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

[Punished UMN]

effortpost later
build more fucking homes, abolish single-family zoning requirements, throw mandatory parking minimums out the window, end local control of zoning, build decent public transit systems (to address the contradiction of density and car culture), revamp the owned but uninhabitable homes (which is the vast majority of them, for the 500 people going to pile in here with "well actually there are more homes than homeless people"), and stop planning around cars


but the big two are simple: abolish single-family zoning and build more apartments/townhouses/duplexes/condos

we're undoing the legacy of harland bartholomew and making functioning cities for once

I await your effortpost because I agree with everything in this.

[Conservative Republic Of Huang]

-snip-

Your arguments are based on the assumption that other things can't change. For example, you assume that local property tax must be the only way to collect education funding. These are not absolute givens that cannot be changed.

[Shofercia]

Next economically dumb idea - abolish single family zoning. Who's paying those property taxes for schools? You've abolished single family zoning, congratulations, there goes a large chunk of the school budget.

Where does this idea even come from? And you do realize that 1) abolishing single-family zoning doesn't equal mandating single-family houses to be converted nor does it forbid people from building new SF houses, but rather simply allow people to choose other options like building apartments or townhouses, and 2) apartments, condos and townhouses also pay property taxes?

Single family homes offer the biggest bang for the buck per person and that's where I'm coming from.

Where does this idea even come from? And you do realize that 1) abolishing single-family zoning doesn't equal mandating single-family houses to be converted nor does it forbid people from building new SF houses, but rather simply allow people to choose other options like building apartments or townhouses, and 2) apartments, condos and townhouses also pay property taxes?

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

Do you have actual examples, or just a 300 page theory with no evidence?

[Forsher]

-snip-

Your arguments are based on the assumption that other things can't change. For example, you assume that local property tax must be the only way to collect education funding. These are not absolute givens that cannot be changed.

Property taxes are probably the dumbest way of funding education anyone's ever devised... it builds inequity into the funding system. I mean, say what you will about the efficacy of the decile system we use here, but at least schools in more deprived areas are meant to get more money per pupil.*

*That actually happens... possibly with some qualifications that I can't remember but those qualifications aren't the important problem. The problem is that deciles and "school choice" overlapped, so parents looked at deciles and thought "Fuck this, I don't want my kids to go to school with the poors" or, alternatively, "Hmm, Decile 1? That's lower than 10... must be a worse school, we're moving". As a consequence, school decile and school roll are now correlated, so higher decile schools get more funding on account of being bigger. And then there are the "voluntary" donations, which are vastly higher (and increasingly less voluntary) at higher decile schools.

[Shofercia]

-snip-

Your arguments are based on the assumption that other things can't change. For example, you assume that local property tax must be the only way to collect education funding. These are not absolute givens that cannot be changed.

Not at all, I just know that most of education funding come from property taxes and personal income taxes in California, and that teacher union pension funds are underfunded. So if property tax revenue per person drops, the way to make up for it would be to raise income taxes, as California's losing population.

Your arguments are based on the assumption that other things can't change. For example, you assume that local property tax must be the only way to collect education funding. These are not absolute givens that cannot be changed.

Property taxes are probably the dumbest way of funding education anyone's ever devised... it builds inequity into the funding system. I mean, say what you will about the efficacy of the decile system we use here, but at least schools in more deprived areas are meant to get more money per pupil.*

*That actually happens... possibly with some qualifications that I can't remember but those qualifications aren't the important problem. The problem is that deciles and "school choice" overlapped, so parents looked at deciles and thought "Fuck this, I don't want my kids to go to school with the poors" or, alternatively, "Hmm, Decile 1? That's lower than 10... must be a worse school, we're moving". As a consequence, school decile and school roll are now correlated, so higher decile schools get more funding on account of being bigger. And then there are the "voluntary" donations, which are vastly higher (and increasingly less voluntary) at higher decile schools.

Wow, not a single example of a city given, but we get more of Forsher's theory. You claimed that single family zoning is a major feature of the main reason cities go bankrupt in the US

Provide a single example, just one example. C'mon Forsher, let's see you back up your claims with real evidence instead of theories, let's hear it! BTW, I was specifically referring to California.

[Shofercia]

Here's another way to fix housing in the US:

Stop discriminating against manufactured home loans. You can have a $300k mobile home, and btw these aren't shitholes, in a decent city, a three bedroom, three bathroom, split that among three purchasers, and you have $100k in mortgage per purchaser, and you're easily paying under $800 a month, inclusive of insurance, mortgage, and even property taxes. But banks get skittish on those loans, which primarily affect the poor.

[Forsher]

Shofercia's Guide to Literacy

Step One: read post that doesn't mention bankruptcy, the United States, cities or housing once

Step Two: assert that the post is about bankruptcy, the United States, cities and housing

What a fucking joke.

I should not reward bad behaviour but Shofercia is a lost cause and some other people might have had the same issue, though, presumably, the sense to identify that posts not talking about "America is bankrupting its cities in large part because it's obsessed with detached single family dwellings" aren't talking about that. Bad luck for them because I'm not going to do tl;dw's:

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

The last one is MUCH longer than the others but iirc it does discuss Shofercia's obsession with California. Can't remember... random American city #11 doesn't really register beyond "random American city #11", ya know?

