Sadly, one of the things that cities are very efficient at creating is resentment in rural areas. There's a reason why "the heartland" views cities as crime-ravaged hellscapes, and it's got nothing to do with anything approaching reality. It's the mythology that rural residents have to create and perpetuate in order to dissuade their kids from heading to the big city.
Nowadays, of course, housing costs keep 'em down on the farm more than hair-'em scare-'em stories of feces-filled streets and marauding crime gangs. But the resentment remains, and is now coupled with despair.
I’ve also started wondering if there might be undiagnosed autism or social avoidance personality disorders among older people who are so sensitive to living in more densely populated places. The majority of people in my state came from back east or California, and they cite greater privacy and space as the reasons why they moved. It got me to thinking about settlement patterns during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when people first settled in East Coast port cities, then started relentlessly moving West in search of space. Maybe some people just can’t handle the stimulus of big cities, and they project their own dislike for the experience on everyone else.
As for Austin, I’ve seen other responses to the WSJ story suggesting another reason for the return to California and New York: Texas politics. If you work in the tech industry and are related to a girl or woman you care about, the potential harm from Texas reproductive rights policies could push you back to states that care about her life.
I have neither autism nor a social avoidance personality disorder, but I deeply dislike the stress and noise and constant stimulation of city life. Some of us simply enjoy quiet and solitude. Not every preference is a disorder.
Yes! I lived in Houston for five years while going to university, then for thirty one years I lived in Boston mostly while working at Harvard. While big cities were exhilarating as a young man, I grew weary of the noise and crowds as I aged into my fifties. Since leaving Boston for Blue Hill, Maine in 2020 with my husband I have enjoyed better sleep, and we get to see all sorts of wildlife around the house. Sometimes causing issues with the garden, but mostly coexisting peacefully. I do miss the art museums of the big cities, and the Asian grocery stores, and some friends we left behind, but nothing much else. Thankfully coastal Maine is chock full of liberal people and artists and musicians, though not all of the same caliber as those in Houston and Boston. So there’s only a little cultural difference versus the big cities.
You probably don’t actively despise urban dwellers. I was referring to people who really hate anyone who lives in a city. It’s one thing to peacefully enjoy quiet and solitude, it’s another to spend a lot of energy despising people who have different preferences.
No, I certainly don't despise city dwellers, nor do I believe the idiocy about cities being howling hellscapes. But your original comment seemed to suggest that those of us who are "sensitive to living in more densely populated places" and would "cite greater privacy and space" as the reasons are likely to be neurodivergent or have a disorder. I'm just troubled by folks pathologizing others' preferences (which I assume you didn't mean to do, but I'm afraid it did come across a bit like that). I wouldn't want to live in a big city, and I know many city lovers would be bored to tears in my quiet little town. To each their own.
I have never met anyone who "hated" urban dwellers. I have met people who could not understand what was so nice about the living in the city. I loved it. We moved to Chicago - but had to leave as we could not afford it. Big city = expensive. Bummer.
I come from a country that has a lot of high density building. (I lost my heart in Amsterdam.) The biggest problem is noise - TV/radio and similar, yapping dogs, children wearing "wooden" shoes on a wooden floor, adults having daily arguments, wind chimes. Apartments are often for lower income people and built as cheaply as possible. That is a serious mistake. Also you need to set rules re. use of common areas, discarding trash/recyclables, etc. "Live and let live" is for rural areas.
You’re lucky. I grew up in a region that was one of the later areas to be settled by Europeans, and there are a lot of people who really do despise city dwellers to the point it made me start wondering why. The rural dwellers in the PNW Great Basin are many hours away from cities and don’t have airlines/train services dumping city dwellers on them, so you would think they would be content. They are still constantly hostile to city dwellers. That’s why I started to wonder if the region happened to collect all the people who had some underlying issue.
I think some of that rural resentment and the willingness to believe urban horror stories derives from the fact that it’s human nature to believe the worst about people, particularly people you don’t know. Far too many rural residents rely on Fox News for information about the world beyond their horizons. Fox (and other right wing media) have done an effective job of narrowing the minds of their audience.
I'm not sure resentment plays much of a part in the desire for young people to leave their small towns. Over 60 years ago, I left my small north-Missouri hometown for college and never went back except for visits. I left because there were no opportunities. There still are no opportunities and most young people leave because of that.
Agree. Not many opportunities unless your family has an established business or it’s a boon/bust economy like the one I live in. I’m glad my daughter left for a large city. She has a great job, was able to buy a house at the right time. One thing she doesn’t get is clear, clean air. I have access to public lands and it’s wide-open spaces while she has to travel but there are many parks with lots of people. I grew up in a coastal city that I could never afford to live in these days even under a bridge. I’m now retired and like not having to deal with big city traffic and pollution but I do miss the entertainment and progressive minded people.
The resentment isn't really concentrated in rural areas. There are few rural areas left. Resentment may be in smallish towns, and the 'burbs. It's really hard to say. Basically it looks like resentment is loosely based on some fraction of people not liking, for no apparent reason, anywhere that isn't full of people who look just like them. Why anyone in Abilene would resent NYC, or visa versa, eludes me.
Correct, as far as land area. But prairie dogs and coyotes don't seem to resent urban areas. The population is largely concentrated in urban and suburban areas. The coastal cities which anecdotally are resented most are also the most diverse.
Rural, or non-urban if you prefer, folk are pretty much in the perpetual minority and losing ground every day. I know the structure of our government affords rural minorities outsized voice in decision making yet minority they remain. I think it to be expected that the minority would resent those who are basically "in charge" in a democracy, especially when told by predatory, grifting con artists that the majority is to blame for all their problems. "City slickers" is a pejorative of ancient lineage.
Almost. It prevents the poor people from becoming educated enough to find work elsewhere. The wealthier ones, on the other hand, have their children educated in private schools. They can leave if they like, or get a plum job locally.
Partly. But they also allow the gentry to reduce taxes and funding for the public schools systems. At least in the Carolinas, the goal there was to keep "those" people uneducated enough that they could not get decent jobs elsewhere.
Cities do not create the resentment, right-wing media does.
In fact, if you look at Hillary's deplorable speech in context, she never called all Trump supporters deplorable or racists, in fact the speech did the exact opposite and was kind and understanding.
However, fanning this division and resentment is what the GOP and right-wing media do.
Sadly, the MSM also seemed to enjoy hyping this speech in a false way as well once that began (CNN had pretty much 24/7 Hillary bashing with "baskets" and "emails").
Now Dems may be disappointed that too many have fallen for the propaganda, but the propaganda is well designed to do just that and if they do not venture out of the right-wing bubble, they simply are unaware or have heard the same mantra for so many decades now that it would be hard to accept that it is simply not true.
I don't know about any of you, but I do not hate GOP supporters, I just feel bad that the GOP have used issues that are often central and important to them and their communities to gain their support, like religion, and then tell them that Dems are somehow out to get them or hate them or want to take it all away.
Dems do not want to take away anyone's right to be who they want to be in this nation, only the GOP do.
The division and ideas of resentment is being intentionally manufactured by the right.
Think about what Trump always says, as well, "when they are out to get me, they are out to get you" The truth is that Dems and/or Biden were not "out to get him" law enforcement was. They had no beef with his law abiding supporters, only those law breakers who showed up at his request on Jan 6th and caused harm.
All of this said, all of us need to use our language carefully and not feed into the hands of the propagandists.
That resentment and the view of blue state cities as “hellscapes” is to some significant degree a created one - created by places like Fox News to drive division and the Republican agenda.
Yes, it is absolutely manufactured, although it did have some original origins in the dustbowl days where the migrants from devastated states were looked down upon when they had to flee to coastal agricultural areas that were less affected. But then, there has often been resentment and "-isms" and prejudice between the cultures of the haves and have nots throughout history, as well.
I recommend the book “Nature’s Metropolis” a history / analysis of the symbiotic relationship between 1800’s Chicago and its rural hinterlands. The book disproves the idea that there was an economic dichotomy. The cultural animosity was already present then.
I think what has changed is that the rural areas are much less equal partners since agriculture is mostly in the hands of large farms and the rural economy is controlled by banks and technology in a more extreme way.
When we visited our country cousins, they were sure to have tests laid out for the kids from NYC. I recall being asked to play the card game 52 pickup and not having a clue. The delight registered by our relatives when the plan was executed was the same provincials had for Romans a few millennia ago.
Well, I benefit from living in a LCOL small town about three hours from Chicago. I love cities but I’d never be able to afford to live in one. You can move from expensive area to cheap area, but without a lot of luck, you can’t move from cheap area to pricey area.
I live in a rural area, and there is a lot of resentment at the cities because most of the kids move away as soon as they're able. The cities "are stealing our children," as they say. Barely acknowledged is the lack of opportunity our here in the sticks--no real viable career paths that don't involve physical labor until your body breaks down.
One more thing: One reason why there are no viable career paths outside of physical labor is that the Wal-Martting of small towns has wrecked local businesses and made it so that entrepreneurship is an urban thing.
The heck of it is that there are any number of ways we could be helping revitalize small town and rural areas. Immigration, supporting new sources of revenue for these areas, going all-in on WFH.
