based rental assistance renters but I couldn't tell you who they are. On my block there is an apartment building that look pretty dodgy at first bush; the poor and working poor live there and it's quite. I can say the same thing for four good sized, but very well maintained, newer developments I lived near in downtown Phoenix just a few years ago. Quite residence for individuals, families, older folks and people with disabilities. I knew people at all of those locations and many of them worked and had concerns similar to my own - and they were good neighbors. The only broken windows I saw there or in my neighborhood are at still vacant properties allowed to sit idol. Right now, my neighborhood is all a-flutter because someone has the nerve to want to place a 2-story, 8 unit building on two vacant properties on the corner of the street. We have a 2% vacancy rate and the 9th most expensive rental mkt in the country, and the NIMBYs want to stop the project. Sufficient housing to meet the need has a stabilizing affect on individuals and communities. The more serious problems you site above are the symptom of a lack of housing, which is a basic need.
3
litter, noise (lots of it!), hostility, poor property maintenance, out of control adolescents, crime. People who don't earn their way into "nice" places don't keep them nice. Everyone wants to avoid this, but they don't want to say it. That is what it is all about.
15
@AnnaL we’re all trust fund babies to God.
2
My grandfather created something of the sort in Sunnyside, Long Island City.
The big mistake is always thinking in terms of "one size fits all" solutions. Why not just build something of the sort Carson wants? It doesn't mean that Scarsdale will disappear.
1
The cost of housing is a national crisis, and the only solution is to build enough of it so that the market can work its magic and lower the prices. Of course that would hurt the banking sector and stress any mortgage-backed securities, but you do have to choose winners and losers sometimes.
This ties directly to manufacturing, and to the minimum wage. On the manufacturing front, you have to pay workers enough to house themselves, and this expense makes American workers less competitive. On the minimum wage front, if you raise the minimum wage without building more low-cost housing, the landlords will raise the rents to capture the difference, and the workers will have no more than they have now. This would make the Kushners happy indeed, as their cash flow would increase without any additional expenses.
I'm reminded of a saying: "There's no substitute for enough."
5
The other aspect, not really brought out in the article, is the fact that as soon as a low income section starts to see any new development, cries of "gentrification" and "destruction of historical neighborhoods" are heard across the land.
What most people seem to want is first, the freedom to move into any neighborhood they like and second, the right to keep anyone they do not like from moving into their neighborhood.
23
@mikecody, indeed. Aka "the I got mine" syndrome.
5
We have a severe housing crisis going on coast to coast and in most of our major cities. Yet we continue to import well over a million plus immigrants annually. Where do we put these people to live? We're certainly are not building enough housing anywhere to keep up with the demand. Therefore the costs of housing have increased substantially everywhere. It is only going to become much, much worse. And the homeless population will continue to climb. Many are working full time jobs and still can not afford to put a roof over their heads. This issue should be front and center but we just ignore it and walk around it.
20
@james And recent immigrants mostly live in urban settings where land is scarce and the cost of housing and living are higher. When immigrants integrate into the society and economy they often move to the suburbs.
So how (and why) should we continue to pack large numbers on unskilled immigrants into urban centers where most jobs are for skilled workers and the cost of housing is high? None of this makes any sense.
9
@Michele, Yeah like we have endess available housing for all. In another 20 years we'll have at least another 40 million people living here. Will we have the housing then? Or do we even now? Nope.
We live in a capitalist society where neighborhoods, often segregated by race and income, have a lot to do with home values. At least people can move from one neighborhood to another as their income permits. In the more expensive areas, the only color that matters is green.
A better approach to integration would allow greater choice in education. With vouchers, parents should be able to send their children to multiple schools by adopting community scheduling and free transportation. Study sports and mathematics in the public school, dance and history in a religious school, english and art in yet another school on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Let children integrate and compete with others of different cultural backgrounds and family wealth. Let families live in neighborhoods of similar wealth so they can feel comfortable in their everyday lives.
4
@Eugene Patrick Devany It is easy for those who are not parents to imagine a "voucher" world where multiple schools provide benefits magically ignoring the transportation between schools and the complicated custody arrangements of many US families as well as the many single parents working more than one job at minimum wages or less trying to keep track of where their children are on any specific day. School security with children flowing between schools would be another issue. Add in the "extra-curricular" school opportunities such as sports, music and drama to a full schedule and the result is chaos.
Many children need the comfort of a settled school environment with known routines especially those in middle school. Put the voucher money into excellent public schools with competitive wages for teachers, clean, up-to-date facilities and supporting resources for both teachers and students. Public schools must educate all students; give them the funds to do so to meet the needs of all students.
12
@Eugene Patrick Devany, you neglected to indicate where this multiple schools and free transportation project is being successfully implemented. Sounds like a great experiment well suited for upper middle class households where both parents are stably employed in job with flexible child friendly schedules. They'd need that in order to cart their children from one school to the next, and presumably their kids are all enrolled in different programs to meet their individual needs and interests. I love the idea of free transportation but nothing is ever really free and so far most Americans are adverse to adequately funding public transportation.
5
I read this twice but could not find the phrase "quality of life." Homeowners of all stripes want to protect property values not purely on investment considerations but rather because worsening values betoken a diminishment in quality of life. Increased density, more crowding, more traffic, and more noise are the specifics that often lurk behind "affordable housing" pushes. Laying your head down every night in a house that's unattached to another residence is not a "selfish" way of life.
18
@Blair Exactly. But it's easier to bandy the term "NIMBY" and focus on us/them when the emphasis is on the economic impacts. I'm a proud NIMBY; but for quality of life reasons, not financial ones.
6
@Blair: As long as the population keeps increasing, more crowding, traffic and noise, and less space are a given.
5
@Blair. I've spent most of my adult life living in dense urban neighborhood. In my favorite my house was literally one arm's length from that of my neighbor, who became a dear friend who helped me when I was sick, babysat my dog, swapped opinions on politics over leaf raking and later was an honored guest at my wedding. I bought my little house through an low-income home ownership program. My neighborhood then, and the one I live in now, had a mix of incomes. Most of my current neighbors are low and low middle income, and several are renters. I think much of the fears you and other commenters cite are largely based on stereotypes. I have never felt safer than I have in dense city neighborhoods where people know my face. It is the absence of community/tax payer investments in school, businesses, parks and recreation and services that lead to neighborhood declines not affordable housing. Many of our nations homeless work but that is a struggle because they have nowhere to lay their heador create anything approaching a high quality of life.
As for home values: the many homes that have added accessory dwelling units or subdivided in to apartments or condos, or vacant properties which now have apartments have in no way lowered the property values where I live. I've seen high end condo and town homes go up right across the street from recently built subsidized housing. In most cases, you can't tell the subsidized complexes from the luxury dwellings.
1
The primary problem we are facing today is not housing segregation but lack of housing for the working poor and working class. The homeless population is booming right now ironically in blue areas of the country. We need to roll up our sleeves and build housing that people of low to moderate income can afford to alleviate this problem pronto. Building this housing next to "rich people" should not be the top priority since we should now all be in a state of emergency mode on tackling this issue. Once we move past this crisis period.Then we will have the luxury of ruminating on the past follies of keeping Black people out of Levittown,Or the perpetuation of racist housing resale covenants. There are places around the world that do not have a homeless problem and we should look at what is being done in those countries. For example Singapore has a very successful housing program that serves ALL of its citizens low income and high income. This is a solvable problem. We have to be realistic about what we are facing and stop living in the past.
5
@Marian Singapore is pretty much a military city/state.
2
The premise of this article – and the photo – seems to be that multifamily developments will be set in suburban America, which is fundamentally not the idea. Of course, people with single-family homes wouldn't want an apartment complex going up next door! Who was planning that though?! This article seems confused and entirely misses the point.
