How should the U.S. address its ongoing housing crisis?

[Christian Confederation]

Some people just don't want a house

[Shofercia]

Property taxes pay for city services, which are done on a per person basis, not a per property basis.

Please, tell me more about how everyone in the US, or possibly just California, has personal rubbish bins.

The more people there are in a household, the more often the rubbish bins have to be picked up, all else being equal.

A house doesn't flush its own toilets.

Does the US (or California) not have metered water? Fucking socialists.

The more people live in a household, the more often the bathrooms and kitchen are used, hence the more water is used. The more water is used, the more water needs to be brought, irrespective of where the meters are positioned.

Cars don't start driving themselves for shits and giggles.Even the smart cars require a person to program the route. The point that property taxes are collected on property basis is meaningless to my argument.

Your argument is meaningless so that's not a surprise.

Forsher: "Your arguments are meaningless"
Also Forsher: *makes several posts to take down meaningless arguments*
Conclusion: either Forsher loves to waste his time attacking meaningless arguments, or the arguments aren't meaningless. I'll let you pick whichever one you want.

The reason that I've brought up the bang for the buck point, one that you've heroically misunderstood Forsher, is to point out that you need it to pay for services used by people, rather than land, or cars, or houses.

Let's think about this for a moment...

is it cheaper to provide a school for a neighbourhood where everyone who attends can walk to it, or one in which everyone drives... thus necessitating parking management strategies, traffic demand management strategies, environment quality management strategies, traffic safety management strategies, road maintenance etc. etc. etc.

If this is your actual point, Shof, you should probably learn about this thing called "costs", not "revenue", because you're talking about costs, not revenue.

In order to pay for costs, you need to raise revenue, so when I was talking about a per person bang for the buck, I was actually talking about profit, which is revenue - costs. Also, most schools in densely populated areas are within walking distance, and I certainly didn't drive to school, despite living in low density residential areas. The students who drove to school did it to show off their cars or got into the school on a lottery because they were from another neighborhood.

[Shofercia]

Watch the videos.

I'm not going to watch YouTube videos simply because you're unable to provide a single city's name. You can type in a city's name, without the need for a YouTube link.

[Thermodolia]

Some people just don't want a house

Most people can’t afford a house

[Shofercia]

Why is real estate such a lucrative business in the west to begin with? Block foreign investors from scraping housing units and place restrictions on construction firms such that modern business abuses become less profitable. Then, provide free housing for students and low-income families. "One person one house" is a dumb workaround and hasn't solved China's housing crisis.

That would make too much sense, so watch it get shouted down, even on NSG. Also, I'd limit domestic investors as well, since foreigners would be able to purchase it through domestic investment.

[Shofercia]

Some people just don't want a house

Most people can’t afford a house

https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/file ... spress.pdf

RESIDENTIAL VACANCIES
AND HOMEOWNERSHIP
FIRST QUARTER 2021

Rental Vacancy Rate 6.8%
Homeowner Vacancy Rate 0.9%
Homeownership Rate 65.6%

I think that 65.6% qualifies as "most" but I could be wrong in theory...

[Mercatus]

It’s simple: the US govt should do nothing and stop using our tax money to solve other’s problems.

Let the free market be the free market. If you made mistakes and now you can’t afford a house, then that’s your fault.

[Shofercia]

It’s simple: the US govt should do nothing and stop using our tax money to solve other’s problems.

Let the free market be the free market. If you made mistakes and now you can’t afford a house, then that’s your fault.

So if you lost your job through no fault of your own, you shouldn't get a break when it comes to your mortgage, and end up being kicked out on the street, even though you've been a productive member of society until that point, and you're likely to find a job within 6 months and get back to paying your rent/mortgage?

[Forsher]

Please, tell me more about how everyone in the US, or possibly just California, has personal rubbish bins.

The more people there are in a household, the more often the rubbish bins have to be picked up, all else being equal.

Is that personalised rubbish collection or not?

Does the US (or California) not have metered water? Fucking socialists.

The more people live in a household, the more often the bathrooms and kitchen are used, hence the more water is used. The more water is used, the more water needs to be brought, irrespective of where the meters are positioned.

Metered Water refers to a user pays system. Or did you think my socialist joke was entirely unconnected to what I was talking about? You might make nonsensical jokes but I, notoriously, do not. Maybe you meant to write "bought" instead of "brought" (though who knows why you mentioned the location of meters???) because that says some 73% of US cities have metered water.

Conclusion: either Forsher loves to waste his time attacking meaningless arguments, or the arguments aren't meaningless. I'll let you pick whichever one you want.

Alternatively: it's necessary to demonstrate that arguments are meaningless and you can't just assert that. Hmm...

So, let's go to why your argument is meaningless:

In order to pay for costs, you need to raise revenue,

Is debt revenue? Many US cities are insolvent (fun fact: not every state allows cities to go bankrupt, as you'd know if you bothered to research topics you're talking about).

so when I was talking about a per person bang for the buck, I was actually talking about profit,

Prove it.

which is revenue - costs. Also, most schools in densely populated areas are within walking distance, and I certainly didn't drive to school, despite living in low density residential areas. The students who drove to school did it to show off their cars or got into the school on a lottery because they were from another neighborhood.

Ever heard of this concept called "being picked up and dropped off" from school? I'm sure you'll have seen a film where it happens. This seems your speed. (Because it's a shit film.) Note that it also demonstrates walking to school.

