this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
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The problem is that people say the latter as if it's a solution on its own without also doing the former.
To my knowledge absolutely no one saying "Ban landlords" is also saying "Don't build any more housing." But there are plenty of people who think that you can build housing, in an environment where rich landowners have the ability to buy up and hoard everything you build, and don't comprehend that this in no way solves the problem.
There are plenty of people (EDIT: some of whom are in this very thread) who like to site that there are more vacant houses in the country than there are homeless people, as if to imply we already have all the housing we need.
But the fact of the matter is that US and Canadian cities have increased in population without a proportional increase in housing stock. The difference is mostly made up by more people living with their parents into adulthood, people living with more roommates to make rent, and multiple families living in "single family" houses.
We don't do anything about it because home owners treat housing as an investment and expect its price to keep going up forever. Also because people hate multi-unit residential buildings for all sorts of nonsensical and racist reasons.
To be clear I am an advocate for the Vienna model of public housing and programs that temporarily repossess and rent out vacant properties, but I am first and foremost an advocate for housing abundance.
I feel like you're taking very much the wrong implication from that statement then. Again, I can't seem to see any meaningful number of these people actively advocating against building more housing. That doesn't seem to be a position that anyone seriously takes. What is being said is that we clearly have capacity that is not being properly utilized. And we're both clearly in agreement as to why that's the case.
I think it's important to remember that when people are pushing back on a position generally held in bad faith (e.g. "The only solution to our housing crisis is to build more housing", a framing that is basically designed to protect the wealthy and ultimately maintain the status quo), they're going to frame their own arguments against the position they're pushing back on. They're not laying out an election platform. They're not going to take the time to establish the specific nuances of their position for every possible context and audience. If you were to ask that same person "Do you think we should never build any more housing, ever" the percentage that are going to say "Yes" is going to be a rounding error. You have to read people's arguments in the context in which they are given.
When you say "doing the former" what specifically do mean?
Empirically, building more housing does lower the cost of rent. See Austin for an example. But yeah there is more that could be done for sure.
No to deporting immigrants. Yes to banning landlords. For everything else, see my original comment.
And it's not that building more housing doesn't help, but on its own it will never be a solution.
As long as housing is an investment, there has to be a housing crisis. Because if the price of housing isn't on a constant upward trend then it no longer functions as an investment, and the only way to ensure that the price of housing constantly increases is for the supply to be insufficient to meet demand. No matter how much housing you build, wealthy investors will always ensure that it is insufficient to meet demand, because they'd be bad investors if they didn't.
100% Agree
I'm not sure how banning landlords works though. Like everybody has to own their own house? What about apartment buildings or people living somewhere for the short-term? Or are you think like where the government is the landlord for everybody - sort of like Vienna?
Let me clarify; I personally believe in banning the existence of private landlords.
I would propose a housing model where rental housing is handled by regional Crown corporations (this is a specifically Canadian concept, but the model translates easily; its a not-for-profit company established by the government with a legal obligation to follow their founding charter, but with no other involvement in from the government, except potentially as a funding stream).
These corporations would buy up available housing to meet rental demand, and rent at prices determined by an established formula, calculated not to exceed a set percentage of mean regional incomes. Access to in demand units would be handled via waiting lists.
Renters would be given the option to buy out their homes (possibly with a rent to own program), and the corporations would have a mandate to build new supply which they would then sell on the market or rent out, as fits local needs. Some amount of supply would always be reserved for rentals, because there will always be a demand for rentals, even if housing is affordable (sometimes you're only living somewhere for a short while). Its conceivable that some rental units would ineligible for buy out because of the importance of maintaining rental supply in that area.
Standard disclaimer: This is not two hundred page policy paper, nor has it gone through the months of expert review and study that would precede the enactment of an actual policy like this. If your entire criticism is "Ah but you haven't thought of tiny detail X" stop and ask yourself "Does this actually undermine the entire idea in a truly fundamental way, or is it just a detail of implementation?"
I need you to learn about the California city of Berkeley, where it is illegal to build more housing because it might cast too much shade and disrupt your neighbor’s hobbyist tomato garden.
You probably read that and thought I was exaggerating for effect. I am not.
You need to read my comment again, a little more carefully this time.