5
In my city there is a strong demand for affordable housing for families with four or more kids. Families of this size aren't really going to be happy in the typical smallish multifamily unit on a lot with no yard.
2
@Michele
Four or more are too many kids to have, today. That kind of population growth is not sustainable. It's selfish.
8
@Michele: How many families these days have 4 or more kids? I mean that as a serious question.
1
@MJ In Minneapolis Somali families make up a large portion of families government assistance and supplements to find affordable housing. Four kids is actually small for a Somali family. Five is the average.
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/refugee/globalbb1014.pdf
2
Well done, Secretary Carson. And as a sign of good leadership, what about to start with, pushing for mixed residential development promotion in Palm Beach, Fla and Bedminster NJ. I think we could count the seconds before the NIMBY tweet storm would start.
3
Actually Bedminster NJ has one of the most successful mixed income housing developments in the country. It has been in existence for more than 30 years and was the consequence of successful litigation attacking exclusionary zoning in that municipality.
4
For most of us, it isn't about the money, it's about quality of life. I don't even want the value of my house to rise dramatically; that would only mean I'd have to pay much more in property tax. I don't even care whether it rises with inflation. But I do care about preserving my suburban way of life. One cluster of low-rise apartments nearby doesn't seem so bad, but developers will never stop there. They'll put in another and another. Then the local roads can't handle the traffic, so they're widened. Then you need stoplights and turn-lanes, and so everyone on that road has most of their front yard confiscated. Then you need schools, stores, filling stations, and pretty soon the last open space in the area is paved over for a Wal-Mart. And when they've run out of open space, they start dividing up existing lots, often demolishing the old house, razing all the trees and either squeezing in McMansions toe-to-toe or going for apartments. A gradual process, but one day you wake up to the noise of traffic instead of birdsong, and you realize there is more pavement than earth, more houses than trees. That's what this about, not xenophobia, racism or contempt for the poor.
32
Good grief, is anyone surprised? People struggle and sacrifice to buy homes in safe neighborhoods with excellent schools. No one wants to live next to some sort of low income housing shelter. Leave people alone. It's their right to live where they can afford.
12
NIMBY: a derogatory term used by people who live far away or are not affected by something to belittle the protests of those in its immediate vicinity who will feel the adverse effects.
29
For once Carson is acting on principle, supporting mixed housing against locals including Trump’s base. NIMBYism arose from decades of bank and realtor blockbusting, integrating a fading white working-class neighborhood to sew panic, then buying white homes at under-market and selling them to minorities at over-market. After Reagan slashed public housing, this was the only way working class and poor minorities got a roof over their heads. Now white workers are clinging to their homes, trapped by falling wages and rising middle class house prices. Hence, drugs in white neighborhoods and homelessness for the poor. Public funded housing is the only way not only the poor but the white working class can get housing.
4
[[[ The instinct to protect property values may be too deeply ingrained in America to change. ]]]
What an outrageous, narrow-minded attitude to have. In two neighborhoods where my family has investment properties, the values tripled as the ethnic mix became more diverse. We have low-income, subsidized renters and have been well satisfied with them. Renting to them is a community service, being that they have a decent place to live other than on the streets. Our lovely neighborhoods are as perfect for them as for the wealthiest on the block.
What is the problem with people that, in the 21st Century, they still fear those who are different from themselves? There is nothing inherently weird or damaging when people of wide economic differences live next to each other. I have lived it. The benefit to poorer people is enormous when the neighbors have 10 times the income. It uplifts them to be in beautiful, safe surroundings. Additionally, the wealthy have much to learn from the poor and from those who speak other languages. It is an enriching experience. Been there, done that.
Fortunately, I have lived in one of the top ten most liberal cities in the country....where I am now must surely be #11, a couple of notches down from Buffalo, NY.
How do narrow-minded people enjoy life as smug, insulated boors?
3
I wholly support what Ben Carson is trying to do here. The fake liberals who have caused the housing crisis by demanding that local governments artificially suppress supply need to be put on notice. Cities for the rich like Portland, Los Angeles and San Francisco need to be denied any federal housing money until they change their act. He should implement a points system with carrots and sticks, rewarding cities that reduce these artificial barriers. Excessive building permit scams, arbitrary lawn sizes, single-family-only neighborhoods and neighbors' absolute veto power on other people's property need to come to an end.
9
It sounds like he wants to turn every middle class neighborhood in to a slum. You know neighborhoods that are ultra wealthy won't be affected. They just live behind their endless iron gates. I vote no way!
3
“It’s not that you become more selfish, but you become more likely to translate selfishness into political action,” Mr. Hall said of homeowners. ‘Renters could be just as selfish, but they’re not getting their act together as a group to vote.’”
Talk about putting lipstick on a pig!
I live in the southeast tip of Crown Heights, on the border of Brownsville, in one of the city’s poorest zip codes. My neighbors are always voting locally and nationally.
It’s selfishness, full stop.
2
Hypocritical. What seems agreeable and just in the abstract, has found an impenetrable barrier of prejudice. We still remain tribal, and discrimination seems 'alive and well'.
2
Conservatives are honest about being NIMBYs. They simply don't want their neighborhoods becoming some experimental petri dish for diversity and multiculturalism.
Liberals on the other hand are hypocritical. They advocate for helping poor US citizens and being environmentally friendly yet at the same time support letting in millions of immigrants – both legal and illegal – each year to the US while they enact some of the most restrictive housing policies where they live. Don't they understand these positions are at odds with each other?
I'd be willing to change my NIMBY stance once I see neighborhoods like Palo Alto, Chappaqua, and Beverly Hills build the affordable housing necessary to accommodate underrepresented minorities, single mothers, the poor, refugees, and fresh off the boat immigrants from third world countries. Let the liberals practice what they preach for once.
21
@M. Gessbergwitz, I so agree with your comment.
Those who spout the loudest about accepting all illegals, DACAs and so on are the last to live, work, worship or socialize with any of these transplants. They don't send their own kids or grandchildren to the same schools either.
9
Exactly. Blunt conservatives and hypocritical progressives both embrace the all-encompassing concept of NIMBY.
8
Mixed income, multi-family housing makes for a vibrant community that allows people to live where they work. If teachers,
police, restaurant workers and average working people face roadblocks to living in your community due to the high cost of housing and you’re happy with that, you’re selfish, and you’re missing something in your life.
5
FINALLY....an issue where Liberals and Conservatives can be equally hypocritical, and for many of the same reasons.
When they buy a house, Liberals stop being "progressive", and Conservatives stop being free-marketeers.
NIMBYism....it brings people together.
Wait....
20
Good luck! in my Republican neighborhood people are ready to riot over 273 single family houses over an existing golf course.
Funny how they want to take economic rights away from a wealthy persons, like them.
5
NIMBYism is a term usually used to describe housing and zoning issues, but I see it as part of a larger phenomenon. Most people's abstract ideals break down when it affects them directly.
This is why parents who ostensibly support educational equality oppose school integration efforts, or why people who support income equality and progressive taxation will fight to defend their Mortgage Interest Tax Deduction. For my part, I started my career working on homelessness issues, but later in life found my positions on the homeless population turn markedly more conservative when my local park became overrun by a surge of people leaving syringes and feces in their wake. It's much harder to be empathic when you are the one personally paying the price.
The rub is that truly living your ideals involves sacrifice, not just a few volunteer hours a month, end-of-year charity giving, and voting Democratic. Usually creating change involves being willing to directly relinquish privilege so it can be shared more broadly. The problem is, when our number comes up, we all ask 'why me?'.