Alternatively: some statistics. https://www.bts.gov/topics/passenger-tr ... chool-2019

For high school, let's just go with:

Overall, more than two-thirds (68 percent) of students surveyed get to school by car: 36 percent are passengers and 32 percent drive themselves to school.

Even if I believed you, and I don't, your anecdotes aren't evidence.

[Forsher]

Watch the videos.

I'm not going to watch YouTube videos simply because you're unable to provide a single city's name. You can type in a city's name, without the need for a YouTube link.

"Waah, Forsher won't provide sources"

*Forsher provides sources*

*Shofercia exits conversation*

[Berhakonia]

Some people just don't want a house

Most people can’t afford a house

Can't even return to monke cause of zoning laws :^(

[Sungoldy-China]

Let it free ,

The so-called America means that even if you lose everything, you will always keep freedom，Not to mention this little housing crisis.

[Forsher]

Re: housing affordability

Another Youtube Video

Watch from either 10 or 12 minutes (I forget which) to 23 minutes.

The first 10 or 12 minutes also talks about the role of density (in the sense of floor area ratios) and taxation with respect to commercial buildings. (EDIT: there's one building that was offices and is now condos... I think it was in this section.)

I'm going to do something else now, so I haven't seen the whole video.

[Christian Confederation]

Some people just don't want a house

Most people can’t afford a house

Tanking the economy and inflating the currency doesn't help the matter

[Ifreann]

It’s simple: the US govt should do nothing and stop using our tax money to solve other’s problems.

Let the free market be the free market. If you made mistakes and now you can’t afford a house, then that’s your fault.

Housing people is cheaper to the public purse than dealing with the effects of them being unhoused.

[Shofercia]

The more people there are in a household, the more often the rubbish bins have to be picked up, all else being equal.

Is that personalised rubbish collection or not?

That doesn't matter, since the city's bills are based on the overall amount of people living in said city. When I go out with friends, it doesn't matter if we have personalized checks, or one of us takes care of the bill, the restaurant gets the same amount.

The more people live in a household, the more often the bathrooms and kitchen are used, hence the more water is used. The more water is used, the more water needs to be brought, irrespective of where the meters are positioned.

Metered Water refers to a user pays system. Or did you think my socialist joke was entirely unconnected to what I was talking about? You might make nonsensical jokes but I, notoriously, do not. Maybe you meant to write "bought" instead of "brought" (though who knows why you mentioned the location of meters???) because that says some 73% of US cities have metered water.

I was unaware that you could make funny jokes, thank you for informing me of the possibility.

Conclusion: either Forsher loves to waste his time attacking meaningless arguments, or the arguments aren't meaningless. I'll let you pick whichever one you want.

Alternatively: it's necessary to demonstrate that arguments are meaningless and you can't just assert that. Hmm...

So, let's go to why your argument is meaningless:

In order to pay for costs, you need to raise revenue,

Is debt revenue? Many US cities are insolvent (fun fact: not every state allows cities to go bankrupt, as you'd know if you bothered to research topics you're talking about).

so when I was talking about a per person bang for the buck, I was actually talking about profit,

Prove it.

which is revenue - costs. Also, most schools in densely populated areas are within walking distance, and I certainly didn't drive to school, despite living in low density residential areas. The students who drove to school did it to show off their cars or got into the school on a lottery because they were from another neighborhood.

Ever heard of this concept called "being picked up and dropped off" from school? I'm sure you'll have seen a film where it happens. This seems your speed. (Because it's a shit film.) Note that it also demonstrates walking to school.

Alternatively: some statistics. https://www.bts.gov/topics/passenger-tr ... chool-2019

For high school, let's just go with:

Overall, more than two-thirds (68 percent) of students surveyed get to school by car: 36 percent are passengers and 32 percent drive themselves to school.

Even if I believed you, and I don't, your anecdotes aren't evidence.

The reason for city insolvency is usually the pension fund, which has fuck all to do with single family home zoning. There are cities that go bankrupt due to massive internal corruption, so yes, Forsher, if you steal money from a city or a company and get away with the theft, the city/company might go bankrupt. However, you claimed that cities in the US go bankrupt because of single family zoning. You've yet to prove that insane assertion, and in fact you've ran away from it quite well Forsher, so now here we are, with me having to explain the basics of economics.

A city gets its revenue from taxes and government grants, which are also raised through taxes, as well as other sources. These sources have nothing to do with the city's obligations or debts.

Regarding the passengers, I have to wonder how many of those are little kids whose parents drive them to school because they don't want their kids to walk, even if the school is within walking distance, how many of those are in magnet or charter schools outside of their neighborhoods, etc. Because the latter has fuck all to do with school placement.

From the Bloomberg article:

We live in a car society, so it’s no surprise that more and more kids take cars to school. Today, nearly 60 percent of kids get to school by car, almost four times as many as in the late 1960s, when just 16 percent of children did so.

School placement didn't change much between 1960s and today. Single family zoning was more predominant in the 1960s. So the massive increase, from 16% to 60%, has fuck all to do with single family zoning, doesn't it Forsher? And that's just the first paragraph... Again, the callout was about single family zoning.

Not really going to bother proving that revenue - costs = profit, that's a basic economics equation in practice, although I'm not sure if it's in your theories. So to explain my point: the people who can afford single family zoning are wealthier and pay more property taxes, the main source of city revenue, per person than those who are living in apartments.