But all of those solutions are anathema to the people who still live there, because any solution that revitalizes their economy would by definition mean a bunch of new people moving there, and they simply don't want that.
Thank you. One of the rural-ish small towns in Indiana has gone all in on attracting Latino immigrants who enjoy the country ways they grew up with. Almost uniquely in Indiana their population is growing.
Also unacknowledged is that most kids don’t just leave rural areas, they run while screaming on the inside, telling those they leave behind that it’s only about getting a job to avoid even more pressure to conform to repressive social norms.
I think you're right about that. My mother grew up in a small town where the old women of the town pretty much kept the young in check by being able to ruin their reputations. My father moved her to a small city. When she got old, you could see that she resented the fact that she didn't have the sort of power that she had to knuckle under to when she was a teen.
In that small city, it was possible for me to leave behind the mistakes I made in High School simply by changing neighborhoods. The neighborhoods are much farther apart for small town kids.
I grew up rural. My parents wanted little more than for me and my brothers to get out. (We did.) They were not unusual. My guess is that few minded until they were the only ones left.
In the country you got the sun in the morning and the moon at night and the sun in the morning and the moon at night and the sun in the morning and the moon at night...
So you never learned the beauty of wind rustling through a sea of corn stalks. Or to take pleasure in the variety of flora and fauna. Or the satisfaction of growing something like food, trees, and pollinator gardens.
The inherent value of such things to rural folks are generally not recognized by metro dwellers. And I'm sure the flip side of that is also true. We should celebrate our varied cultures.
Am I right in thinking that some or much of this is due to the consolidation of farms under agribusinesses and the extreme mechanization of them? As I understand it, family farms have become a rarity.
And then, of course, there's Wal-Mart coming in and destroying all the local businesses.
This a trope created and perpetuated almost entirely by RW media--especially FOX News--to directly support the GOP. By constantly--and erroneously--painting Blue-run cities and states as crime-infested hellscapes, they divert attention from the relatively higher crime and poverty levels of Red States, which seem less by comparison. As per the Nov. '24 IPSOS poll, 85% of GOP voters get some/most/all of their news from FOX News, and 80% of these viewers implicitly believe anti-Dem/pro-GOP nonsense, like that Haitians are eating dogs and cats in Ohio, or that the "Biden economy" was already in recession.
It's simply a fiction-based bait-and-switch by conservative media to keep Red staters pulling the R-lever.
Is NIMBYism the real problem, or is it developers who want to restrict the housing supply to drive up prices? Well established developers arguably benefit from red tape and land use restrictions to inflate land values and create barriers to entry to competitors. A sort of OPEC-esq developer cartel. I don't know how true this is but I suspect making housing more affordable will involve the government itself building a lot of social housing. In Singapore, for example, about 80% of people live in government owned flats. London is now starting to build council housing again at levels not seen since the 1970s - a long overdue development.
I think the “problem” is local control of zoning and permitting new construction. The people in local government are—and represent—homeowners, who naturally want their properties to increase in value as much as possible. More housing puts downward pressure on those values.
California is unique in that they passed a law decades ago to the effect that property taxes remain the same for as long as you own the property. This loads the tax burden on new owners. The intentions behind the law were and are good. It prevents elderly people from being forced out of their homes by rising taxes.
When home prices go up, houses can be re-assessed. However the property value can only go up by max 2% a year. (I did meet people who had managed to keep the value of their home considerably down over the years.) Most people stay in a home on average for 11-13 years. (In the past it was 8.) In CA the number is 20 in many parts of the state.
"The assessed value is determined annually by the county assessor's office, and can only increase by a maximum of 2% per year unless there is a change in ownership or new construction." It is not municipalities, it is the counties that set the assessed amount.
Which means if prices go up, your house can also be seen as worth more, by 2% a year. That does not seem like a lot, but if it happens three years in a row it is about 10% over the original price.
Well Prop 13 has been part of the reason little old ladies shore up in large houses-- it's too expensive to move, whether because they'd invoke higher property taxes if they did, or because there isn't enough housing period so there's nowhere affordable to move.
(N.B.--I think a proposition passed that would allow a body to keep their former property tax rate if they downsize--but that one change hasn't been enough to counteract an ongoing lack of affordable housing.)
That's the issue...I can sell my big family house in California and take my property tax valuation with me, but smaller houses cost as much or more as what i could sell my bigger house for. There aren't less expensive smaller houses to move into.
Yes. High margins on low volume doesn't produce the highest net margin for the company because of so much fixed overhead. In order to maximize profits, volume is necessary. Even at a lower margin due to reduced prices, the net margin would still be higher.
Now, that said, I don't think we can actually trigger a massive reduction in housing prices, nor do I think we should want that. We just need it to stabilize and stagnate for a number of years so that real wages can catch up.
The objective is to build so much new housing that the cost of a new housing unit (purchase price, or rental approximation price) is close to the cost of building a new housing unit. Currently, a new market-rate unit in NYC is priced far above its production costs due to zoning constraints.
I think the bigger problem would be the resale value of older real estate. This is why local governments choke off new construction—who would elect a local government that promised to enact policies that drive down the value of their real estate?
Depends. Where I lived the newer houses were not as nice, built on smaller tracts, etc. as earlier houses. Older neighborhoods often look better because trees are bigger, etc.
In many jurisdictions the plethora of short term housing has had an enormous impact on housing availability right from the planning stages. Developers continue to build tiny little one bedroom condos because they are easy to rent via short term rentals. Therefore no difficulty selling them to investors and they are thusly removed them from available housing stock. Housing as an investment tool has played a very large part of the housing crisis. And because tiny little condos have become the most viable option for developers, they’ve abandoned all other options of housing. No new co-ops nor 2 or 3 bedroom apartments have been built. Here in Toronto changes in zoning such as back lane developments to increase density are finally bringing about improvements in available stock. The city is also getting back into supporting the development of co-op housing & other affordable housing options.
Yes, I live in a neighborhood of a Brooklyn that has been experiencing a housing boom after the area was rezoned about 15 years ago. Picture a 40-story residential tower under construction on literally every block. That has been my life for the last 6 years. The pace has been amazing. Existing low-rise structures like parking garages have been torn up willy nilly to male space for these developments. If permitting is a problem, it is easily circumvented.
Mr Krugman did not address the actual big elephant in the room: well-intentioned but awful rent control and rent stabilization laws. These units lock up large swaths of the city and reduce housing creation more than zoning and construction permits.
(Some people blame historical landmark designations, but landmark neighborhoods already generally have very high residential density. For e.g., Brooklyn Heights houses its residents in brownstone apartment houses that largely cannot be torn up, generating criticism, but this neighborhood already has a density of 70,000 people per square mile, higher than the city as a whole)
I have an anecdote. On my block, a tenant in a stabilized unit was able to block the sale and demolition of the low-rise building he lived in by a large developer, who proceeded to build a ginormous high rise around his building in weird configuration. This revealed to me the power and influence of these laws, and the veto power they create. (The tenant, an elderly guy with a tailoring and shoe repair shop in the same building, has rent that was so low he reportedly refused a multi-million dollar payout to consent to the sale.)
Resusing existing buildings is also environmentally better, as you save the embodied energy. Something like 40% of CO2 emissions are related to the construction industry Iirc.
In Amsterdam, if you leave the Central (train) Station, you see a big hotel, built around a small shop selling souvenirs. The original owner of that house did not want to sell - like his neighbors did - thinking the price would go up further. It didn't. The builder of the hotel chose a different solution. At least that is the story.
I agree regarding the rent control/stabilization laws in New York. When I lived there during the 90s, they seemed designed to hurt the landlord. I was especially surprised that the landlords were restricted from raising the rent much after a tenant vacates. That makes no sense to me. (I am open to explanations though…)
Fast forward to moving to Los Angeles in 2000. The program here is exceptionally well-designed. Rent increases are pretty much indexed to inflation (although many landlords wait years before taking advantage of the increase option). When a tenant vacates, the rent is increased to market rate.
The downside is that only buildings erected prior to 1978 are under the ordinance. Every structure built after that date is exempt. I write “downside” because it means you are less likely to move around. This was certainly the case for us. We moved quickly upon arrival from one rent stabilized unit to a better one, paying a bit higher rent upon moving to affordable. Then as our neighborhood grew in popularity and rents skyrocketed (Silverlake), we were concerned about moving into a bigger place that wasn’t rent stabilized. We didn’t want to get slammed with huge increases from year to year. Consequently, it took years before we could find a place we could afford in a different neighborhood that was bigger and also rent-stabilized.
If all units, even luxury units, in the city of Los Angeles were subject to the rent stabilization ordinance, it would allow for much more movement between units. I believe this would stabilize the market overall for everyone. We wouldn’t have the disparity between the long-term rent stabilized tenants and those scrambling for non-stabilized units at astronomical prices. And landlords would benefit from returning their units to market rate at a much higher pace.
Yeah, when development is challenging and expensive it only makes sense to do it in the areas with the highest cost per square foot at sale, or in greenfield areas where there's no one to sue you.
Before all those new buildings, LIC wasn't such an expensive area. It's only after all those new super luxury apartments, co-ops and condos went up that the cost of housing soared. I watched the neighborhood change in just a few short years. Same thing in Downtown Brooklyn (which, despite the name is actually located in the northwest corner of Brooklyn). The Flatbush Avenue skyline changed drastically over just a few years. Across the Hudson, Jersey City also transformed in exactly the same way, and is now the most expensive city in the whole country. It became populated by Wall Streeters.