22
Fair and balanced, unlike the Editorial Board! I deeply hope that NYT can fix its problems. Let me say this. As a naturalized US citizen, many things happening in this country make no sense to me. The dividing issues are mostly rhetorics. How many of us are gays? How many of us needs abortions? And the gun ownership issue is so childish. Thanks to NYT, it is now clear that why both sides only focus on certain issues but not others. Of course it is mostly human nature at work. I have long realized that both extreme sides are really the same kind of people. I have been realistic and I have been offering real solutions based on human nature. Unfortunately, most people are stuck inside their bubbles and refuse to come out. To me, the lack of sincerity is the fundemental problem which this country is facing. This brings up a puzzle I have for a long time. How could some NYT readers are so unsophisticated? Do they really read the news? Why are they so pretentious? Their moral high ground is really pie in the sky and is mere feeling-good. In any way, as a public company, NYT shouldn't become an echo chamber for those NIMBYISTS.
3
Disgraceful liberal hypocrites. Integration has the potential to create a relatively harmonious community, it just requires the absence of xenophobic oppression.
When a community is integrated in a manner that does not compel assimilation, then everyone benefits. Different cultural/ethnic groups don’t detract from overall standards of living, they improve upon them, and everyone has the opportunity to benefit in the process.
3
If there's one thing rich Democrats and rich Republicans can always agree on, it's a general hatred of the poors.
14
Switzerland is much more 'balanced' yet we can not complain (as some may not know, as Denmark, we are NOT living in a socialist hellhole).
Usually we have friends from any layer of society because of mandatory military service, 'mixed primary schools' and 'mixed neighborhoods'. It seems to be embedded in our culture but may be a consequence of smaller salary gaps, locally-administered villages and efforts to support rural areas and integrate immigrants.
Good luck with the 'maintenance' of your current intrinsically 100%-capitalist system. For me, Economics is like Thermodynamics, and I think that your system (probably the whole world) has reached a state where the system moves itself towards collapse (there are not even for left-leaning or 'very social' people incentives to send their children to public school given that they can afford it).
2
It is weird to agree with Ben Carson. But, the reason we have Ben Carson and the rest of Trumps henchmen and Trump himself is because Americans are selfish little babies who think they are better than everyone else. The US is not a nation of good intelligent people. They are more accurately described as consumerist nincompoops.
4
Tired Ben should set the example and move into the type of neighborhood he promotes.
3
Part of this problem concerns the gradual shift from single-family housing to multi-family apartments or condos in neighborhoods. I’ve lived in several European cities where single-family units are almost non-existent; no one opposes the addition of another development to replace one with fewer units. But it’s tough to build the first (or second and third) in a sea of single-family homes. There is the inevitable concern that this will drive down the value of homes, permanently. But it is clear that America will need to shift its housing preferences because we cannot continue to have our own plot, farther and farther from urban centers and jobs. Municipal services like fire, health and police are much more costly in areas of urban sprawl. We are in for a rough 50-100 years as this changes, and as we fight against the legacy of inefficient, individual housing development.
11
The ideal of mixed income communities is wonderful as it affords a shared experience that few have outside of military service where ability is recognized and a common goal is the unifying principle. Like the military, bringing together a diverse group of people is not easy as people will always establish a hierarchy based on some commonly held criteria that often has no basis in logic.
Yes, communities could have residence of differing economic values close to each other. We don't do that easily or willingly. Why? Because we fear "the other." We ascribe traits to "them" to assure ourselves that they are not "us." We, of course, are better.
Communities are almost always segregated on the basis of economic conditions. In reality more-and-more non-white people are moving-up the income ladder into middle income communities that were, until recently, exclusively white. It is thought that similar incomes breed similar ideas.
The sad reality is that most humans don't like "poor" people even if they are from the same racial group as we are.
The response to trying to force mixed income communities will be more gated communities.
3
Home ownership is crucial to middle and lower class families in NYT reader cities to keep pace with inflation as worker pay hasn't kept pace.
There are many parts of the U.S. which are affordable, but come with lower pay, are uncool, or lack boutique coffee houses.
Tech companies could energize these areas by locating satellite offices at significantly reduced overhead and somewhat lower labor costs.
2
@James B Sure but most of those workers wouldn't want to live in a place like that. And if they did move, en masse, the boutique coffee houses would quickly follow, as would the unaffordability. I suspect you would always be chasing your tail with a solution like that.
6
All increasing density does it put more unaffordable units on the same acre of ground, making developers even richer. Go for it though, Ben. The poor will always be among us, more units doesn’t change that.
5
Here in Vermont, NIMBY became BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone) a long time ago. Last year my neighborhood was up in arms over a 9-unit condo complex. Never mind the many existing complexes, most of which have many more than 9 units (10 units triggers state-level permits). The school board rejected a proposal to build more preschool classrooms. The next battle is renovating the outdated, not-accessable-to-the-disabled high school.
The only exception to BANANA seems to be anything related to the military. Accoeding to the FAA, the F35 will make large swaths of some towns unsuitable for residential use. Homes have been torn down. But opponents, even the ones who are losing their homes, are painted as traitorous anti-military hippies who should move to Canada.
The state has a goal of going carbon-neutral and reducing fossil fuel use. Only 2 counties have access to natural gas; a third may get it soon, no thanks to a very small, very loud anti-pipeline contingent, which is also anti-wind and anti-solar. I sometimes wonder if they are paid by the local oil cartel. I guess we'll burn our way to carbon neutrality.
And the powers that be wonder why young families don't want to live here.
12
Interpreting increased voting by people with more expensive houses as everyone evidence of nimbyism seems a bit much. There are lots of reasons why richer people vote more, including having more flexible work schedules and greater control over stressful distractions.
9
Don't forget the other thing the US does at the local level: schools. We could make good progress on solving the social and housing problems if we funded schools above the local level.
14
Every dollar that goes to a middle class family to buy a house is a dollar that will not go to the millions of desperately poor very low income people who cannot get public housing because they are cutting back.
I live in HUD subsidized public senior and disable housing. There is no waiting list, not because there are no people banging on the doors to get in, but because the list got over six years long and it was no longer practical.
For that matter, Lane County Oregon, and area about the size of Connecticut, has no public shelter system. The priorities of Congressional funding of HUD seems to be aimed to the middle class, and not to the poor.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
8
Use of the term "Nimbyism" guarantees the end of civil conversation about any community issue. And it customarily means that the user is confident the development will not take place in her backyard and is therefore free to claim the moral high ground.
21
In Baltimore, one of the things that drives up the cost of new multi-family housing (or conversion of existing housing to multi-family) is the requirement for sprinklers for any building with more than two apartments. For a rowhouse conversion, the costs will easily exceed $30,000 , and construction delays of 6 or more months are common due to and old water system with inadequate pressure & a slow bureaucracy. So, most of the new low or mixed income construction here tends to be heavily subsidized by the government. And the unsubsidized usually have rents that exclude all but the most wealthy.
4
What's the alternative? A fire racing through a row house?
1
I have mixed feelings. When I was broke and living opposite the Army Street Projects in SF, I lived with a lot of threats and fears. Drug dealers in the projects would dangle late-paying clients out windows. One man got dropped and died. There were car jackings. The projects' children created disciplinary problems in the neighborhood schools. When I moved to a suburb, I could sleep at night because my neighbors were preparing for work by also sleeping. My daughter flourished in the school and played with children who valued education. I don't think it is the low-cost housing so much as fear of criminal chaos and negligent parenting. To keep a job requires subordinating one's personality and following a routine and that is still not enough to pay the rent. So the question is, are we going to subsidize some low-wage workers or are we going to have a massing housing program that solves the rental crisis and breaks speculation in housing?