The 20 million claim is a claim that says that 2 miles is too long to walk or bike to school. I doubt that. The average cycling speed is 10-14 miles per hour, so averaging 10 mph, you'd need a whopping 12 minutes to get to school. But apparently a 12 minute bike ride is deemed too far according to the study, which is laughable. Then again, they have a really pretty graphic with all those pretty colors.

[Shofercia]

I'm not going to watch YouTube videos simply because you're unable to provide a single city's name. You can type in a city's name, without the need for a YouTube link.

"Waah, Forsher won't provide sources"

*Forsher provides sources*

*Shofercia exits conversation*

Your claim was that cities go bankrupt because of single family zoning, in the US. I've asked you to name a single city that did so, in the US. You decided to spam YouTube videos instead. Now you're claiming that I exited the conversation. You're right, you can make funny jokes, especially when talking about yourself in third person, i.e. "Forsher provides sources"

[GuessTheAltAccount]

Capitalism in the context of housing has led to opportunistic "corporate landlords" exploiting tenants. Housing needs to be nationalized immediately and put under immense public scrutiny as to how tenants are treated. Enough with the half-measures.

[Forsher]

Is that personalised rubbish collection or not?

That doesn't matter, since the city's bills are based on the overall amount of people living in said city. When I go out with friends, it doesn't matter if we have personalized checks, or one of us takes care of the bill, the restaurant gets the same amount.

So... it bang for buck per person is entirely irrelevant. Gotcha.

I was unaware that you could make funny jokes, thank you for informing me of the possibility.

You just can't help yourself with these pointless personal comments that have nothing do with the conversation at hand, can you?

The reason for city insolvency is usually the pension fund,

Hmm... not seeing a source here. Anyone else? Ah, that's right, everyone else is bored of this conversation after you decided to spend a series of posts refusing to pay attention to sources you asked for.

with me having to explain the basics of economics.

The basics of economics involve using terms of art rather than casual slang so as to avoid situations where people claim that "actually, this doesn't mean what it literally appears to mean because actually I was talking about [introduction of terms of art] instead of [different term of art]".

This is also a basic courtesy.

A city gets its revenue from taxes and government grants, which are also raised through taxes, as well as other sources. These sources have nothing to do with the city's obligations or debts.

I know. It's why focussing on revenues... what you're doing... is stupid.

You were asked to demonstrate that you were talking about profit. You have not even attempted to do so.

Regarding the passengers, I have to wonder how many of those are little kids whose parents drive them to school because they don't want their kids to walk, even if the school is within walking distance, how many of those are in magnet or charter schools outside of their neighborhoods, etc. Because the latter has fuck all to do with school placement.

Stop wondering and try and find a fucking source to back up your claims.

From the Bloomberg article:

We live in a car society, so it’s no surprise that more and more kids take cars to school. Today, nearly 60 percent of kids get to school by car, almost four times as many as in the late 1960s, when just 16 percent of children did so.

School placement didn't change much between 1960s and today. Single family zoning was more predominant in the 1960s.

Shockingly, a society that had people who were in their 20s when suburbanisation really took off (the 1940s) only reach their 40s, is not at all similar to one in which said people are in their 90s and 100s.

Not really going to bother proving that revenue - costs = profit,

You weren't asked to do so. You were asked to prove you were talking about profit.

the people who can afford single family zoning are wealthier and pay more property taxes, the main source of city revenue, per person than those who are living in apartments.

Your point isn't confusing. Your point is mind bogglingly stupid, which is why your restaurant example just demonstrated its failure in practice... in a situation where there's no dispersal of people and thus a need to disperse service provision, which either requires compromising level of service or ramping up costs.

By the by, thanks for admitting you weren't talking about profit.

The 20 million claim is a claim that says that 2 miles is too long to walk or bike to school. I doubt that. The average cycling speed is 10-14 miles per hour, so averaging 10 mph, you'd need a whopping 12 minutes to get to school. But apparently a 12 minute bike ride is deemed too far according to the study, which is laughable. Then again, they have a really pretty graphic with all those pretty colors.

In reality, 800m is the standard measure of "walkable" in this context. This is a quarter of the length of 2 miles.

Do even the slightest amount of research before you start running your mouth. I'm sure you'll still disagree with the idea of using such a restrictive definition of "walkable" but at least you won't phrase it in monumentally stupid ways.

[Forsher]

"Waah, Forsher won't provide sources"

*Forsher provides sources*

*Shofercia exits conversation*

Your claim was that cities go bankrupt because of single family zoning, in the US. I've asked you to name a single city that did so, in the US. You decided to spam YouTube videos instead. Now you're claiming that I exited the conversation. You're right, you can make funny jokes, especially when talking about yourself in third person, i.e. "Forsher provides sources"

let me fix that for you

"Having been provided with the sources that I, Shofercia, requested, I will continue to ignore the sources and instead blather on about whatever happens to take my fancy, though I will now change my particular objection from failing to provide a single Californian example to a single American example"

I don't care. You asked for sources. You got them.

[Shofercia]

That doesn't matter, since the city's bills are based on the overall amount of people living in said city. When I go out with friends, it doesn't matter if we have personalized checks, or one of us takes care of the bill, the restaurant gets the same amount.

So... it bang for buck per person is entirely irrelevant. Gotcha.

Not even remotely close to what I said, so let me dumb it down even more. One person living in a house that's worth $500,000, pays $5,000 in Property Taxes to the city, hypothetically speaking. The city spends $2,500 to service said person. Thus the net bang for the buck for that person is $2,500.