The idea is that these new constructions, even if populated by the wealthy, will draw them away from older housing in other parts of the city, so that they stop pricing out people with less money
The idea is that these new constructions, even if populated by the wealthy, will draw them away from older housing in other parts of the city, so that they stop pricing out people with less money
There are certainly some developers who are in effect in alliance with the NIMBYs, they are the medium sized developers local to the area with connections and specialized knowledge of the area which allows them to build on the few parcels available which are underpriced because of the nimby complications and the time it takes as a result. The reduction in rules via reforms of review or zoning would allow competition from smaller developers who could bring missing middle buildings online on smaller parcels and bigger developers with access to cheaper capital who could go bigger with easier compliance and less demonization.
I thought "infill" building is an expensive way of building? Most developers want land where they can yank out the trees, put in the sewers. (Or so I am told.)
I'd like to jump on the bandwagon that insists that developers are the problem but I have to note that materials and labor costs for housing have become an issue over the past 10 years.
In 2018 I added an addition to my 100 year old house. In talking with one of my potential contractors, I jokingly asked him how much it would cost to tear down the house and rebuild. He very seriously answered that it would be far more than I expected and this was mainly due to the increases in materials costs since the 2008 housing crash. Throw in the low interest rates that have inflated housing costs and it's not a good situation.
Yes, I'm a UK based architect we also have a major skill shortage, especially in specialist trades. Quality is often substandard as well. Brexit hasn't helped of course.
I think what some ignore is that over decades, housing now pretty much extends in CA from San Diego to Sacramento non-stop along the main freeways of the 5 and 405 where once there was miles and miles of farmland and rolling hills north of the Grapevine there are now suburbs and new and expanded cities and counties that were once largely farming areas.
I made the trip in my 20s and then late 40s and the landscape was unrecognizable, esp between LA and Sacramento.
There actually has been massive amounts of building for many decades, as people moved further and further away from large population centers to find an affordable place. When they did this, new cities and suburbs then emerged and businesses moved in to accommodate these folks but prices skyrocketed anyway because it could never keep up.
Why did prices still rage out of control with millions of new homes and apartments for hundreds of miles never ending?
Because people were still moving here for the jobs and the weather, etc.
CA has always had a build it and they will come problem.
Building more supply could never keep up with increasing demand.
As room began to run out and things became more unaffordable, regardless, and as more remote work became the norm, people from CA have moved to other states as well, to find affordable housing. I was one of them, and moved to AZ in the early 1990s as many did since AZ is only 1/2 day drive from Los Angeles. I am now back in CA as summers in AZ seem to get loner and overnight lows say above 90 for extended number of days every year.
Sure, you can build more housing and it will take some of the pressure off, but if the past is any indication, it will simply increase the number of people moving here and supply will not keep up with demand.
It may however take the pressure off housing in other states as people move back to CA avoid climate issues like hurricanes, floods and tornados. Although our inland agricultural areas now are sometimes returning to their roots as ancient lakes during major events and this may increase in scope and we have fire prone areas that need to stop building more homes, as well, CA is often the safer bet (so far) although we could get the "big one" of earthquake legend.
I do not see building as a solution to our homeless problem in CA, as I doubt CA will become more affordable as a result, but it still needs to be done since the whole nation needs more housing.
The fastest solution (in addition to more building, in general) would be for the government to build massive and free or cheap senior home solutions so they can downsize leaving more homes available in population centers for working age folks. Senior housing need not be near employment and mobile home parks can go up quickly. There are a lot of poor seniors who will need affordable options, as well, likely millions of them. This is one faster option in addition to others. Also, we need to reduce investor purchase of SFH and if they want to invest, they need to build.
Actually, I had just put my stuff in storage next to the Northridge mall and had moved with the intent to pick it up on another trip when that quake hit. The the mall parking lot pancaked as well as a building across from where I had lived also pancaking my storage unit. I had been doing some postbaccalaureate research but then once again headed off in a new direction to AZ. I was in town for the Pasadena one though and actually in Pasadena when it hit - that one sounded and felt like a freight train was coming right for you, it was so loud and violent and long, as well. Eventually we were able to access our stuff, covered in a lot of dirt.
Yes, tiny homes, but the issue is that people needing to get their lives back together need to be near jobs and medical facilities and counselling, so it is tough.
Yes, RV life is something many have also opted for, but I think they actually cost more than a brand new singlewide. The issue is then to provide seniors with a lot to put it on rent free, or low rent. It is very fast to simply create the hook-ups and maybe build them a rec room and a pool to stay active and healthy and then there needs to be some access to clinics, etc.
Oh my. So you could just as well have been in that storage unit at the wrong time? So happy you were not!
I see in many cities empty lots, tiny houses on wheels could be parked there for the time being. Real camp-grounds have toilets and showers, something similar could be put up there. Most cities have public transportation, and there is nothing wrong with a good sturdy bike or a tri-cycle.
Having worked with zoning limits on developers, I disagree that developers encourage restrictive regulation. Most housing developer groups, like home builder associations, generally lobby for less, not more regulation. I think the motive is the same you project, profits, but developers are not the bottleneck.
In the US and UK I think there is an alliance of convenience between environmentalists and existing home owners to create restrictions on new housing supply that lead to rising house prices. And rising house prices (or building wealth in housing) does not make a society richer. It just redistributes wealth from younger and poorer people to older and richer people who own housing.
The CEQA reforms are very good news for California's economy. However, my opinion is that they don't go nearly far enough. We need to give housing priority over habitat preservation and environmental concerns full stop. There is a very successful suburb on the Peninsula south of San Francisco called Foster City that is built on land reclaimed from San Francisco Bay. I suspect that many more suburbs like that could be built between San Francisco and San Jose. Many decades ago there were plans to fill in quite a lot of the Bay, and if California ever gets serious about housing then I expect some of those plans to be revived. Any such effort would attract vehement opposition from Democrats and environmentalists. It would require replacing the current California Legislature with something else, either Republicans for a pro-housing Third Party.
I don't think we should totally ignore environmental concerns nor do we need to in order to build the housing we need. Building on flood plains or watersheds, for example, is usually a bad idea for obvious reasons.
Which is why the CEQA reforms passed specifically target in-fill development, allowing builders who are converting parking lots and strip malls into housing avoid certain reviews. These were written by elected California Democrats, not Milton Friedman. They're overdue reforms to a well-intentioned bill that was significantly expanded by the judiciary that will improve environmental outcomes.
Before we destroy habitats and species that need to be protected, we could look at other, better ways of building. I lived in a nice one floor home in CA, in a street with houses all like that. (It felt like my husband had bought me Versailles.) More houses could have been built on the same acreage, had they been two-floor homes.
That requires removing all forests and trees, which, whether you like it or not, increases climate destruction. Wall-to-wall housing is catastrophic to the environment. Who wants to live in a hideous smog-filled hell-hole like Bejing, where it's like smoking a pack of cigarettes daily? You cannot ignore the health affects of overpopulation, forestation and pollution, not to mention the very real need for open space and recreation for all these humans.
The solutions lie in building up NOT out. Urban sprawl is the bane of all metropolises, most especially if it is all zoned as single family homes. Ergh! It is far too difficult & expensive to service, effectively killing cities through 1000 cuts. And never build in flood plains, that’s just plain stupid. Toronto learned that lesson in the early 1950s when Hurricane Hazel levelled all housing along our 6 river flood plains causing many deaths & widespread destruction. It has been banned ever since with all river valleys, ravines & floodplains designated green space. We are now blessed to have so much green space within our city.
I understand the concern, however I think you're misrepresenting the issue. It's possible to advocate for affordable housing while also keeping in mind the need to be environmentally conscious. I think we need to build more housing, but I'm not enthusiastic about "removing all forests and trees," as you mentioned, nor is that a requirement for development. And it doesn't necessarily follow that increasing housing will lead to "a hideous smog-filled hell-hole like Beijing." It's entirely possible to design and develop housing in a way that is environmentally sensitive.
We have regs here in Chicago governing the way new housing is built. In many new buildings owners must also have affordable units. In my building housing is mixed: we have seniors, working people with families, college students. The units are small but they do repairs when you ask. I know all the people who work in the building. Nice people.
I suggest NIMBYism is real. As an example, I note that in 1998 or so, an plan was generated to take a structure in Grant's Tomb that was not used. It was a roofed open sided space but long neglected. The site wanted to construct a visitor's center in the site- keeping the roof, and the collonade. But local groups erupted and challenged the project - the Tomb needed a public bathroom and a modern space to welcome visitors - atter all tje tomb was a mausoleum.
But eventually the legal obstructions stopped the project. A less convenient space - one flight down - was made usable. But NIMBY is a pain.
I'd argue it's the NIMBYism that's the main problem. Developers are a tiny fraction of the population, but time and again we see that people don't want new development near them. The American Dream was illustrated in a time when relative population was low, and anyone who wanted to live separate from others could do so easily. This idea has remained static in the face of rising population, so that people still like the idea, even though it isn't feasible any longer.