53
I lived on Roosevelt Island in New York. One building with over 1000 apartments was comprised of about 20% of fully subsidized apartments and about 80% of the apartments were for families with a median income and they were modestly subsidized. Three other smaller buildings were occupied by families with high incomes and they were not subsidized at all. This type of integration was remarkably successful. The children all played together and the school on the island was very successful. Later, four more buildings were constructed and the lower income families with high subsidies were placed in a single building. The other three new buildings were mostly rentals at market rates. The children of the fully subsidized building befriended each other, formed gangs, picked on the other children, and life on Roosevelt Island deteriorated. The school was no longer able to offer a high-quality education. Conclusion: Integration works; even modest segregation fails and continues inequality from one generation to the next. It is hard to believe that a Trump appointee actually favors a sensible idea!
38
Mixed housing would not be such an issue if lower income housing was built with quality so that it would withstand the test of time. Nearly 50 years ago, my dormitory at the U of Maine had cinderblock walls. But each wall was covered with a coat of plaster so that they did not look like factory walls. We did not feel like we were in cheap student housing. And these rooms still look new and of high quality.
10
This mixed income thing is the ONLY way any affordable housing is even being considered in the area where I live. Actually, the town's housing authority is all about single home ownership first and foremost. As if anybody who applies for it has the credit rating for the bank loan. If they did, they would not be applying for it in the first place. Plus how many younger people desire home ownership? BTW, the wait list for one of the 12 low income apartments, (only place in town) is at least 10-12 years right now. All low income development attempts have been thwarted by neighbors pooling their resources together to hire an expensive lawyer. Abutting is a way of life for these high end second or third home owners.
6
Obviously, spend the money rebuilding housing where it can be built quickly, such as the capitals of blue states. There is plenty of vacant land within 30 miles of Sacramento, Albany, and Springfield, and I am sure that the state governments of California, New York, and Massachusetts will do everything they can to help poor and lower-income people resettle and find jobs.
8
@Observer of the Zeitgeist
Springfield is not the capital of Massachusetts.
We who live in liberal states are fine with diversity. We build plenty of affordable housing. I live in a town close to Boston, and we're already loaded with two and three family homes on tiny lots. We have little open space left, but if a developer wants to build multi-family housing they're required to include affordable units.
I object to the inadequate infrastructure that creates gridlock in all communities near Boston as people commute to and from Boston for work. This idea that we have to build more and more housing and make it affordable so people can live here is ridiculous without a way to get people around. Our subway system is decrepit. Our roads are inadequate.
Sacramento and Albany are different. Their population densities taper off rapidly. Maybe they can accommodate vast influxes of population without creating congestion, but the Boston area can barely handle what it has now.
15
@Observer of the Zeitgeist You are probably not serious, but building housing in areas away from the big cities,along with schools,etc., and then requiring people who are immigrating due to violence, or people who are in violent, gang-ridden neighborhoods, to move there, may be the answer to a part of the homeless problem.
We should separate the issue of affordable housing from the unrelated goals of forced economic class integration.
In other words, if the middle class and wealthy don't want high density low income housing in their backyard (which is understandable, since one of the benefits of being wealthy is getting to live in expensive, desirable areas), then build affordable housing in other places. Like build in city centers and create revitalized urban neighborhoods. Build in economically disadvantaged towns who could use the influx of residents. Create new mixed use developments on reclaimed land a la Hudson Yards.
By trying to force wealthy neighborhoods to accommodate low income apartment blocks, liberals are trying to bite off too much social engineering in one go.
47
@Mmm by "liberals" you mean Ben Carson...
2
@Mmm Thank you for this. In California we have a state legislator who is determined to shove his grand urban planning scheme down our throats.
@Mmm Sounds like a plan to build new ghettoes, however well-intentioned.
"Economically-disadvantaged" towns have a lot of problems other than lack of affordable housing. Generally they lack well-paying jobs and have underfunded and dysfunctional school systems. Dumping more poor people on top of those already trapped there doesn't seem like much of a solution even if its in new housing..
7
What a surprise that Ben Carson has articulated what may be the best way to provide new housing; to create communities that are ethnically, racially, and economically more diverse; and to tackle some portion of our homeless problem. Will he get together with the transportation secretary and propose building or adding to metropolitan bus and train systems? What we need in this country is a serious discussion about what the 21st century city should look like, what values it should promote, what aspects of a neighborhood are worth preserving, what sacrifices will everyone, not just the poor, have to make.
20
The US is full of dilapidated old towns with good bones that offer limitless possibility for redevelopment that would make those towns better for everyone, and, if done on a large enough scale, could produce housing and amenities attractive enough to appeal to people of multiple income classes. Does it really make sense instead to put so much effort into trying to build "affordable" housing in areas where property is so expensive that nothing is really affordable, only subsidized, so that little can be built, and where the other residents feel that it degrades their neighborhood?
39
@PCM sounds like a NIMBY argument
We need to build a lot more housing where people want to live. Not where you want them to live.
6
Dilapidated old towns probably don’t have the infrastructure, jobs or businesses to support growth. Nimbyism is the curse we need to deal with at the local level, in every town and city.
6
@PCM, They are dilapidated, abandoned towns for a reason. Like no jobs to be had.
10
That final quote is uncalled for. People who put money into their houses aren't speculators. They're making a huge investment, the largest of their lives.
But it isn't just property values that are of concern here. Ugly multi-family developments can ruin the character of a neighborhood, and "mixed income" development means bringing poor people into middle class neighborhoods (rarely upper class ones), often bringing all kinds of social ills, from throwing trash on the street to playing music outdoors to muggings, drug dealing, and drive-by shootings.
Because of this, this kind of social engineering will continue to face resistance. A more realistic approach would be to let people have their neighborhoods, but to adjust taxation or zoning so that the social and economic burden of poverty doesn't fall disproportionately on some communities. My small city, for example, has very high property taxes because it harbors the poor, while prosperous neighboring communities are zoned to keep them out. It's a burden that should be shared by all.
64
@Josh Hill Homes are liabilities
2
The greatest social engineering project of our time was the creation, with tremendous subsidies and racial exclusion, of the single family suburbs. To claim that bringing in multi-family and denser housing is social engineering is disingenuous at best.
9
@Dan Allison
The only thing disingenuous here is your absurdly sophistic attempt to twist my meaning by pretending that the government putting poor people in a suburb is the same as people choosing to move to a suburban development.
You say that people of all political leanings tend to be NIMBYs, but that's not exactly true. Libertarians, for example, tend to consistently oppose regulations that limit housing development.
As a libertarian who has recently moved to San Francisco, it's pretty obvious that the housing crisis here won't be solved until the NIMBY's can no longer block dense and tall residential buildings. In the areas where the NIMBY's aren't in control, like parts of SoMa, you can see rapid construction of new apartment buildings everywhere.
12
On my short block there are single family, owner-occupied houses, rental houses, owner-occupied multi-family houses, and one old building cut into rock-bottom-priced rental units. The highest price single family houses would probably bring about $450,000. There are people with graduate degrees and people who did not finish high school. A block away in any direction would have the same mix. And guess what? Nothing bad is happening. I would guess most of us chose this neighborhood. Oldest houses pre-date the Civil War. You can walk to restaurants and shops. People who oppose mix housing are under the impression that there is much to fear and little to gain. They are wrong, but I do not know how to convince them of this fact.
28
Housing segregation is based on income inequality and until that is addressed our communities are not going to be representative of the country's population.
Dr Carson has zero ability to improve income distribution to make it more even.The idea to make housing more affordable to all is a great idea and Dr Carson deserves our support.
3
Efforts to address the clearly "Missing Middle" in housing and open zoning and planning to other types of housing have gone big in many locations, and the response is illuminating. The idea is facing push-back because current owners fear their way of life will be destroyed. There's no evidence of that, but fear is good enough. I've been watching this movement in a city in the Pacific Northwest, and it's clear that homeowners have been told - by someone - that they can't trust the city to abide by Missing Middle protocol or ideas. The plans under development restrict new kinds of housing - mostly duplexes and four-plexes, along with a few "tiny houses" and accessory units such as cottages - to current transit corridors. There are some early somewhere-down-the-road plans to rezone a few cross streets also on bus lines to allow a cafe and some shops to create a neighborhood where one does not yet exist. There are no plans on file to build these new types of housing, no developers who are ready to build cross-roads shopping. But fear is big and it sure sells.