10 people live in an apartment complex that's worth $2,500,000. They jointly pay $25,000 in taxes, on average $2,500 apiece. The city spends $15,000 to service them, or $1,500, on average, per person. Thus the next average bang for the buck for one of these people is $1,000.

It doesn't matter whether they're paying jointly or separately. It doesn't matter if their rubbish is collected jointly or separately. And you seem to be the only one, Forsher, to fail to grasp this basic economic concept.

I was unaware that you could make funny jokes, thank you for informing me of the possibility.

You just can't help yourself with these pointless personal comments that have nothing do with the conversation at hand, can you?

Actually I can, but when someone makes flippant comments like did you think my socialist joke was entirely unconnected to what I was talking about they get a flippant response. What goes around, comes around Forsher. If you want others to treat you politely, learn to be polite yourself.

the reason for city insolvency is usually the pension fund,

Hmm... not seeing a source here. Anyone else? Ah, that's right, everyone else is bored of this conversation after you decided to spend a series of posts refusing to pay attention to sources you asked for.

I asked for specific city names, not YouTube link spam. As for a source, this one took me all of two seconds to find: https://www.ocregister.com/2020/04/24/p ... life-raft/

You know what? I'll do you one better, I'll do something that you couldn't, I'll name an actual case, rather than linking to YouTube: Detroit Bankruptcy of 2013.

In June 2013, the government of Detroit stopped making payments on some of its unsecured debts, including pension obligations.[3] In an effort to avoid bankruptcy, Orr sought to persuade some of Detroit's creditors to accept 10% of the amount they are owed.[3] White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, during a press conference in July, that he knew of no plans by President Obama to bail out the Detroit city government similar to the bailouts in recent years of Detroit-area automakers General Motors and Chrysler.[3] On July 17, just one day before the bankruptcy filing, Detroit's two largest municipal pension funds filed suit in state court to prevent Orr from cutting retiree benefits as part of his efforts to cut the city's budget deficit.[23][24]

See Forsher? All you have to do is to name a single city to back up your assertion. I can provide a guide on city names if you'd like.

with me having to explain the basics of economics.

The basics of economics involve using terms of art rather than casual slang so as to avoid situations where people claim that "actually, this doesn't mean what it literally appears to mean because actually I was talking about [introduction of terms of art] instead of [different term of art]".

This is also a basic courtesy.

And here's the entire quote: However, you claimed that cities in the US go bankrupt because of single family zoning. You've yet to prove that insane assertion, and in fact you've ran away from it quite well Forsher, so now here we are, with me having to explain the basics of economics.

You do realize these are recorded, right? So when will you name this mythical US city that went bankrupt due to single family zoning? Oh, is the name Atlantis?

A city gets its revenue from taxes and government grants, which are also raised through taxes, as well as other sources. These sources have nothing to do with the city's obligations or debts.

I know. It's why focussing on revenues... what you're doing... is stupid.

You were asked to demonstrate that you were talking about profit. You have not even attempted to do so.

I was talking about the average net bang for the buck by pointing out that people living in wealthier homes, on average, provide a bigger net financial benefit to the city than apartment dwellers, on average. I didn't realize this had to be demonstrated, because in the US, it's fairly common knowledge. Areas with high income earners living in houses are wealthier, and less likely to go bankrupt, than areas with low income apartment dwellers. This is common sense for those of us actually living in the US, and your quote was about cities in the US, not Australia.

Regarding the passengers, I have to wonder how many of those are little kids whose parents drive them to school because they don't want their kids to walk, even if the school is within walking distance, how many of those are in magnet or charter schools outside of their neighborhoods, etc. Because the latter has fuck all to do with school placement.

Stop wondering and try and find a fucking source to back up your claims.

Didn't need to, since your source pointed out that in 1960s, when we had similar distances between houses and schools, only 16% drove; today it's over 60%, so it's not zoning changes, as communities weren't downzoned. The first line of your source destroyed your point, so you ignored it. Shocking!

From the Bloomberg article:

We live in a car society, so it’s no surprise that more and more kids take cars to school. Today, nearly 60 percent of kids get to school by car, almost four times as many as in the late 1960s, when just 16 percent of children did so.

School placement didn't change much between 1960s and today. Single family zoning was more predominant in the 1960s.

Shockingly, a society that had people who were in their 20s when suburbanisation really took off (the 1940s) only reach their 40s, is not at all similar to one in which said people are in their 90s and 100s.

What does that have to do with land placement? Your comment was about zoning.

Not really going to bother proving that revenue - costs = profit,

You weren't asked to do so. You were asked to prove you were talking about profit.

So when I say that Group A is more beneficial to a city than Group B, I'm somehow not talking about the profits/benefits that said groups provide to the city?

the people who can afford single family zoning are wealthier and pay more property taxes, the main source of city revenue, per person than those who are living in apartments.

Your point isn't confusing. Your point is mind bogglingly stupid, which is why your restaurant example just demonstrated its failure in practice... in a situation where there's no dispersal of people and thus a need to disperse service provision, which either requires compromising level of service or ramping up costs.

By the by, thanks for admitting you weren't talking about profit.

It seems that you've misunderstood the point about the restaurant example, which was that it doesn't matter to a restaurant whether or not payment is made by a group or an individual, as long as payment's made in full. Similarly, it doesn't matter to a city whether payment's made by a group or an individual, as long as payment is made in full. That was it. It was to address your rubbish example, which turned out to be quite rubbish. Already explained the profit part.