Plus there's, you know, racism. "Those people" could never buy the kind of houses in the kind of subdivision we live in, and we want to keep it that way.
Being private corporate entities, yes. The want maximum bang for their ... who wants to develop low cost housing when they can create luxury housing at greater revenue per square foot unless otherwise incentivized?
There is extremely low concentration of market power in the development and construction industry, which makes some kind of cartel incredibly difficult and not worthwhile to do. In theory, if the market was controlled by a very small number of big players, they might have some interest in reducing supply. In practice, when you have dozens of developers, with even the biggest only accounting for a few percent of the market, basically all of them have more to gain by just building more stuff.
Republican fear-mongering has persuaded many Americans that it is dangerous to ride the NY subway. This is nonsense. I am 84 and I ride the subway when I am in New York, which is usually about once a month because my younger daughter lives there. I never take taxis; they are slow and expensive.
One more point: NY is a vibrant city because of immigrants. Immigrants have revitalized many New York neighborhoods. I wrote about this in a book entitled "Walking New York." (Apologies for blowing my own horn.)
Singapore’s solution to public housing was to build large complexes and sell the flats at prices well below market to citizens. They allow them to borrow against their government retirement accounts for the down payment. The government maintains the common areas and as owners, the residents maintain the premises. The majority of Singaporeans live in these complexes
I was in Singapore a few months ago was astonished at all of the high-rise buildings with huge numbers printed on the side. I thought, "Wow. Do you tell people you live on the 27th floor of Building 836?"
I also found it interesting that when they're ready to build a set of 10 high-rise apartment buildings, they just build all 10 at once. Here, we'd build one and start renting out the units before starting construction on the second one.
As a person awakened by Jane Jacobs to the power of cities in the 1960s I found this post exhilarating. The number of people extolling the value of cities is far too small. Thank you, Dr. Krugman.
The American Heritage's motivations for promoting single-family homes are quite simple; single-family homes are not as affordable as multi-family, therefor, more exclusive (for White people). It's a filtering mechanism.
You need to already have generational wealth to be able to afford single-family homes. There is a high correlation between families with generational wealth and families with white skin.
That is not completely true. The difference is that with your own home you can decide when to improve what, based on income/savings. Maybe wait a bit. Do things yourself. In high rises there is the board, they decide what and when, and many improvements - in older buildings - are mandatory like sprinklers, fire-doors, alarm systems. Etc. There are common areas and there are elevators, all needing regularly cleaning and maintenance. Roof-repairs, tuck pointing, new window frames. It never stops.
Interesting that Project 2025 pushes for single family homes. Yesterday on NPR I heard a discussion about an epidemic of loneliness and the guest was explaining that until just after WWII, we mostly lived in multi-generational housing, with grandparents or aunts, uncles, etc., sharing the living space.
Both my parents grew up in such households, which provided a home for aged or orphaned extended family members.
Multi-generational is not for everyone. And those aging family members, they have a habit of getting older and older. When I was a child, 75 was old. Now 95 is. I blame the better health care.
As Dolores Hayden pointed out years ago, the United States is unique in having defined its notion of utopia (the American Dream) as a single-family home rather than any form of community living. This creates low densities that raise housing costs. But the choice is not limited to two extremes of apartment towers and single-family homes - there are other urban forms such as the mid-rise perimeter block with community courtyards that offer a high quality of life.
PK's headline Build baby build is our nightmare in Turkey. It's nothing but build, build and build here, not because of shortages, but because (public) land rent and construction industry is what finances politics.
I am currently in Bodrum, a summer resort among the worst affected by "building". PK's daily brief comes around at about 1:30 pm, just in time for my daily beer (I skip lunch at 80+ degrees). I take a sip and then decide whether I should be worrying about Turkish or US problems. Today it's not going to be the latter.
Does anyone here adore the Tiny House youtubes? There are 1000s of them, featuring normal people beating the high cost of rent and home ownership by going tiny, as they say. Tiny Homes are under 400 sq feet, so have fewer regulations, but they use vertical space to creating stunning interiors. They are full of clever storage hacks, use windows and outdoor add-ons to feel expansive, and are often clustered in trailer-type parks that offer many amenities and strong intentional community.
They are not allowed in most municipalities. At a cost of under $150K, they seem to me to offer a significant alternative for the increasing population of singles, though couples manage to live in them too. I suspect their lack of mainstream media attention is that they are low cost and minimalist. There are tons of companies that build them directly for customers, and others who DIY them. I have never seen anyone mention them in discussions of affordable housing, yet there they are, providing high quality of life for so many.
Because an apartment building or just a six-plex provides more space to more people at less cost. Tiny houses are fine as a thing but to resolve affordability you have to build loads of multi-family housing, and they often face as much resistance from NIMBYs anyway.
Most of the tiny homes are built on trailers to avoid zoning restrictions. Of course, if you buy a plot of land in some rural areas, there aren't zoning restrictions, but most people don't want to set up that way. The ones I've read about (I actually bought a book of designs) get parked in the driveway or back yard of relatives so they can run an extension cord to the main house and use the bath in the main house.
As someone who has spend almost their entire 20+ year career in tech in Austin, let me comment on a couple of things. The assertion that Austin lacks critical mass is completely false. The Austin tech scene is different than the Bay Area and if one hasn't developed a network here it can be daunting. The complaints about traffic and transportation are valid. It should be noted that the state of Texas has refused for decades to invest in Austin's infrastructure and we don't even have control of our own road projects. We get projects that nobody wants, that won't help traffic, but keep Abbott's buddies employed. Simultaneously, we cannot get the projects that we want or need.
I’ve lived in New York City for the past eight years. The subway is adequate, but I find it too crowded and often dirty. My salvation has been the bike lanes and Citi Bikes. Congestion pricing is a great idea—and it should be extended.
We need to increase bus service, add a modern tram system, and vastly expand our bike‐lane network. Cheaper Citi Bikes and other pedal-assist options would incentivize more people to cycle. Riding is fantastic for the environment, relieves traffic congestion, and gives commuters daily exercise. Best of all, rain or shine, you can still hop on your bike—my ride from Astoria to Midtown takes me less than 30 minutes!
In short: more buses, trams, protected bike lanes, and affordable bike-share options are the key to a cleaner, healthier, and more efficient New York City.
Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly. About everything ❤️🩹🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to those in your own state, and those in a committee that fits your topic.
All an excellent argument for land value rating to charge for the external benefits capitalised in land values - so you can take taxes off labour and capital and raise real wages.
Sadly, one of the things that cities are very efficient at creating is resentment in rural areas. There's a reason why "the heartland" views cities as crime-ravaged hellscapes, and it's got nothing to do with anything approaching reality. It's the mythology that rural residents have to create and perpetuate in order to dissuade their kids from heading to the big city.
Nowadays, of course, housing costs keep 'em down on the farm more than hair-'em scare-'em stories of feces-filled streets and marauding crime gangs. But the resentment remains, and is now coupled with despair.
I’ve also started wondering if there might be undiagnosed autism or social avoidance personality disorders among older people who are so sensitive to living in more densely populated places. The majority of people in my state came from back east or California, and they cite greater privacy and space as the reasons why they moved. It got me to thinking about settlement patterns during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when people first settled in East Coast port cities, then started relentlessly moving West in search of space. Maybe some people just can’t handle the stimulus of big cities, and they project their own dislike for the experience on everyone else.
As for Austin, I’ve seen other responses to the WSJ story suggesting another reason for the return to California and New York: Texas politics. If you work in the tech industry and are related to a girl or woman you care about, the potential harm from Texas reproductive rights policies could push you back to states that care about her life.
My wife and I left Austin for Sacramento about a year and a half ago precisely because of Texas politics.
Damn!
We here in Austin were hoping that new people would help turn Texas more purple.
If you take Calcium, also taking Magnesium is a good idea. But, what does that have to do with Dr. Krugman's article?
Report spam to Substack directly, not Krugman.
I have neither autism nor a social avoidance personality disorder, but I deeply dislike the stress and noise and constant stimulation of city life. Some of us simply enjoy quiet and solitude. Not every preference is a disorder.
Yes! I lived in Houston for five years while going to university, then for thirty one years I lived in Boston mostly while working at Harvard. While big cities were exhilarating as a young man, I grew weary of the noise and crowds as I aged into my fifties. Since leaving Boston for Blue Hill, Maine in 2020 with my husband I have enjoyed better sleep, and we get to see all sorts of wildlife around the house. Sometimes causing issues with the garden, but mostly coexisting peacefully. I do miss the art museums of the big cities, and the Asian grocery stores, and some friends we left behind, but nothing much else. Thankfully coastal Maine is chock full of liberal people and artists and musicians, though not all of the same caliber as those in Houston and Boston. So there’s only a little cultural difference versus the big cities.
You probably don’t actively despise urban dwellers. I was referring to people who really hate anyone who lives in a city. It’s one thing to peacefully enjoy quiet and solitude, it’s another to spend a lot of energy despising people who have different preferences.