Here's the point: Change will come and it is coming and how shall we all *manage* it? Closing the door, pretending it's not real just doesn't work.
What older Boomers wanted isn't what the next generation will want or need. In fact, when Boomers are ready to give up or must give up those lovely four-bedroom, two-story homes on large lots that no longer work for them, where will they go? I hope they'll eventually get that.
2
The ability to impose zoning, subdivision, and site regulations is granted by the State to local jurisdictions. If States' wanted to loosen development restrictions, they could. Similarly, as the article itself points out, Secretary Carson has threatened to withhold funding to cities that do not support greater housing construction. Unfortunately, Mr. Carson's threat rings hollow because that funding, in the form of CDBG and HOME funds, are continually being slashed from the HUD Budget and serve as a poor cudgel to use against localities should they decide not to follow the dictates of HUD
9
It is biased to say both republicans and democrats are at fault, democrats are by far worse on affordable. Blue cities have the most expensive housing in the nation if not the world. In the Bay Area they'll claim to help the poor and not be racist, but nothing is more damaging to low income families (which minor ties are more likely to be) than housing that consumes almost all their income or forces long commutes. They all offer some excuse against building more, but the truth is that they're selfish. When you really think about it; it is blatantly obvious that coastal liberals and democrats hate the poor and minorities when they price them out on purpose.
I grew up in Michigan. Our liberals and democrats were a different breed. A much more help thy neighbor and selfless kind. It's no wonder Trump won Michigan and the Midwest when the Democratic Party became the party of the white home owning class rather than the working class.
18
@Ace You imply that housing is expensive in "blue" cities BECAUSE they're liberal, when the reality is the opposite: housing is expensive in places where jobs pay well and there's limited land; where jobs pay well is where people with more education and access to those jobs congregate, and people who are more educated tend towards being more liberal. The article clearly states that BOTH liberal and conservative homeowners favor selfish housing policies for various reasons regardless of their political views.
5
The 800 pound elephant in the room that most Americans need to acknowledge is that they are NIMBYs because they are racist. Be honest: when someone says "mixed-income, multifamily housing", the image that comes to mind is poor black people on welfare. So when they say that they don't want to "change the character" of their neighborhood and that they worked hard and can include or exclude whoever they want out of "preference" for single family homes, what they are covertly saying is no they don't want it because they are racist.
I live in Baltimore City in a neighborhood where it is impossible to tell on first glance who owns and who rents because the entire neighborhood is made up of 3 story rowhomes. Some are single family, others are multifamily. But it takes away the stigma while positively encouraging diversity (my neighborhood actually has no black or white majority - both hover around 40%.) This city is still pretty segregated but there are victories in neighborhoods like mine where there are renters and people who own $300K rowhomes on the same block.
76
@Laura, You're not kidding. I was on the town board of a housing authority only to discover several of its members were involved to slow or 'prevent' low income housing from being built. Older, upper middle class, white men who were retired white collar professionals. I was shocked when I figured it out. Many of them had high end real estate investment properties too that they rented out for many thousands of dollars a week.
5
I grew up in a planned community south of Baltimore based on integrated, mixed income housing. It is completely possible to not only work but to create a high quality of life for everyone in a diverse community. I remember as it became a sought after, ‘nice’ suburb perfectly placed between cities in the metro area, newer residents moved in that maybe hadn’t totally bought in. there started to be more push back on building new ‘moderate income’ housing - and the only explanation was racism. as high schoolers we could see right through this. it doesn’t matter that we’re talking about teachers and fire fighters or that the section 8 housing developments interspersed in between other developments meshed right in.... towns and cities have to start having mixed, integrated housing - it creates dynamic, diverse, safe, and sustainable communities. it’s the only way. perhaps you have to see it work to believe it.
8
@Laura I think most people associate low-income housing with higher crime, regardless of race. But I'm sorry that doesn't fit your mold for everyone.
a simple solution: eliminate property tax breaks for every zip code that does not allow affordable housing. if that doesn't work: no student loans for anyone with a home address in that zip code.
5
@MaxD Massachusetts has Chapter 40-R, a state law which allows developers to bypass local zoning regs in towns in which less than 10% affordable housing, as long as 10% of the development is "affordable." In practice, the "affordable" units end up being age restricted (55+, 62+, or 65+).
4
I'm pretty sure protecting the most valuable asset one will every own is always going to be a high priority.
67
The town I grew up in ended up saddled with several large properties that were formerly auto dealerships. One developer proposed a really attractive apartment building with retail at street level that would have blended seamlessly with the Mission style train station. The other was similarly proposed. For all the pearl clutching protests you would have thought they were proposing slaughterhouses. That ugly abandoned car lots were preferable to attractive apartments made no sense. One town over a decrepit old lumberyard was quickly developed into luxury rentals. The town council and residents saw the logic in replacing an eyesore with housing. Development is really difficult here in North Jersey. The zoning is pretty strict, partially due to the fact that space is at such a premium. Most towns have severe restrictions on height, setbacks and % coverage to ensure that areas do not
experience haphazard development.
14
This is the one thing, and the very only thing, that I could ever agree with Ben Carson on. I've witnessed first hand the tea party-like tendencies of the progressive left to openly lambaste basic economic laws of supply and demand and argue that increasing supply of housing will only increase the cost. This blatant lie is used to co-opt leftist affordable housing activists to oppose ALL market development, leaving otherwise progressive cities in a downward spiral of housing unaffordability.
NIMBYism knows no political lines. That's for sure.
28
It’s understandable that once people fall in love with a neighborhood, buy a house and property in it, and become part of its community, they don’t want anything about it to change.
42
So Ben Carson is still around. Hasn't been in the news much - good for him. Also glad to hear that he's got a sensible idea. But he's still out of his depth as a politician. Most of America's problems are not technical but spiritual/political. Carson is on the wrong side there. Christianity, as it is practiced, is a big part of the problem.
5
I live in a neighborhood where the average house sells for more than the average for my metro area. But unlike many other neighborhoods in the area, we also have a very diverse mix of housing. From 800 sq ft apartments and condos, to 12,000 sq ft mansions, and everything in between except for a trailer park. There is even a hostile. My neighborhood is proof that mixes of different types of housing can not only co-exist but thrive. Of course it helps the neighborhood has is sandwich between a University, downtown, and a vast undeveloped and protected nature area. I think what saved it from that happening is that it is one of the first neighborhoods developed in our state. Meaning it was developed before the automobile. Back during a time where people were far more likely to live, work, and shop within a short walk of each other.
14
The influential geographer David Harvey boiled it down to this: "...what kind of city we want cannot be divorced from the question of what kind of people we want to be..."
Housing advocates understand the social benefits of housing far outweigh the standard measure of return on investment capital. Unfortunately, many Americans now find themselves with few opportunities for economic security other than speculative gains from homeownership, thereby reinforcing processes that drive exclusion and inequity.
--Brian Brainerd
7
Having a large concentration of low income housing, such as a large apartment building, near better income housing does not work. With rare exceptions, the 2 income groups will remain segregated and suspicious of one another.
A few low income families scattered throughout a neighborhood is a better option if you want them to integrate into the neighborhood. Regardless of the racial mix, this works better.
I grew up in an old neighborhood that was mixed income. Some of the older houses that hadn't been well maintained were rented to large low income families. As long as the percentage of such these families were low and they were distributed throughout the neighborhood rather than all together in one section, there were few problems.
However, as the neighborhood got older and the numbers of low income families increased, things changed and within a span of a few years everyone who could move to a better area did so.