The 20 million claim is a claim that says that 2 miles is too long to walk or bike to school. I doubt that. The average cycling speed is 10-14 miles per hour, so averaging 10 mph, you'd need a whopping 12 minutes to get to school. But apparently a 12 minute bike ride is deemed too far according to the study, which is laughable. Then again, they have a really pretty graphic with all those pretty colors.

In reality, 800m is the standard measure of "walkable" in this context. This is a quarter of the length of 2 miles.

Do even the slightest amount of research before you start running your mouth. I'm sure you'll still disagree with the idea of using such a restrictive definition of "walkable" but at least you won't phrase it in monumentally stupid ways.

I realize that it was the standard "walkable" measure in the context of a study that wanted to make a point. That's actually what I said. Try to do even the slightest amount of comprehending my posts, before your start running your mouth. I'm sure you'll disagree with the idea... but at least you won't phrase things in monumentally stupid ways.

Your claim was that cities go bankrupt because of single family zoning, in the US. I've asked you to name a single city that did so, in the US. You decided to spam YouTube videos instead. Now you're claiming that I exited the conversation. You're right, you can make funny jokes, especially when talking about yourself in third person, i.e. "Forsher provides sources"

let me fix that for you

"Having been provided with the sources that I, Shofercia, requested, I will continue to ignore the sources and instead blather on about whatever happens to take my fancy, though I will now change my particular objection from failing to provide a single Californian example to a single American example"

I don't care. You asked for sources. You got them.

Dude, your claim was, and I quote:

single family zoning is a major feature of the main reason cities go bankrupt in the US

Name one. Name one city. Just one. Don't spam YouTube links. You said that it's a major feature of the main reason cities go bankrupt in the US. Name one city. You cannot. Because you know your point, as usual in this thread, is bullshit. So you spammed some YouTube links and are now pretending you won...

I requested specific city names. That was the request. Specific city names. How you, Forsher, managed to get "YouTube Link" out of "name a single city" defies logic.

[Forsher]

Anyone, anyone at all, tell me if you care that I provided four Youtube links to substantiate a claim I made in this thread.

[Forsher]

Not even remotely close to what I said, so let me dumb it down even more. One person living in a house that's worth $500,000, pays $5,000 in Property Taxes to the city, hypothetically speaking. The city spends $2,500 to service said person. Thus the net bang for the buck for that person is $2,500.

10 people live in an apartment complex that's worth $2,500,000. They jointly pay $25,000 in taxes, on average $2,500 apiece. The city spends $15,000 to service them, or $1,500, on average, per person. Thus the next average bang for the buck for one of these people is $1,000.

It doesn't matter whether they're paying jointly or separately. It doesn't matter if their rubbish is collected jointly or separately. And you seem to be the only one, Forsher, to fail to grasp this basic economic concept.

Yes, that was my point... it doesn't matter if they're paying jointly or separately. Why do you think I wanted you to report if the rubbish was a personalised collection?

You just can't help yourself with these pointless personal comments that have nothing do with the conversation at hand, can you?

Actually I can, but when someone makes flippant comments like did you think my socialist joke was entirely unconnected to what I was talking about they get a flippant response. What goes around, comes around Forsher. If you want others to treat you politely, learn to be polite yourself.

This is absurd.

Making jokes is not impolite.

I asked for specific city names, not YouTube link spam. As for a source, this one took me all of two seconds to find:

Shockingly, a single example is not data.

https://www.ocregister.com/2020/04/24/p ... life-raft/

Your source would probably be interested to know not every state allows cities to go bankrupt.

You know what? I'll do you one better, I'll do something that you couldn't, I'll name an actual case, rather than linking to YouTube: Detroit Bankruptcy of 2013.

What are you even trying to prove? Oh, that's right... that most cities go bankrupt because of pension schemes and, additionally, that the pension schemes aren't related to the housing market.

You cannot demonstrate either of those claims with a SINGLE example. So, let's delete your little quote.

And here's the entire quote: However, you claimed that cities in the US go bankrupt because of single family zoning. You've yet to prove that insane assertion, and in fact you've ran away from it quite well Forsher, so now here we are, with me having to explain the basics of economics.

You do realize these are recorded, right? So when will you name this mythical US city that went bankrupt due to single family zoning? Oh, is the name Atlantis?

Considering you just tried to demonstrate what you were talking about profit without having quoted yourself talking about profit...

Also, that doesn't ask for a single city.

I was talking about the average net bang for the buck by pointing out that people living in wealthier homes, on average, provide a bigger net financial benefit to the city than apartment dwellers, on average.

Source.

I didn't realize this had to be demonstrated, because in the US, it's fairly common knowledge.

Now establish that it's relevant.

Areas with high income earners living in houses are wealthier, and less likely to go bankrupt, than areas with low income apartment dwellers. This is common sense for those of us actually living in the US, and your quote was about cities in the US, not Australia.

You do not understand what you're talking about. At all.

Let's quote from a PDF you're probably going to struggle finding. And because it's you I'm talking to, I'm not going to bother fixing the problems that copying and pasting from PDF's cause.