No, I certainly don't despise city dwellers, nor do I believe the idiocy about cities being howling hellscapes. But your original comment seemed to suggest that those of us who are "sensitive to living in more densely populated places" and would "cite greater privacy and space" as the reasons are likely to be neurodivergent or have a disorder. I'm just troubled by folks pathologizing others' preferences (which I assume you didn't mean to do, but I'm afraid it did come across a bit like that). I wouldn't want to live in a big city, and I know many city lovers would be bored to tears in my quiet little town. To each their own.
I have never met anyone who "hated" urban dwellers. I have met people who could not understand what was so nice about the living in the city. I loved it. We moved to Chicago - but had to leave as we could not afford it. Big city = expensive. Bummer.
I come from a country that has a lot of high density building. (I lost my heart in Amsterdam.) The biggest problem is noise - TV/radio and similar, yapping dogs, children wearing "wooden" shoes on a wooden floor, adults having daily arguments, wind chimes. Apartments are often for lower income people and built as cheaply as possible. That is a serious mistake. Also you need to set rules re. use of common areas, discarding trash/recyclables, etc. "Live and let live" is for rural areas.
You’re lucky. I grew up in a region that was one of the later areas to be settled by Europeans, and there are a lot of people who really do despise city dwellers to the point it made me start wondering why. The rural dwellers in the PNW Great Basin are many hours away from cities and don’t have airlines/train services dumping city dwellers on them, so you would think they would be content. They are still constantly hostile to city dwellers. That’s why I started to wonder if the region happened to collect all the people who had some underlying issue.
I hope you were able to leave?
I left rural America because of Trump and Covid. Hate and stupidity was emboldened.
Yes, no one who loves women should subject them to live in those states with abortion bans.
People who live in apartments often complain about the noise of neighbors. Maybe better sound proofing between dwellings.
You see a lot of self care methods to reduce stimulus ... headphones and earbuds everywhere, all focused on screens ... classic adaptation.
I think some of that rural resentment and the willingness to believe urban horror stories derives from the fact that it’s human nature to believe the worst about people, particularly people you don’t know. Far too many rural residents rely on Fox News for information about the world beyond their horizons. Fox (and other right wing media) have done an effective job of narrowing the minds of their audience.
I'm not sure resentment plays much of a part in the desire for young people to leave their small towns. Over 60 years ago, I left my small north-Missouri hometown for college and never went back except for visits. I left because there were no opportunities. There still are no opportunities and most young people leave because of that.
It's the young folk leaving that causes the resentment.
Except the LGBTQ+ youth; that doesn't cause resentment. Unless they're trans athletes.
The ones who leave—like you and me—take a liberalizing influence with them.
Agree. Not many opportunities unless your family has an established business or it’s a boon/bust economy like the one I live in. I’m glad my daughter left for a large city. She has a great job, was able to buy a house at the right time. One thing she doesn’t get is clear, clean air. I have access to public lands and it’s wide-open spaces while she has to travel but there are many parks with lots of people. I grew up in a coastal city that I could never afford to live in these days even under a bridge. I’m now retired and like not having to deal with big city traffic and pollution but I do miss the entertainment and progressive minded people.
Bobby told Lucy, "The world ain't round...
Drops off sharp at the edge of town
Lucy, you know the world must be flat
'Cause when people leave town, they never come back"
Same here, I left in 1969 and never looked back. No opportunities, no culture, no kindness …
The resentment isn't really concentrated in rural areas. There are few rural areas left. Resentment may be in smallish towns, and the 'burbs. It's really hard to say. Basically it looks like resentment is loosely based on some fraction of people not liking, for no apparent reason, anywhere that isn't full of people who look just like them. Why anyone in Abilene would resent NYC, or visa versa, eludes me.
I would have thought the US has a huge amount of rural areas, although many may have depopulated in recent years.
Correct, as far as land area. But prairie dogs and coyotes don't seem to resent urban areas. The population is largely concentrated in urban and suburban areas. The coastal cities which anecdotally are resented most are also the most diverse.
Stop throwing all that food away! (See how nifty I tie one topic to another?)
Rural, or non-urban if you prefer, folk are pretty much in the perpetual minority and losing ground every day. I know the structure of our government affords rural minorities outsized voice in decision making yet minority they remain. I think it to be expected that the minority would resent those who are basically "in charge" in a democracy, especially when told by predatory, grifting con artists that the majority is to blame for all their problems. "City slickers" is a pejorative of ancient lineage.
There is a lot of resentment of well-off liberals in tRumplandia. So, what do they do? Make their schools worse - keeps 'em down on the farm.
Almost. It prevents the poor people from becoming educated enough to find work elsewhere. The wealthier ones, on the other hand, have their children educated in private schools. They can leave if they like, or get a plum job locally.
The (all white) private schools were always about keeping the kids of the wealthy from ever having to share space with one of those people.
Partly. But they also allow the gentry to reduce taxes and funding for the public schools systems. At least in the Carolinas, the goal there was to keep "those" people uneducated enough that they could not get decent jobs elsewhere.
Said the industrialist to the clergyman: "if you keep them stupid, I can keep them poor." (Old saying from my country).
“How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm?” was voiced eons ago.
Well at least since 1919.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zquvLQRpVyI
The reason is the right wing propaganda machine tells them about urban hellholes.
Cities do not create the resentment, right-wing media does.
In fact, if you look at Hillary's deplorable speech in context, she never called all Trump supporters deplorable or racists, in fact the speech did the exact opposite and was kind and understanding.
Here is the whole speech:
https://www.npr.org/2016/09/10/493427601/hillary-clintons-basket-of-deplorables-in-full-context-of-this-ugly-campaign
However, fanning this division and resentment is what the GOP and right-wing media do.
Sadly, the MSM also seemed to enjoy hyping this speech in a false way as well once that began (CNN had pretty much 24/7 Hillary bashing with "baskets" and "emails").
Now Dems may be disappointed that too many have fallen for the propaganda, but the propaganda is well designed to do just that and if they do not venture out of the right-wing bubble, they simply are unaware or have heard the same mantra for so many decades now that it would be hard to accept that it is simply not true.
I don't know about any of you, but I do not hate GOP supporters, I just feel bad that the GOP have used issues that are often central and important to them and their communities to gain their support, like religion, and then tell them that Dems are somehow out to get them or hate them or want to take it all away.
Dems do not want to take away anyone's right to be who they want to be in this nation, only the GOP do.
The division and ideas of resentment is being intentionally manufactured by the right.
Think about what Trump always says, as well, "when they are out to get me, they are out to get you" The truth is that Dems and/or Biden were not "out to get him" law enforcement was. They had no beef with his law abiding supporters, only those law breakers who showed up at his request on Jan 6th and caused harm.
All of this said, all of us need to use our language carefully and not feed into the hands of the propagandists.
That resentment and the view of blue state cities as “hellscapes” is to some significant degree a created one - created by places like Fox News to drive division and the Republican agenda.
Yes, it is absolutely manufactured, although it did have some original origins in the dustbowl days where the migrants from devastated states were looked down upon when they had to flee to coastal agricultural areas that were less affected. But then, there has often been resentment and "-isms" and prejudice between the cultures of the haves and have nots throughout history, as well.
"The Grapes of Wrath".
Yup
I recommend the book “Nature’s Metropolis” a history / analysis of the symbiotic relationship between 1800’s Chicago and its rural hinterlands. The book disproves the idea that there was an economic dichotomy. The cultural animosity was already present then.
I think what has changed is that the rural areas are much less equal partners since agriculture is mostly in the hands of large farms and the rural economy is controlled by banks and technology in a more extreme way.
When we visited our country cousins, they were sure to have tests laid out for the kids from NYC. I recall being asked to play the card game 52 pickup and not having a clue. The delight registered by our relatives when the plan was executed was the same provincials had for Romans a few millennia ago.
See also, snipe hunting.
Out West it's the jackalope:-)
I’d like to emphasize the concept of rural kids. This plurality is how cities came to be.
The spam bot is back. Reported.
It returned, and I reported it again.
That's all we can do. It's spam bot whack-a-mole.
Does this mean they are not poisoning our food to make us sick, and but will make us well?
"Auntie Biotics Snake Oil - Don't Diagnose, Dose!" Bill Mauldin circa 1960.
The origins of Dos- e- doh?
SPAM!
Cities don’t create that resentment, rural folks do. You gave the motivation on the last sentence of your first paragraph.
Well, I benefit from living in a LCOL small town about three hours from Chicago. I love cities but I’d never be able to afford to live in one. You can move from expensive area to cheap area, but without a lot of luck, you can’t move from cheap area to pricey area.
I remember my parents doing this. They knew no better. Simply repeating things they had heard. But resentment. I don’t think so.
I live in a rural area, and there is a lot of resentment at the cities because most of the kids move away as soon as they're able. The cities "are stealing our children," as they say. Barely acknowledged is the lack of opportunity our here in the sticks--no real viable career paths that don't involve physical labor until your body breaks down.
One more thing: One reason why there are no viable career paths outside of physical labor is that the Wal-Martting of small towns has wrecked local businesses and made it so that entrepreneurship is an urban thing.
And the Amazon-ing.
The heck of it is that there are any number of ways we could be helping revitalize small town and rural areas. Immigration, supporting new sources of revenue for these areas, going all-in on WFH.
But all of those solutions are anathema to the people who still live there, because any solution that revitalizes their economy would by definition mean a bunch of new people moving there, and they simply don't want that.