62
Grew up in the suburbs outside of Houston. Live a little further out in the suburbs now.
My school district (both where I went and where my kids will go) is 150,000 students. Being the suburbs, we didn't really have condos/duplexes, but we had upper-middle/middle neighborhoods, lower income (I guess..as kids we always thought we were better off than the neighborhood next to ours, but I'm not sure if it was actually low-income--prices vary from 60k-90k), and some apartments.
I was unaware of how many free lunch students there were. When I became an adult and began looking at homes to buy, I looked at those stats. Many of the schools in our district had at least 25% free lunch, and I feel like they were just fine as far as public schools go. They had AP and G/T classes that anyone could get into if you tested into them. I had good friends in those classes from all of the neighborhoods zoned to my school.
I think it works to have apartments near neighborhoods and zoned to the same schools. I don't think it works to have apartments IN the neighborhoods. When I see a new complex going up down the street from my neighborhood, it's different than having a complex going up in my actual neighborhood. It's a minimal offset to property values, and often times, the rest of the single-family homes will offset the 1-3 complexes within 2 or 3 miles down the road. But maybe Houston isn't a great example of the problem. It's so spread out, it's easy for things to coexist out where I live.
7
What our federal officials should be doing is promoting development in parts of the country that are not as densely populated. Steer people away from major cities, fragile ecosystems, dry arid fire prone areas, or areas with little water access. Build more high speed rail and other mass transit infrastructure in other parts of the country.
Can you believe that there is no direct railway line between Chicago and Nashville? A high speed rail would get you between the two cities in 3 hours.
This would alleviate housing shortages, water shortages and the devastating human impact on wild life and wild fires.
This is a big country. Does everyone really need to live in California or New York City?
50
@Maria Water shortage in California is not caused by human habitation, but by agriculture (a single hectare of pistachios uses an amount of water that is an order of magnitude away from household needs). Therefore the argument that we need to limit housing to have enough water does not stand.
Similarly there is largely enough space (given sufficient density) and resources in New York City for everyone.
There is no need to limit development, in effect letting prices rise until the poor are kicked out. People move where they move for good reasons, and as a society we should certainly not try to limit mobility.
11
@Bob Robert
Sorry, but much of NYC is subject to gridlock, and I'm talking pedestrian gridlock as well as vehicles. And, you know darn well the subway system is a mess. I never agree with further densification of urban areas without some means of moving people efficiently on the ground. There isn't a single urban planner who would say otherwise. Developers are happy to build high-rises, but, guess what, we still have the same streets and subways.
Maybe we should exercise 'eminent domain' and take all the Trump Towers and turn them into federally subsidized low income housing. I'd be fine with that--no population increase.
7
@CF That's assuming that densification will increase gridlock, which is actually not obvious: only if densification would avoid people leaving the city would it make gridlock worse.
If people keep coming and living in NYC despite high housing prices, then they will use transports anyway, and probably would actually use more of it if they are pushed further away from where they work.
And again, people can always come to NYC if they want, by paying the price of housing: the only way preventing densification would actually decrease the population is if people refuse to come or are forced to leave because of high prices. Is that really what you are advocating?
Subway (and road) gridlock in NYC is to a large extent due to MTA's poor management of its infrastructure: it is technically feasible to move far more people than are moved currently. Which seems a way better idea than just waiting until people are forced out.
Super interesting story as always from Emily.
Allowing diversity of housing choices doesn't have to mean large blocks of low-income apartments. A hundred years ago, duplexes and triplexes were permissible in cities and suburbs alike. It was not unusual to see elegant duplex townhouses built alongside mansions. So even on very fashionable streets you had a mix of incomes, owners and renters.
This would all be impossible today. It is de rigueur for wealthy people to spend their money to physically isolate themselves from middle-income and working-class people.
And then of course middle class people are always aping the behaviors of wealthy people they see on TV, so developments of $700,000 homes don't allow $400,000 homes, and $400,000 homes don't allow $250,000 homes. And starter home developments don't allow rentals.
Carson is right, isolating poor people in neighborhoods with only poor people has been a disaster. It is a worthwhile exercise for the federal government to at least examine how to stop this and encourage multi-income neighborhoods.
66
@Tom - When I am strolling Portland's old neighborhoods, I often see small houses next door to sizable bungalows; bungalows next to mansions; and now-coveted red-brick apartments of many sizes in all neighborhoods. I love this mix, and I'm sure it was painful to people at the time, just like today, but things evolve. Sadly, developers now just tear down the small affordable houses in good neighborhoods and build big new ones, lot line to lot line.
34
@Kilroy71
Yes it's the same thing in Philly where I live. There are 2 bedroom, 700-square foot row homes that were built for people who worked in breweries or locomotive factories. And right around the corner are elegant 3,000 square foot Victorian brownstones built for managers or other upper-middle-class families. These people rode the same trolleys to work; their kids played together and went to the same schools. And today we reap the benefits of economic diversity -- there are millionaires, working-class retirees, medical residents, nurses, bus drivers, bartenders. It makes living here so much more fun than the suburbs.
7
I was raised in the suburbs back in the 60s and 70s. Houses were smaller then. Children played with each other in their yards. Neighbors weren't afraid of neighbors. But housing was affordable then too. Even rental housing was affordable. Enter Ronald Reagan and the latter part of the baby boom needing housing and there isn't enough rental or single family housing available.
I can understand the NIMBYism. Apartment buildings take up quite a bit of space, can be noisy, tenants and landlords are not always nice, responsive to neighbors concerns, or clean. But the problem lies in how we view rental housing in America: as undesirable when it may be better for all concerned, particularly when the single family detached housing becomes too expensive for most people.
Owning a home can mean many things. It's a tie to the community but it's also a weight if you lose a job, need to move for a job and can't sell, or have gotten too old to keep the house and can't sell.
People of all income levels deserve decent affordable housing. We shouldn't have people who are working living on the street or in shelters. But when we allow unattractive affordable housing to be built we reinforce NIMBY attitudes. I think it's time for our country to decide what it wants more: people living in decent affordable housing or more people on the streets because housing is unaffordable.
19
I was sold the idea of the American dream my entire life. I sacrificed, worked very hard and saved money for a downpayment. I pay property taxes, state and federal income taxes and my mortgage - all on time. I am engaged with local politics and vote. But somehow I am selfish for wanting to preserve what I worked for for most of my life?
Housing is really not the issue anyway. Economic opportunities are vanishing along with the middle class. Fix that and get back to me.
113
@David Spell The problem is that housing construction has not been allowed to proceed in pace with population growth, especially in desirable metro areas. So someone today can also work hard and save - but never come close to the down payment on even a modest home. Yes, economic issues matter greatly - many in my generation are too saddled in student loans to save effectively, and wages have been flat for decades. But we need multiple fixes at once.
So, are you selfish if you now vote to block more homes in your area? I’d say yes, but then again, nearly everyone votes in their own interest, so I don’t think Emily’s piece was meant to badger. Rather, I hope you consider that preserving what’s “yours” may well lock your kids and grandkids out of a similar opportunity to secure their own future.
62
@David Spell You were sold the American Dream, which turned out to be a lie when the housing bubble burst in 2007. Perhaps you were lucky - so many Americans weren't worked hard and still lost their jobs and houses while the government rewarded them by bailing out the big banks instead.
That said, you live in LA where there are 58,000 homeless people, where many of them are making 6 figures and living out of an RV. So yeah, you are being selfish. You want to preserve the "character" of where you live at the expense of hard working people. You legitimately value an object, your single family house and property, over living, breathing people. Fix that and get back to me.
6
@David Spell Well if you are fighting for housing plans that benefit you even if they are detrimental for society in general, then yes you are selfish. Whether you work hard and pay your taxes or not has nothing to do with it.