\·Ve pay a high social price for sprav.-1 as
well. By spreading residences, medical and

commercial offices. and industries through-
out a re�ion 011 large tracl5 of land, we in-
crease resident-;' dependence on aiuomnhik

transportation. En'rything and e\'er�·one is
too spread out to make public transportation

economicalh- feasible. \fith insufficient coor-
dination of work sites and highwa\'s, traffic l '

congestion result-;. Nor can eyeryone get
around by car: A lifestyle rhat requires a car

discriminates against poor families, the dd-
erly. the disabled, and the young. Suburban

i.e. "bang for buck per person" is stupid

Financial Costs. Conventional \>\-risdom says
that development strengthens the municipal
tax base. That may have been true in the

1980s, but by the 1990s local officials had dis-
covered that increases in ta.x rcven ucs were

eaten up by costs to their communities for de-
livering new services (including water and

sewer lines, schools, police and fire protec-
tion, and roads) to people who lived far away

from Lhe existing infrastructure. Here are
some exam pl es:

I'm deliberately not going to quote the examples. Once again... bang for buck per person doesn't matter, because services are provided geographically. It's like a restaurant... a table pays, not customers. Fourteen people paying $20 each on items that cost $100 to prepare, profits $180. Apparently that gives bang for buck per person of about $13. A different table with one person that spends $20 on a meal that costs $10, has a bang for buck per person of $10.

You want the table of 14. Which, in practice, is probably six tables (six, six and then two on each of the ends) pushed together (fewer with six person tables), yes. But six tables four fourteen and eight singletons is better than fourteen singletons.

A Maryland study predicted that, in the first
two decades of the twenLy-firsL century, sprawl
will cost state residents about $10 billion
more for n ew roads, schools, sewers, and water
than would be ne<.:e.ssary if growth were more
concentrated. Similar studies in California,
Florida, and elsewhere have demonstrated a

direct relationship between sprawl and the spi-
raling costs of government (McMahon 1 997:4) .

These additional costs don't occur only in the
grmving communities. As people flock ro the
outlying suburbs, cities-their tax base
eroded-must raise taxes on the remaining
taxpayers to pay for city services.

i.e. due to the way American cities work, American cities are required to increase the "bang for buck per person" in cities to stay in place.

The source you're not looking at this time is: Cities and urban life, 4th ed. (2007) by Macionis, John J.; Parrillo, Vincent N. You're not looking for chapter four.

Didn't need to, since your source pointed out that in 1960s, when we had similar distances between houses and schools, only 16% drove; today it's over 60%, so it's not zoning changes, as communities weren't downzoned. The first line of your source destroyed your point, so you ignored it. Shocking!

Shockingly, a society that had people who were in their 20s when suburbanisation really took off (the 1940s) only reach their 40s, is not at all similar to one in which said people are in their 90s and 100s.

What does that have to do with land placement? Your comment was about zoning.

People live places. Where they live affects their perception of what is possible. Here's a video on it.

Also, it should be obvious that as cities increase in size in places that do not provide for walkability and public transport, the perceived need to drive increases. As an example:

The size of the city has expanded significantly in the last 50 years—both by land area and population. Houston proper encompassed 453 square miles in 1969. Today, at 665 square miles, the city of Houston could contain the cities of New York, Boston, San Francisco, Washington D.C. Seattle and Minneapolis—with a bit more room to spare.

While I am asking you to believe that cities and suburbs in the US in general (as opposed to just Houston) are bigger than they were in the 1960s... easily substantiated (Between 2000 and 2010, urban land area in the U.S. increased by 15%. Urban land area is 106,386 square miles, or 3% of total land area in the U.S., and is projected to more than double by 2060.6,7)... the actual point is the conclusion: if you have people that are being increasingly encouraged to drive, why would you be surprised that a reaction against sprawl in the last decade or so hasn't had much of an effect? And why would you be so insistent that a source not talking about these issues at all is refuting them?

And, yes, single family zoning is responsible here:

Yet sprawl doesn't occur only because of
population growth. Cincinnati, which lost 15
percent of its population between 1970 and
1980, then another 10 percent between 1980
and 2000, nonetheless increased its land area
from 335 square miles in 1970 to 573 square
miles. Metro Cleveland's population declined
by 11 percenl between 1970 and 1990, but it
still consumed 33 percent more land. Also,

between 1990 and 1996, Akron, Ohio, experi-
enced a 37 percent decrease in population

but a 65 percent increase in developed land
area use (Florian 1999:25).

I'm sure you recognise the formatting.

If you have a single unique thing to say, I'll be amazed if I can find a remotely mainstream urban discourse that doesn't reject your views. Yes, even Demographia, whom the experts reject. You see, Demographia want single family zoning to increase affordability, i.e. because it reduced bang for buck per person.

Housing affordability has deteriorated materially in recent decades, which has been a principal factor in an internationally observed reduction in middle-income standards of living. The last year has involved material setbacks, mostly due to the impact of the pandemic, which has led to a home buying boom in some areas while suppressing incomes. Housing affordability deteriorated by more than 1.0 median multiple points in just one year, --- the equivalent of one year’s pre-tax median household income --- in Vancouver, San Jose, San Francisco and Honolulu, with the greatest deterioration in Auckland (1.4 points) and Toronto (1.3 points).The flexibility of telework, and the disruption of life in the highest density employment and residential areas led many to relocate to more spacious houses with gardens (yards). As Liz Richie, Regional Australia Institute chief executive (RAI), told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, "If people's work can be done from anywhere, if location is no longer a barrier, we will see more and more regional mobility.” The hope for improvement has been expressed in Ireland’s just released National Remote Work Strategy, which emphasizes the potential to improve housing affordability through telework. Thus, greater remote working could begin to remove housing as a principal source of inequality. This could reduce housing demand in the least affordable areas, providing relief at every price point, including for many middle-income households whose living standards have decline as house prices have raced ahead of incomes.