Thank you. One of the rural-ish small towns in Indiana has gone all in on attracting Latino immigrants who enjoy the country ways they grew up with. Almost uniquely in Indiana their population is growing.
It probably won't be after Vance finds out.
Many migrants are more "American" than regular USers, in my experience.
Also unacknowledged is that most kids don’t just leave rural areas, they run while screaming on the inside, telling those they leave behind that it’s only about getting a job to avoid even more pressure to conform to repressive social norms.
I think you're right about that. My mother grew up in a small town where the old women of the town pretty much kept the young in check by being able to ruin their reputations. My father moved her to a small city. When she got old, you could see that she resented the fact that she didn't have the sort of power that she had to knuckle under to when she was a teen.
In that small city, it was possible for me to leave behind the mistakes I made in High School simply by changing neighborhoods. The neighborhoods are much farther apart for small town kids.
I grew up rural. My parents wanted little more than for me and my brothers to get out. (We did.) They were not unusual. My guess is that few minded until they were the only ones left.
They mind when they want one of the kids to come back home and take care of them.
In the country you got the sun in the morning and the moon at night and the sun in the morning and the moon at night and the sun in the morning and the moon at night...
So you never learned the beauty of wind rustling through a sea of corn stalks. Or to take pleasure in the variety of flora and fauna. Or the satisfaction of growing something like food, trees, and pollinator gardens.
The inherent value of such things to rural folks are generally not recognized by metro dwellers. And I'm sure the flip side of that is also true. We should celebrate our varied cultures.
Am I right in thinking that some or much of this is due to the consolidation of farms under agribusinesses and the extreme mechanization of them? As I understand it, family farms have become a rarity.
And then, of course, there's Wal-Mart coming in and destroying all the local businesses.
This a trope created and perpetuated almost entirely by RW media--especially FOX News--to directly support the GOP. By constantly--and erroneously--painting Blue-run cities and states as crime-infested hellscapes, they divert attention from the relatively higher crime and poverty levels of Red States, which seem less by comparison. As per the Nov. '24 IPSOS poll, 85% of GOP voters get some/most/all of their news from FOX News, and 80% of these viewers implicitly believe anti-Dem/pro-GOP nonsense, like that Haitians are eating dogs and cats in Ohio, or that the "Biden economy" was already in recession.
It's simply a fiction-based bait-and-switch by conservative media to keep Red staters pulling the R-lever.
Is NIMBYism the real problem, or is it developers who want to restrict the housing supply to drive up prices? Well established developers arguably benefit from red tape and land use restrictions to inflate land values and create barriers to entry to competitors. A sort of OPEC-esq developer cartel. I don't know how true this is but I suspect making housing more affordable will involve the government itself building a lot of social housing. In Singapore, for example, about 80% of people live in government owned flats. London is now starting to build council housing again at levels not seen since the 1970s - a long overdue development.
I think the “problem” is local control of zoning and permitting new construction. The people in local government are—and represent—homeowners, who naturally want their properties to increase in value as much as possible. More housing puts downward pressure on those values.
California is unique in that they passed a law decades ago to the effect that property taxes remain the same for as long as you own the property. This loads the tax burden on new owners. The intentions behind the law were and are good. It prevents elderly people from being forced out of their homes by rising taxes.
When home prices go up, houses can be re-assessed. However the property value can only go up by max 2% a year. (I did meet people who had managed to keep the value of their home considerably down over the years.) Most people stay in a home on average for 11-13 years. (In the past it was 8.) In CA the number is 20 in many parts of the state.
This is not true in California. Prop 13 in California says that municipalities *can't* reassess houses except when someone sells them.
"The assessed value is determined annually by the county assessor's office, and can only increase by a maximum of 2% per year unless there is a change in ownership or new construction." It is not municipalities, it is the counties that set the assessed amount.
Which means if prices go up, your house can also be seen as worth more, by 2% a year. That does not seem like a lot, but if it happens three years in a row it is about 10% over the original price.
How does 2% per year translate to 10% in 3 years.
The UK has a similar problem, in that properties haven't been re-rated for council tax since it was introduced in 1993.
That doesn’t have anything to do with increasing the housing supply. That’s what this thread is about.
Well Prop 13 has been part of the reason little old ladies shore up in large houses-- it's too expensive to move, whether because they'd invoke higher property taxes if they did, or because there isn't enough housing period so there's nowhere affordable to move.
(N.B.--I think a proposition passed that would allow a body to keep their former property tax rate if they downsize--but that one change hasn't been enough to counteract an ongoing lack of affordable housing.)
That's the issue...I can sell my big family house in California and take my property tax valuation with me, but smaller houses cost as much or more as what i could sell my bigger house for. There aren't less expensive smaller houses to move into.
There's no ONE problem.
Developers are dying to build more. There is no cartel limiting supply.
But would they flood the market with new homes resulting in substantial price drops?
Yes. High margins on low volume doesn't produce the highest net margin for the company because of so much fixed overhead. In order to maximize profits, volume is necessary. Even at a lower margin due to reduced prices, the net margin would still be higher.
Now, that said, I don't think we can actually trigger a massive reduction in housing prices, nor do I think we should want that. We just need it to stabilize and stagnate for a number of years so that real wages can catch up.
Low wage growth is the other half of this story, which we know is ignored as often as possible.
The objective is to build so much new housing that the cost of a new housing unit (purchase price, or rental approximation price) is close to the cost of building a new housing unit. Currently, a new market-rate unit in NYC is priced far above its production costs due to zoning constraints.
I think the bigger problem would be the resale value of older real estate. This is why local governments choke off new construction—who would elect a local government that promised to enact policies that drive down the value of their real estate?
Depends. Where I lived the newer houses were not as nice, built on smaller tracts, etc. as earlier houses. Older neighborhoods often look better because trees are bigger, etc.
In many jurisdictions the plethora of short term housing has had an enormous impact on housing availability right from the planning stages. Developers continue to build tiny little one bedroom condos because they are easy to rent via short term rentals. Therefore no difficulty selling them to investors and they are thusly removed them from available housing stock. Housing as an investment tool has played a very large part of the housing crisis. And because tiny little condos have become the most viable option for developers, they’ve abandoned all other options of housing. No new co-ops nor 2 or 3 bedroom apartments have been built. Here in Toronto changes in zoning such as back lane developments to increase density are finally bringing about improvements in available stock. The city is also getting back into supporting the development of co-op housing & other affordable housing options.
In 2024, NYC added the most new housing units since 1965
https://www.6sqft.com/nyc-added-34000-new-homes-in-2024-these-neighborhoods-built-the-most/
The neighborhoods that built the most are mostly expensive areas. Long Island City/Hunters Point has displaced the old skyline with a wall of glass.
Yes, I live in a neighborhood of a Brooklyn that has been experiencing a housing boom after the area was rezoned about 15 years ago. Picture a 40-story residential tower under construction on literally every block. That has been my life for the last 6 years. The pace has been amazing. Existing low-rise structures like parking garages have been torn up willy nilly to male space for these developments. If permitting is a problem, it is easily circumvented.
Mr Krugman did not address the actual big elephant in the room: well-intentioned but awful rent control and rent stabilization laws. These units lock up large swaths of the city and reduce housing creation more than zoning and construction permits.
(Some people blame historical landmark designations, but landmark neighborhoods already generally have very high residential density. For e.g., Brooklyn Heights houses its residents in brownstone apartment houses that largely cannot be torn up, generating criticism, but this neighborhood already has a density of 70,000 people per square mile, higher than the city as a whole)
I have an anecdote. On my block, a tenant in a stabilized unit was able to block the sale and demolition of the low-rise building he lived in by a large developer, who proceeded to build a ginormous high rise around his building in weird configuration. This revealed to me the power and influence of these laws, and the veto power they create. (The tenant, an elderly guy with a tailoring and shoe repair shop in the same building, has rent that was so low he reportedly refused a multi-million dollar payout to consent to the sale.)
44% of units are rent stabilized in NYC!!
Resusing existing buildings is also environmentally better, as you save the embodied energy. Something like 40% of CO2 emissions are related to the construction industry Iirc.
Concrete is known to be one of the worst sources of CO2 emissions.
In Amsterdam, if you leave the Central (train) Station, you see a big hotel, built around a small shop selling souvenirs. The original owner of that house did not want to sell - like his neighbors did - thinking the price would go up further. It didn't. The builder of the hotel chose a different solution. At least that is the story.
I agree regarding the rent control/stabilization laws in New York. When I lived there during the 90s, they seemed designed to hurt the landlord. I was especially surprised that the landlords were restricted from raising the rent much after a tenant vacates. That makes no sense to me. (I am open to explanations though…)
Fast forward to moving to Los Angeles in 2000. The program here is exceptionally well-designed. Rent increases are pretty much indexed to inflation (although many landlords wait years before taking advantage of the increase option). When a tenant vacates, the rent is increased to market rate.
The downside is that only buildings erected prior to 1978 are under the ordinance. Every structure built after that date is exempt. I write “downside” because it means you are less likely to move around. This was certainly the case for us. We moved quickly upon arrival from one rent stabilized unit to a better one, paying a bit higher rent upon moving to affordable. Then as our neighborhood grew in popularity and rents skyrocketed (Silverlake), we were concerned about moving into a bigger place that wasn’t rent stabilized. We didn’t want to get slammed with huge increases from year to year. Consequently, it took years before we could find a place we could afford in a different neighborhood that was bigger and also rent-stabilized.