4
I think it's a "slippery slope" issue. Many upper middle-class residents would hopefully not be threatened by a small proportion of "affordable" units that was not high enough to change the "character" of the community or its schools. But many people feel that accommodating ANY such development would be breaching a dam and making more extensive such development inevitable. There are many cases where this has been the result, with the aid of government.
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Like all the Trump's picks for secretaries and heads of various departments Ben Carson is unqualified for that position. Nuff said.
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@Alex Vine
Dr Ben Carson is the most decent human being that you could find.He was an internationally respected pediatric neurosurgeon at John's Hopkins.He admitted that his success was based on team work and he brought a great team together as the housing secretary
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This writer fails to mention that there is a rising YIMBY ("Yes in my Backyard") movement in San Francisco, Austin, and other big cities with large Millennial populations. It was discussed in another recent article in the Times.
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Even if the parties did adopt a cohesive national stance, would constituents adopt this as their own? Any declining property value would essentially amount to a tax on a household's savings - or the monetary cost of integration - that would probably be differentially levied on adjoining blocks or housing developments. It's much more palatable for a property owner to see that his/her broader community is sharing in the burden of a just tax, but I don't see Family A willingly accepting such a scenario when Family B on the next cul-de-sac sees no fluctuation.
Of course, the arithmetic changes when one incorporates and assigns value to "intangible" qualities beyond monetary concerns...
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Very interesting. Here in CA, we are wrestling with this issue of local v. state control over land use issues as a way to increase housing supply. And it isn't going well. Perhaps we need a bipartisan effort to push this forward - imagine if Republicans and Democrats actually got behind this movement by HUD. If both parties could actually push back against their respective constituency's resistance we might get some sorely needed housing built. I support any effort that will make housing more available and more affordable.
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We've been grappling with this issue for several years in my village, and it's a really tough call to make.
We had an old county building on a piece of land where developers were chomping at the bit to build a multi-family unit. It actually was a good location, in that there wasn't a lot of traffic in that particular area, so I think we could have absorbed any extra density pretty well. Ultimately, the county ended up deciding not to sell the property and they are now in the process of rebuilding the facility for a new courthouse. That resulted in lawsuits against the village claiming that it was trying to discriminate against lower income families (they were not), and the village name was raked through the mud.
Fast forward a few years later - a developer who previously purchased some land and wanted to build townhouses decided they now want to build multi-unit homes, a small portion of which would be affordable housing. This time the outcry was much larger, but not because of descrimination. The area around this new parcel is already extremely congested and the building would butts up behind a block of homes, completely blocking sunlight and sight-lines. Due to the previous lawsuit, the village was gun-shy and decided to allow the zoning change. While we would like more diversity in our community, this wasn't the location for it.
Like I said, it's a tough call to make.
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It doesn't take more than 1 or 2 negative experiences for people to reject broad moves to undo zoning restrictions and build mixed-income buildings.
If you had less-than-ideal neighbors in section 8 housing; if single-family homes in your area are being rented to a couple of families with a lot of kids; if "no zoning" reminds you of places with broken down cars on the front lawn; if you link public housing with increased crime.
This is especially the case if expenses are making it hard for you to save for retirement, and you see your house--and its value--as the one thing keeping you from destitution in your old age.
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@Talbot But you realize that you are describing incredibly self-centered attitudes, right?
The first one is basically “Go be poor elsewhere, thank you: I don’t like your noisy kids and your lack of taste in front lawn decoration”.
The second one is just ignoring the fact that the person who will buy your property will get poorer as a result; in effect you want someone to be poorer so you can be richer, because you think saving for retirement is too difficult (even though that someone might already be struggling to buy property, making even harder for them to save for retirement).
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@Bob Robert You've come up with a scenario where people should want to see their property value decline--or voluntarily lower the price--so people with less money can afford to buy it and save more for retirement.
Please suggest that to NYC apartment owners. Please encourage them to lower their prices so more people can buy them.
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@Talbot Well the real point is: do you think society would be better off with lower housing costs or not? Which I think it would since it would allow more mobility, less segregation and easier saving for retirement for the poorest (despite your example, poor people are the ones losing the most with high housing prices).
Then there are two possibilities: either homeowners are able to put their country's needs before their own self interest. Or we design a system where they don't have a say. Otherwise indeed: we have people's NIMBYism getting in the way of getting the right thing done.
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This is one thing I can agree with Ben Carson on. Mixing all income levels leads to more affordability and better community but also leads to better schools. It is no accident that the "best" schools are in rich areas and the "worst" are in poor areas. Politicians simply give the rich what they want and ignore the poor. Small towns with few schools and mixed economic levels show far better educational results for everyone than cities where the economic classes are segregated. Rather than busing students around - a bad thing for community coherence - mix the people instead. Then the poor benefit from the political clout of the rich.
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@Joe Rockbottom But they don't really "mix" - my children briefly attended a public school that was 50-50 upper-middle/free lunch. It was like a Tale of Two Cities and the wealthier kids, who by and large came from families that placed a greater value on education, were often held back by troubled, struggling children of lesser means, many of whom were chronically absent or came and went willy nilly. The utopia we dream of sadly does not exist. So every year, kids from the wealthier families leave for the suburbs and private school, tipping the balance toward the poor kids. It's a relatively new school but I have no doubt that in a few years it will be 80% or more Free Lunch kids.
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@Joe Rockbottom
It works in small towns only because the choice is love it or leave completely, there is no suburb or alternate nearby community to move to without moving away completely. Small towns are also extremely culturally cohesive with many fewer differentiating qualities as well as very few rich people and mostly middle class and blue collar people.
In urban areas you wind up with not only large differences between rich and poor but racial and ethnic differences which make it difficult to establish norms everyone is happy to live with. The norms middle and upper income (and usually white) people expect wind up being seen as racially discriminatory, leading to a lot of conflict that’s nearly impossible to adjudicate fairly. People of means wind up moving and end result is a declining neighborhood.
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@vmuw
It's classic tragedy of the commons. If instead of abandoning schools richer families stayed they'd perform a greater good. Unfortunately everyone acts in their own best interest. Sad.
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I've owned a home for many years in a large city in a neighborhood with mostly houses, one smaller apartment complex, and a couple of duplexes on my block.
That's the lifestyle I've invested in and enjoy, but I try to remind myself that others prefer to live in the way out suburbs and still others downtown in a high rise. A friend from London visited once and told me my city looks like a tiny suburb. It's often a matter of perspective.
I don't like taking a general stance on "density" because it's become an either/or question with people taking sides instead of discussing and respecting everyone's nuanced viewpoint over the issues.
One arterial street near me has been zoned for greater density and that has been beneficial because there are more stores and restaurants within walking distance. Unfortunately it has also led to more traffic and so it's about trade-offs. In this case I'm generally OK with the density increase.
But another example of increasing density that has been floated by city officials is to allow more more larger rental units in single-family neighborhoods. If you ask me if I would favor zoning that would allow a person to buy my neighbor's house and put up a rental fourplex, I would tell you that I would fight to the metaphorical death to prevent it.
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@Steve S Again: you haven’t invested in a lifestyle. You have invested in a house. You own a house, you don’t own the neighborhood.
Also, I can understand why given the choice you would not want a fourplex of rentals next to your place, but you do realize that by fighting it you are in effect fighting for someone else to hold the “burden” of having these four households as neighbors?
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@Steve S
And you're a NIMBY.
Allowing that duplex would help bring housing costs down for everyone else and provide more foot traffic for those nearby restaurants and stores.
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I'm in the middle of a gentrifying neighborhood in the middle of LA. The people who live and work here are being priced out of the city and forced to the distant suburbs, and the homeless rate is skyrocketing. It's frustrating that instead of approving higher density zoning on transit corridors and near where people work, people on all sides spend millions of dollars protesting even modest developments.