I'm sure I could find something more explicit but Demographia's delusional wankery so I'd rather not read it (See: The Political Construction of a Housing Affordability Metric.)

So when I say that Group A is more beneficial to a city than Group B, I'm somehow not talking about the profits/benefits that said groups provide to the city?

Temporal claims require temporal evidence.

That means that if you claim you were doing X in time t, you need to show what you were doing in time t, not what you're doing now.

It seems that you've misunderstood the point about the restaurant example, which was that it doesn't matter to a restaurant whether or not payment is made by a group or an individual, as long as payment's made in full. Similarly, it doesn't matter to a city whether payment's made by a group or an individual, as long as payment is made in full. That was it. It was to address your rubbish example, which turned out to be quite rubbish. Already explained the profit part.

No, Shofercia, it was you're rubbish example. As in, you literally made rubbish an example.

And, yes, I know this is your point. What I am saying is that you don't see the logical implication of your own point... bang for buck per person isn't remotely relevant to what cities actually care about, just as it isn't relevant to restaurants.

I realize that it was the standard "walkable" measure in the context of a study that wanted to make a point.

So, you realised that the standard walkable measure was 800m based on reading a "study" that was using a measure of 3200m??

Dude, your claim was, and I quote:

single family zoning is a major feature of the main reason cities go bankrupt in the US

I know what my claim was. What my claim was is not being disputed. What is being "disputed" is the idea that I haven't demonstrated it by providing four different Youtube videos talking about the subject.

I requested specific city names. That was the request. Specific city names. How you, Forsher, managed to get "YouTube Link" out of "name a single city" defies logic.

You didn't. You asked for examples.

[Duvniask]

Anyone, anyone at all, tell me if you care that I provided four Youtube links to substantiate a claim I made in this thread.

No. It's trivial.

From a third person perspective, this is quite the making-a-mountain-of-a-molehill kind of issue.

[Forsher]

Anyone, anyone at all, tell me if you care that I provided four Youtube links to substantiate a claim I made in this thread.

No. It's trivial.

From a third person perspective, this is quite the making-a-mountain-of-a-molehill kind of issue.

I mean, obviously, videos are frustratingly slow, but the tl;dw was provided my initial point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfQUOHlAocY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0&t=2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVUeqxXwCA0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yicYz2PO1IQ&t=2513s

Look, there's a reason I watch those videos... there's a reason I read Greater Auckland... there's a reason I had a textbook chapter to quote from just at my finger tips... there's a reason I have an academic article slamming Demographia just at my finger tips... there's a reason Nilokeras and I had that long conversation about whether or not redlining was relevant (tl;dr: Nilokeras' main point wasn't what it looked like to me)... this is a genuinely interesting subject area. On the off chance someone is actually interested in what this thread is about, I really do recommend watching those first three videos (the last one is, as I said, very long, and, also, it's basically a recorded lecture).

Here's a re-presentation of the material. First, a lightly edited version of the textbook quotes.

We pay a high social price for sprawl as well. By spreading residences, medical and commercial offices, and industries across large tracts of land, we increase
dependence on automobile transportation. Everything and everyone is too spread out to make public transportation economically feasible: insufficient co-ordination of worksites and highway traffic and congestion result. Nor can everyone get around by car. A lifestyle that requires a car discriminates against poor families, the elderly, the disabled, and the young.

Incidentally, on that last point, I would consider reading:

• Chronopoulos, T. (2012). Congestion Pricing: The Political Viability of a Neoliberal Spatial Mobility Proposal in London, Stockholm, and New York City. Urban Research & Practice, 5(2), 187-208.
• Verhoef, E., Nijkamp, P., & Rietveld, P. (1997). The Social Feasibility of Road Pricing: A Case Study for the Randstad Area. Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, 31(3), 255-76.
• Giuliano, G. (1992). An Assessment of the Political Acceptability of Congestion Pricing. Transportation, 19(4), 335-358

Because they all raise particularly interesting things about equity and congestion pricing. (Also: it seems to me that there's a general agreement that you can't use public transport to solve congestion... mode shift and congestion pricing are the only real solutions. Public Transport basically allows for a holding pattern: congestion that neither worsens nor improves. Not Just Bikes, the main Youtuber I suggested, disagrees.)

Incidentally, I'd be amazed if these were faster to read than the videos. Of course, that's because there's more stuff in them.

Financial Costs. Conventional wisdom says that development strengthens the municipal tax base. That may have been true in the 1980s, but by the 1990s local officials had discovered that increases in tax revenues were eaten up by costs to their communities for delivering new services (including water and sewer lines, schools, police and fire protection, and roads) to people who lived far away from the existing infrastructure.

One of the videos specifically talks about the issues with trying to provide urban services at rural densities for municipalities.

A Maryland study predicted that, in the first two decades of the twenty first century, sprawl will cost state residents about $10 billion more for new roads, schools, sewers, and water than would be necessary if growth were more concentrated. Similar studies in California, Florida, and elsewhere have demonstrated a direct relationship between sprawl and the spiralling costs of government (McMahon 1 997:4) .

These additional costs don't occur only in the commuting communities. As people flock to the outlying suburbs, cities-their tax base is eroded so they must raise taxes on the remaining taxpayers to pay for city services [for those remaining taxpayers].