If all units, even luxury units, in the city of Los Angeles were subject to the rent stabilization ordinance, it would allow for much more movement between units. I believe this would stabilize the market overall for everyone. We wouldn’t have the disparity between the long-term rent stabilized tenants and those scrambling for non-stabilized units at astronomical prices. And landlords would benefit from returning their units to market rate at a much higher pace.
Yeah, when development is challenging and expensive it only makes sense to do it in the areas with the highest cost per square foot at sale, or in greenfield areas where there's no one to sue you.
Before all those new buildings, LIC wasn't such an expensive area. It's only after all those new super luxury apartments, co-ops and condos went up that the cost of housing soared. I watched the neighborhood change in just a few short years. Same thing in Downtown Brooklyn (which, despite the name is actually located in the northwest corner of Brooklyn). The Flatbush Avenue skyline changed drastically over just a few years. Across the Hudson, Jersey City also transformed in exactly the same way, and is now the most expensive city in the whole country. It became populated by Wall Streeters.
The idea is that these new constructions, even if populated by the wealthy, will draw them away from older housing in other parts of the city, so that they stop pricing out people with less money
Sounds about as true as "trickle down" economics.
It’s more straightforward than that. It’s supply and demand
The idea is that these new constructions, even if populated by the wealthy, will draw them away from older housing in other parts of the city, so that they stop pricing out people with less money
It's a nice idea in theory, but in actual practice it's a different story.
While this is difficult to observe anecdotally in a city where rents just keep going up, this effect has been carefully studied
https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-makes-homes-more-affordable-even-those-who-cant-afford-new-units
Well that's not surprising, I wonder how many of these homes are affordable?
There are certainly some developers who are in effect in alliance with the NIMBYs, they are the medium sized developers local to the area with connections and specialized knowledge of the area which allows them to build on the few parcels available which are underpriced because of the nimby complications and the time it takes as a result. The reduction in rules via reforms of review or zoning would allow competition from smaller developers who could bring missing middle buildings online on smaller parcels and bigger developers with access to cheaper capital who could go bigger with easier compliance and less demonization.
I thought "infill" building is an expensive way of building? Most developers want land where they can yank out the trees, put in the sewers. (Or so I am told.)
I'd like to jump on the bandwagon that insists that developers are the problem but I have to note that materials and labor costs for housing have become an issue over the past 10 years.
In 2018 I added an addition to my 100 year old house. In talking with one of my potential contractors, I jokingly asked him how much it would cost to tear down the house and rebuild. He very seriously answered that it would be far more than I expected and this was mainly due to the increases in materials costs since the 2008 housing crash. Throw in the low interest rates that have inflated housing costs and it's not a good situation.
Yes, I'm a UK based architect we also have a major skill shortage, especially in specialist trades. Quality is often substandard as well. Brexit hasn't helped of course.
I think what some ignore is that over decades, housing now pretty much extends in CA from San Diego to Sacramento non-stop along the main freeways of the 5 and 405 where once there was miles and miles of farmland and rolling hills north of the Grapevine there are now suburbs and new and expanded cities and counties that were once largely farming areas.
I made the trip in my 20s and then late 40s and the landscape was unrecognizable, esp between LA and Sacramento.
There actually has been massive amounts of building for many decades, as people moved further and further away from large population centers to find an affordable place. When they did this, new cities and suburbs then emerged and businesses moved in to accommodate these folks but prices skyrocketed anyway because it could never keep up.
Why did prices still rage out of control with millions of new homes and apartments for hundreds of miles never ending?
Because people were still moving here for the jobs and the weather, etc.
CA has always had a build it and they will come problem.
Building more supply could never keep up with increasing demand.
As room began to run out and things became more unaffordable, regardless, and as more remote work became the norm, people from CA have moved to other states as well, to find affordable housing. I was one of them, and moved to AZ in the early 1990s as many did since AZ is only 1/2 day drive from Los Angeles. I am now back in CA as summers in AZ seem to get loner and overnight lows say above 90 for extended number of days every year.
Sure, you can build more housing and it will take some of the pressure off, but if the past is any indication, it will simply increase the number of people moving here and supply will not keep up with demand.
It may however take the pressure off housing in other states as people move back to CA avoid climate issues like hurricanes, floods and tornados. Although our inland agricultural areas now are sometimes returning to their roots as ancient lakes during major events and this may increase in scope and we have fire prone areas that need to stop building more homes, as well, CA is often the safer bet (so far) although we could get the "big one" of earthquake legend.
I do not see building as a solution to our homeless problem in CA, as I doubt CA will become more affordable as a result, but it still needs to be done since the whole nation needs more housing.
The fastest solution (in addition to more building, in general) would be for the government to build massive and free or cheap senior home solutions so they can downsize leaving more homes available in population centers for working age folks. Senior housing need not be near employment and mobile home parks can go up quickly. There are a lot of poor seniors who will need affordable options, as well, likely millions of them. This is one faster option in addition to others. Also, we need to reduce investor purchase of SFH and if they want to invest, they need to build.
Oh! I love reading about people's experiences. Thank you!
We moved to CA shortly after you left(?), my husband first and he experienced the Reseda/Northridge quake.
Later on we lived for many years in the Central Valley - the cheaper part of CA. If you want to drive amongst flat fields, next time take the 99.
Tiny homes could be a solution for homeless people, until they get back on their feet.
But how about we give every senior an Airstream? I would love to have one!
Actually, I had just put my stuff in storage next to the Northridge mall and had moved with the intent to pick it up on another trip when that quake hit. The the mall parking lot pancaked as well as a building across from where I had lived also pancaking my storage unit. I had been doing some postbaccalaureate research but then once again headed off in a new direction to AZ. I was in town for the Pasadena one though and actually in Pasadena when it hit - that one sounded and felt like a freight train was coming right for you, it was so loud and violent and long, as well. Eventually we were able to access our stuff, covered in a lot of dirt.
Yes, tiny homes, but the issue is that people needing to get their lives back together need to be near jobs and medical facilities and counselling, so it is tough.
Yes, RV life is something many have also opted for, but I think they actually cost more than a brand new singlewide. The issue is then to provide seniors with a lot to put it on rent free, or low rent. It is very fast to simply create the hook-ups and maybe build them a rec room and a pool to stay active and healthy and then there needs to be some access to clinics, etc.
Oh my. So you could just as well have been in that storage unit at the wrong time? So happy you were not!
I see in many cities empty lots, tiny houses on wheels could be parked there for the time being. Real camp-grounds have toilets and showers, something similar could be put up there. Most cities have public transportation, and there is nothing wrong with a good sturdy bike or a tri-cycle.
Having worked with zoning limits on developers, I disagree that developers encourage restrictive regulation. Most housing developer groups, like home builder associations, generally lobby for less, not more regulation. I think the motive is the same you project, profits, but developers are not the bottleneck.
In the US and UK I think there is an alliance of convenience between environmentalists and existing home owners to create restrictions on new housing supply that lead to rising house prices. And rising house prices (or building wealth in housing) does not make a society richer. It just redistributes wealth from younger and poorer people to older and richer people who own housing.
The CEQA reforms are very good news for California's economy. However, my opinion is that they don't go nearly far enough. We need to give housing priority over habitat preservation and environmental concerns full stop. There is a very successful suburb on the Peninsula south of San Francisco called Foster City that is built on land reclaimed from San Francisco Bay. I suspect that many more suburbs like that could be built between San Francisco and San Jose. Many decades ago there were plans to fill in quite a lot of the Bay, and if California ever gets serious about housing then I expect some of those plans to be revived. Any such effort would attract vehement opposition from Democrats and environmentalists. It would require replacing the current California Legislature with something else, either Republicans for a pro-housing Third Party.
I don't think we should totally ignore environmental concerns nor do we need to in order to build the housing we need. Building on flood plains or watersheds, for example, is usually a bad idea for obvious reasons.
Which is why the CEQA reforms passed specifically target in-fill development, allowing builders who are converting parking lots and strip malls into housing avoid certain reviews. These were written by elected California Democrats, not Milton Friedman. They're overdue reforms to a well-intentioned bill that was significantly expanded by the judiciary that will improve environmental outcomes.
Before we destroy habitats and species that need to be protected, we could look at other, better ways of building. I lived in a nice one floor home in CA, in a street with houses all like that. (It felt like my husband had bought me Versailles.) More houses could have been built on the same acreage, had they been two-floor homes.
That requires removing all forests and trees, which, whether you like it or not, increases climate destruction. Wall-to-wall housing is catastrophic to the environment. Who wants to live in a hideous smog-filled hell-hole like Bejing, where it's like smoking a pack of cigarettes daily? You cannot ignore the health affects of overpopulation, forestation and pollution, not to mention the very real need for open space and recreation for all these humans.