I understand that people are worried that new developments will be more expensive than current residents can afford. I understand that people love their cute enclaves. But while we keep saying "do it somewhere else" we've got an acute problem, with social, infrastructural, and environmental consequences.
I thought he was one of the most clownish of Trump's appointments, but if Carson can implement rules to override the bipartisan selfish gridlock, I'll applaud him.
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Many thoughtful, educated and affluent people are also for nonpolluting, renewable sources of energy - unless it consists of windmills that spoil their ocean views.
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@PWR
Have you ever been to Nantucket? I've never lived there, but we vacationed there once when I was a child and it's a national treasure. They were absolutely right not to want to build those windmills, and it's always bothered me that people try to turn this into some kind of class thing.
There are plenty of places that windmills could be built without causing that kind of environmental harm.
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@PWR You do realize that “thoughtful, educated and affluent” people are not a single homogeneous group? That people who want more renewable energy and people who fight against having to see the untold horror of solar panels or wind turbines are not necessarily the same people, and therefore that there is not necessarily hypocrisy there?
@Josh Hill Cape Wind opponents made mock-ups of how the wind mills would look from various points on shore. They stopped using the mock-ups because so many people thought the windmills looked nice.
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Many people are in favor of this -- for other people's communities:
"I support the idea of creating mixed-income, multifamily developments to help create affordable housing for those who now cannot afford housing prices presently. ... neighbors of many backgrounds being in close proximity to one another so having an opportunity to get to know each other and share in solving problems that they share regarding their community."
One wonders whether this commenter himself lives in such a community, or just thinks it's a great idea in the abstract.
My experience here in SF has been that many people say this and sincerely believe what they say, but they don't want it in their own neighborhood.
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@MyThreeCents
I do live in such a neighborhood by choice, and I'd be the first to say that it's not for everybody, nor should it be. A guy was once shot right in front of my house. Immigrant families play music outdoors in the evening. There was a problem with drug dealing -- thankfully gone -- and junkies break into cars.
Most middle class people don't want to live with this and they shouldn't be forced to.
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@MyThreeCents I am happy to live in the same neighborhood with anybody of any race, religion, color, ethnicity, gender or gender orientation, as long as they can afford a house nearby.
@Chip Me too, if, as you say, "they can afford a house nearby." It's purely economic, in other words.
Here in San Francisco, I've noticed no ideology-based differences at all when it comes to residents' reactions to multi-family units (which generally is considered to mean "low-income units"): residents of all political stripes don't want them in their neighborhood. Somewhere else is OK, but not in their neighborhood.
Developers have responded to this, limiting the number of requested units. Ironically, battle lines have shifted. It used to be (1) existing residents + city officials versus (2) evil developers. Now, at least in two very large projects planned in my area, the mix is (1) existing residents + developers versus (2) city officials. In the two large projects I mentioned, for example, the developers received only one major complaint from city officials about their plans: not enough housing. The city officials wanted more -- "more" meaning low-income. The developers understand that the higher-end residences won't sell well if would-be buyers understand there will be a lot of low-income housing in the area, and so they want to limit low-income housing. Needless to say, existing residents want that too.
SF city officials, however -- who live somewhere else -- want new developments to include many low-income units, to reverse or slow down the upward trend of housing costs in SF. And so those officials press the developers to add more housing -- low-income housing -- to their plans.
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@MyThreeCents: This statement simple doesn't wash, at least not in Boston:
"The developers understand that the higher-end residences won't sell well if would-be buyers understand there will be a lot of low-income housing in the area, and so they want to limit low-income housing."
I live in a high rise in Boston's Chinatown. The building is 50% affordable rental units and 50% market rate "luxury" condos. Over the past 12 years, we have never seen an issue with selling the market rate condos at full market rate.
The developer recently completed another similar complex in Boston's Chinatown that is 55% affordable rental apartments and affordable ownership townhouses and 45% a market rate high rise condo tower. Again, no problem selling out the market rate units.
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@Jeff: It is the same with us in Ann Arbor, MI. We moved from a "McMansion" area outside the city to the Kerrytown area in central Ann Arbor, to a luxury condo development that is cost us twice as much as what we sold our house for, and nearly quadrupled our property tax. The condo building is surrounded by a mix of renovated and unrenovated farmhouse-style houses that give the characteristic quaint Kerrytown flavor. Some of the unrenovated houses are at derelict levels, and there is a "safe house" across the street from us, with a parade of homeless people going in and out, and a low-income dental clinic next door. There are 3 other luxury condo buildings going up within two blocks of us, with others planned, and like ours, they are being snapped up at previously unheard of high prices. Nobody buying cares about the fact that it's a mixed neighborhood because there is no social stigma attached to living in one here. Sometimes, when we have friends visiting from elsewhere, I explain to them when I see them staring at some of the houses in "Green Acres"- condition that I find it marvelous that many parts of Ann Arbor seem to be free of the segregation of social classes. But I even feel guilty for thinking that I have to explain our neighborhood this way. Our neighborhood proves that there nothing getting in the way of successful mixed neighborhoods as long as people feel like their status is not being threatened because of narrow-minded perception by others.
I support the idea of creating mixed-income, multifamily developments to help create affordable housing for those who now cannot afford housing prices presently. This strategy seems to be one that would have multiple benefits: neighbors of many backgrounds being in close proximity to one another so having an opportunity to get to know each other and share in solving problems that they share regarding their community. There most likely would be a better chance of children from different backgrounds to go to school, play on teams, play, and study together. Our country would benefit if we can open our communities to all people in order to better understand each other and to create solutions to problems that will, in the long term, benefit all.
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@Patti Bezzo
"...the idea of creating mixed-income, multifamily developments ...seems to be one that would have multiple benefits: neighbors of many backgrounds...having an opportunity to get to know each other and share in solving problems"
Thats sounds like a worthy and lovely sentiment but its really fantasy and magical thinking. It describes a utopian land that has never existed here (or anywhere?).
Americans of ANY and EVERY political stripe - Republican, Democrat, Independent, Progressive, Conservative, Liberal, et. al. - do not want to mix with poor people! But not just simply 'poor'...no, its specifically uneducated, uncultured, uninvested poor people.
To be clear: the real denominator in our culture is not color but class and education and sophistication. Rich black folks want NOTHING to do with poor black folks, rich white folks want NOTHING to do with poor white folks, etc., etc.
Thats the real conversation and reporting I want to read about!
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A San Francisco ordinance requires developers of large residential projects to make a choice:
A. Devote a specified percentage of the planned budget to "low income" units.
OR
B. Contribute a higher percentage of the planned budget to a city fund that will be used to build low income housing somewhere else (not that that's actually happened, of course, but the fund is there).
To date, I'm told, every developer has chosen B. In other words, NO low-income housing has been included in any major residential development since that law took effect (not sure how long it's been on the books). There are two major projects in planning in my area, and both of those developers have chosen B, much to the relief of existing residents.
Say what they will, existing residents -- in SF like other areas -- are in favor of low-income housing, as long as it's built somewhere else.
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@MyThreeCents
Yes, but what's wrong with that? The housing gets built either way.
Low income housing brings crime and unsocial behavior.
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@MyThreeCents DC has a law similar to your option A, except that the developers are allowed to build the low-income units in a different neighborhood than the luxury condos they're building. Cute, huh?
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It's certainly an issue in Westchester. Developments take forever to get approved and completed despite the clear need for more housing. Obviously, developers should comply with environmental regulations and there shouldn't be massive tax giveaways to developers, but building more multifamily housing is good. I cannot for the life of me understand why some many folks in my community seem to prefer vacant ruins of old buildings or unused parking lots to new apartment complexes.
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@Z Well that’s what the article explains: very often because no development keeps property prices up, and because they are worried of who would move in. Whether it’s people who are too rich, people who are too poor, or people who are not from the “right” ethnic background.
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