$10b sounds incredibly cheap. NZ's government recently restored a project to its original design intentions because it couldn't stomach "Mill Road was initially costed at $1.3b, it’s been re-costed at $3.5b, making it nearly three times as expensive as Transmission Gully, and on its own, worth nearly 1 per cent of New Zealand’s GDP." That was a single project, just one, to service an area about 30km south of Auckland's CBD ("downtown"), which currently looks like this. Don't get me wrong, Mill Road gets congested... but note the PT options between Papakura to East Auckland. The problem is that if you build a bigger road to make that work better, you just fill up the new, bigger road. It's called Induced Demand, but what's really going on is this:

When supply increases, you just unlock more existing demand... that's the maybe the seventh lesson in microeconomics, but it was ignored again and again, with increasing costs. (Yes, yes, it's actually really difficult to draw a graph that resembles roads because roads aren't explicitly priced... I've tried it before, I wasn't really happy with the result.) Here's a related video about predict and provide in the context of Heathrow... you may recognise it from my signature.

Yet sprawl doesn't occur only because of population growth. Cincinnati, which lost 15 percent of its population between 1970 and 1980, then another 10 percent between 1980 and 2000, nonetheless increased its land area from 335 square miles in 1970 to 573 square miles. Metro Cleveland's population declined by 11 percenl between 1970 and 1990, but it still consumed 33 percent more land. Also, between 1990 and 1996, Akron, Ohio, experienced a 37 percent decrease in population
but a 65 percent increase in developed land area use (Florian 1999:25).

Those were all excerpts from chapter four of Cities and urban life, 4th ed. (2007) by Macionis, John J.; Parrillo, Vincent N... and (to be completely clear) re-edited by Forsher due to nasty reproduction errors caused by copying and pasting from a PDF.

a society that had people who were in their 20s when suburbanisation really took off (the 1940s) only reach their 40s, is not at all similar to one in which said people are in their 90s and 100s.

People live places. Where they live affects their perception of what is possible. Here's a video on it.

Also, it should be obvious that as cities increase in size in places that do not provide for walkability and public transport, the perceived need to drive increases. As an example:

The size of the city has expanded significantly in the last 50 years—both by land area and population. Houston proper encompassed 453 square miles in 1969. Today, at 665 square miles, the city of Houston could contain the cities of New York, Boston, San Francisco, Washington D.C. Seattle and Minneapolis—with a bit more room to spare.

While I am asking the thread to believe is that cities and suburbs in the US in general (as opposed to just Houston) are bigger than they were in the 1960s... easily substantiated (Between 2000 and 2010, urban land area in the U.S. increased by 15%. Urban land area is 106,386 square miles, or 3% of total land area in the U.S., and is projected to more than double by 2060.6,7)... the actual point is the conclusion: if you have people that are being increasingly encouraged to drive, why would you be surprised that a reaction against sprawl in the last decade or so hasn't had much of an effect?

It took decades for people to realise that the planners of the 1940s and 1950s were idiots. Over which time what they proposed (i.e. ROADS) shifted from being what conservatively minded people would protest against, to something only hippies were opposed to and conservative commentators will literally vandalise non-road projects to "protect". Here's a song I don't like about the idea (modern cover). Here's a parody of a modern song that's explicitly about this stuff (frankly, it's a bit... scatter brained about what its point is, oscillating between progressive and conservative; n.b. when it says "parks" it means "car parks" not public greenspaces). The long video is probably the best one to watch on this paragraph's subject seeing as it's all about the traffic engineer's perspective. But also try this one from the most boring sarcastic man alive... and this (vastly longer) one by the same dude and his friends.

For the alternative perspective, the natural answer is Demographia who want single family zoning to increase affordability.

Housing affordability has deteriorated materially in recent decades, which has been a principal factor in an internationally observed reduction in middle-income standards of living. The last year has involved material setbacks, mostly due to the impact of the pandemic, which has led to a home buying boom in some areas while suppressing incomes. Housing affordability deteriorated by more than 1.0 median multiple points in just one year, --- the equivalent of one year’s pre-tax median household income --- in Vancouver, San Jose, San Francisco and Honolulu, with the greatest deterioration in Auckland (1.4 points) and Toronto (1.3 points).The flexibility of telework, and the disruption of life in the highest density employment and residential areas led many to relocate to more spacious houses with gardens (yards). As Liz Richie, Regional Australia Institute chief executive (RAI), told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, "If people's work can be done from anywhere, if location is no longer a barrier, we will see more and more regional mobility.” The hope for improvement has been expressed in Ireland’s just released National Remote Work Strategy, which emphasizes the potential to improve housing affordability through telework. Thus, greater remote working could begin to remove housing as a principal source of inequality. This could reduce housing demand in the least affordable areas, providing relief at every price point, including for many middle-income households whose living standards have decline as house prices have raced ahead of incomes.

I'm sure I could find something more explicit but Demographia's delusional wankery so I'd rather not read it (See: The Political Construction of a Housing Affordability Metric. But I particularly like these two posts by GA, and also the article they're based on, about what happens when you include transport in the price of housing... in Auckland, as you might expect, but I struggle to see why the results wouldn't generalise.)

What's really weird, though, is that time and time again, the finding is that most trips in the Anglosphere's sprawling cities are short. Here are some averages from the US... but since these are averages, they're distorted by longer trips. .