The solutions lie in building up NOT out. Urban sprawl is the bane of all metropolises, most especially if it is all zoned as single family homes. Ergh! It is far too difficult & expensive to service, effectively killing cities through 1000 cuts. And never build in flood plains, that’s just plain stupid. Toronto learned that lesson in the early 1950s when Hurricane Hazel levelled all housing along our 6 river flood plains causing many deaths & widespread destruction. It has been banned ever since with all river valleys, ravines & floodplains designated green space. We are now blessed to have so much green space within our city.
I understand the concern, however I think you're misrepresenting the issue. It's possible to advocate for affordable housing while also keeping in mind the need to be environmentally conscious. I think we need to build more housing, but I'm not enthusiastic about "removing all forests and trees," as you mentioned, nor is that a requirement for development. And it doesn't necessarily follow that increasing housing will lead to "a hideous smog-filled hell-hole like Beijing." It's entirely possible to design and develop housing in a way that is environmentally sensitive.
We have regs here in Chicago governing the way new housing is built. In many new buildings owners must also have affordable units. In my building housing is mixed: we have seniors, working people with families, college students. The units are small but they do repairs when you ask. I know all the people who work in the building. Nice people.
I suggest NIMBYism is real. As an example, I note that in 1998 or so, an plan was generated to take a structure in Grant's Tomb that was not used. It was a roofed open sided space but long neglected. The site wanted to construct a visitor's center in the site- keeping the roof, and the collonade. But local groups erupted and challenged the project - the Tomb needed a public bathroom and a modern space to welcome visitors - atter all tje tomb was a mausoleum.
But eventually the legal obstructions stopped the project. A less convenient space - one flight down - was made usable. But NIMBY is a pain.
I'd argue it's the NIMBYism that's the main problem. Developers are a tiny fraction of the population, but time and again we see that people don't want new development near them. The American Dream was illustrated in a time when relative population was low, and anyone who wanted to live separate from others could do so easily. This idea has remained static in the face of rising population, so that people still like the idea, even though it isn't feasible any longer.
Plus there's, you know, racism. "Those people" could never buy the kind of houses in the kind of subdivision we live in, and we want to keep it that way.
Don't pretend it's not real.
Being private corporate entities, yes. The want maximum bang for their ... who wants to develop low cost housing when they can create luxury housing at greater revenue per square foot unless otherwise incentivized?
There is extremely low concentration of market power in the development and construction industry, which makes some kind of cartel incredibly difficult and not worthwhile to do. In theory, if the market was controlled by a very small number of big players, they might have some interest in reducing supply. In practice, when you have dozens of developers, with even the biggest only accounting for a few percent of the market, basically all of them have more to gain by just building more stuff.
Ever been to a planning commission meeting? It’s NIMBYism.
That’s great, we need to learn from other countries and England seemed to be almost worse than the US in terms of being unable to build
Republican fear-mongering has persuaded many Americans that it is dangerous to ride the NY subway. This is nonsense. I am 84 and I ride the subway when I am in New York, which is usually about once a month because my younger daughter lives there. I never take taxis; they are slow and expensive.
One more point: NY is a vibrant city because of immigrants. Immigrants have revitalized many New York neighborhoods. I wrote about this in a book entitled "Walking New York." (Apologies for blowing my own horn.)
"One more point: NY is a vibrant city because of immigrants."
Hmm. Definitely not the same Stephen Miller.
Correct.
Singapore’s solution to public housing was to build large complexes and sell the flats at prices well below market to citizens. They allow them to borrow against their government retirement accounts for the down payment. The government maintains the common areas and as owners, the residents maintain the premises. The majority of Singaporeans live in these complexes
I was in Singapore a few months ago was astonished at all of the high-rise buildings with huge numbers printed on the side. I thought, "Wow. Do you tell people you live on the 27th floor of Building 836?"
I also found it interesting that when they're ready to build a set of 10 high-rise apartment buildings, they just build all 10 at once. Here, we'd build one and start renting out the units before starting construction on the second one.
Yes, those are HDB public housing. It’s a small island, so the only way to build is up
As a person awakened by Jane Jacobs to the power of cities in the 1960s I found this post exhilarating. The number of people extolling the value of cities is far too small. Thank you, Dr. Krugman.
You may enjoy books by Mark Van Hoenacker as well!
Thank you, I'll take a look!
The American Heritage's motivations for promoting single-family homes are quite simple; single-family homes are not as affordable as multi-family, therefor, more exclusive (for White people). It's a filtering mechanism.
You need to already have generational wealth to be able to afford single-family homes. There is a high correlation between families with generational wealth and families with white skin.
That is not completely true. The difference is that with your own home you can decide when to improve what, based on income/savings. Maybe wait a bit. Do things yourself. In high rises there is the board, they decide what and when, and many improvements - in older buildings - are mandatory like sprinklers, fire-doors, alarm systems. Etc. There are common areas and there are elevators, all needing regularly cleaning and maintenance. Roof-repairs, tuck pointing, new window frames. It never stops.
Interesting that Project 2025 pushes for single family homes. Yesterday on NPR I heard a discussion about an epidemic of loneliness and the guest was explaining that until just after WWII, we mostly lived in multi-generational housing, with grandparents or aunts, uncles, etc., sharing the living space.
Both my parents grew up in such households, which provided a home for aged or orphaned extended family members.
Multi-generational is not for everyone. And those aging family members, they have a habit of getting older and older. When I was a child, 75 was old. Now 95 is. I blame the better health care.
As Dolores Hayden pointed out years ago, the United States is unique in having defined its notion of utopia (the American Dream) as a single-family home rather than any form of community living. This creates low densities that raise housing costs. But the choice is not limited to two extremes of apartment towers and single-family homes - there are other urban forms such as the mid-rise perimeter block with community courtyards that offer a high quality of life.
".... it seems that the state has gone beyond NIMBY to BANANA — build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone."
My new phavorite acronym: BANANA!
PK's headline Build baby build is our nightmare in Turkey. It's nothing but build, build and build here, not because of shortages, but because (public) land rent and construction industry is what finances politics.
I am currently in Bodrum, a summer resort among the worst affected by "building". PK's daily brief comes around at about 1:30 pm, just in time for my daily beer (I skip lunch at 80+ degrees). I take a sip and then decide whether I should be worrying about Turkish or US problems. Today it's not going to be the latter.
I hear there's a lot of illegal construction going on in Turkey not to mention endemic corruption, neither of which helps promote good development.
All true
Oh! Are you Turkish by origin? Or did you move there?
Turkish by origin
Does anyone here adore the Tiny House youtubes? There are 1000s of them, featuring normal people beating the high cost of rent and home ownership by going tiny, as they say. Tiny Homes are under 400 sq feet, so have fewer regulations, but they use vertical space to creating stunning interiors. They are full of clever storage hacks, use windows and outdoor add-ons to feel expansive, and are often clustered in trailer-type parks that offer many amenities and strong intentional community.
They are not allowed in most municipalities. At a cost of under $150K, they seem to me to offer a significant alternative for the increasing population of singles, though couples manage to live in them too. I suspect their lack of mainstream media attention is that they are low cost and minimalist. There are tons of companies that build them directly for customers, and others who DIY them. I have never seen anyone mention them in discussions of affordable housing, yet there they are, providing high quality of life for so many.
Because an apartment building or just a six-plex provides more space to more people at less cost. Tiny houses are fine as a thing but to resolve affordability you have to build loads of multi-family housing, and they often face as much resistance from NIMBYs anyway.
Most of the tiny homes are built on trailers to avoid zoning restrictions. Of course, if you buy a plot of land in some rural areas, there aren't zoning restrictions, but most people don't want to set up that way. The ones I've read about (I actually bought a book of designs) get parked in the driveway or back yard of relatives so they can run an extension cord to the main house and use the bath in the main house.
As someone who has spend almost their entire 20+ year career in tech in Austin, let me comment on a couple of things. The assertion that Austin lacks critical mass is completely false. The Austin tech scene is different than the Bay Area and if one hasn't developed a network here it can be daunting. The complaints about traffic and transportation are valid. It should be noted that the state of Texas has refused for decades to invest in Austin's infrastructure and we don't even have control of our own road projects. We get projects that nobody wants, that won't help traffic, but keep Abbott's buddies employed. Simultaneously, we cannot get the projects that we want or need.
Thanks to Charles Komanoff for NYC's congestion charge!
Well done, Charles.
Ralph Chapman, New Zealand
I’ve lived in New York City for the past eight years. The subway is adequate, but I find it too crowded and often dirty. My salvation has been the bike lanes and Citi Bikes. Congestion pricing is a great idea—and it should be extended.
We need to increase bus service, add a modern tram system, and vastly expand our bike‐lane network. Cheaper Citi Bikes and other pedal-assist options would incentivize more people to cycle. Riding is fantastic for the environment, relieves traffic congestion, and gives commuters daily exercise. Best of all, rain or shine, you can still hop on your bike—my ride from Astoria to Midtown takes me less than 30 minutes!
In short: more buses, trams, protected bike lanes, and affordable bike-share options are the key to a cleaner, healthier, and more efficient New York City.
Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly. About everything ❤️🩹🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to those in your own state, and those in a committee that fits your topic.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13lYafj0P-6owAJcH-5_xcpcRvMUZI7rkBPW-Ma9e7hw/edit?usp=drivesdk
All an excellent argument for land value rating to charge for the external benefits capitalised in land values - so you can take taxes off labour and capital and raise real wages.