[Punished UMN]

please stop
this is why we lose. you will never get the numbers you want to actually create a program that helps anyone, much less minorities, with rhetoric like this
we can do more than one thing at the same time
government redress to fix and compensate people for the structural racism that was built into housing markets and community planning as well as a general investment in housing for the all unhoused and the insecure will be both more politically possible (that is, at all) and will help build healthier, stronger communities by linking everyone into the same redistributive "pot"

This is exactly the color-blind rhetoric that has stalled the civil rights movement for decades. It is completely unreasonable for you to ask that I and other POC submit our concerns to some greater, presumably class-based, concern for "everybody".

A society, like an individual, has a finite amount of focus available at any given moment. If the focus is not specifically on the immediate redress of injustice against POC then the entire endeavor will be subverted by white-supremacist super-structure and inevitably provide some marginal gains for poor non-POC and no improvement for POC. Such a diffuse focus on "class" concerns has been the albatross around the neck of racial justice from the beginning.

No, it's time for racial consciousness and unity among POC in the fight against institutional and internalized white-supremacy. Nothing else will do.

I realize this was way back, but to hopefully try and put Ko's point in extremely plain terms: White people, including racist white people, are still a majority of the population. POC are still a minority of the population, and will be in at least much of the United States for the forseeable future. Whether or not we agree with them or whether or not they're actual pieces of shit, you can't get rid of them and they're still going to affect the political process. If you can't cater to them in some way or get them to agree with you at all, and actively antagonize them rhetorically, it's not the difference between serving POC adequately or inadequately, it's the difference between POC being served at all. Being right is not a substitute for winning. The history books are filled with movements that were fighting for what was right that were crushed as footnotes and with movements that were fighting for the wrong thing that ran entire countries.

[Herador]

In my area we have six figure income people unable to purchase a home.

Must be California. Fucking NIMBYs.

California is funny when it comes to housing. When I was a kid (Birth through 18) I lived in this place called Gilroy. Nice town 35 minutes outside of San Jose. We had a nice little house, 3 bed 2 bath, 1400 sq feet, 6,825 sq foot lot, the works. No pool, but what can you do? My parents got that house in 1994 for $175,000. In 2012 when I graduated high school, that home was sold for $370,000, and the estimate on its price at the moment is $892,400.

Compare that to where they live now. It's in Butte County, not rural but certainly not urban, and not a great part of California besides. 3 bed 2 bath, 1,782 sq feet on a 5 acre lot (rounding up a tad). They bought it in 2012 for $171,000, as of now it's estimated to go for ~$400,000 today.

[Picairn]

Single family homes offer the biggest bang for the buck per person and that's where I'm coming from.

Not sure what you're saying here. If you mean investors, while apartments and multi-family houses are more expensive to maintain, they can attract a greater number of tenants, thereby generating more income.

To go back on property taxes, apartments and MF homes actually pay more taxes than SF ones. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/defa ... /w05-2.pdf.

And that's not accounting for the enormous costs of SF zoning. https://medium.com/sidewalk-talk/is-it- ... 233d69a25a

[Forsher]

10,716.36
California is funny when it comes to housing. When I was a kid (Birth through 18) I lived in this place called Gilroy. Nice town 35 minutes outside of San Jose. We had a nice little house, 3 bed 2 bath, 1400 sq feet, 6,825 sq foot lot, the works. No pool, but what can you do? My parents got that house in 1994 for $175,000. In 2012 when I graduated high school, that home was sold for $370,000, and the estimate on its price at the moment is $892,400.

Compare that to where they live now. It's in Butte County, not rural but certainly not urban, and not a great part of California besides. 3 bed 2 bath, 1,782 sq feet on a 5 acre lot (rounding up a tad). They bought it in 2012 for $171,000, as of now it's estimated to go for ~$400,000 today.

I don't get your point? Rural land is much cheaper in almost all circumstances... whether you have zoning, YIMBYs, NIMBYs or whatever. It's why urban sprawl appears to make sense...

Single family homes offer the biggest bang for the buck per person and that's where I'm coming from.

Not sure what you're saying here. If you mean investors, while apartments and multi-family houses are more expensive to maintain, they can attract a greater number of tenants, thereby generating more income.

To go back on property taxes, apartments and MF homes actually pay more taxes than SF ones. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/defa ... /w05-2.pdf.

And that's not accounting for the enormous costs of SF zoning. https://medium.com/sidewalk-talk/is-it- ... 233d69a25a

Bang for buck per person is a delusional metric.

The first problem regards density... a 1 square kilometre (or mile) area. Suppose we fill it with 10 people who each pay $10,000. Voila $100,000... but that kind of density (especially if it's in miles) is extremely rural. Let's take Hong Kong, London, New York, LA, Auckland and Houston's densities (just the ones listed on Wikipedia... density actually gets quite controversial, as I suspect Picairn knows... for reference I present a guest post on an urban policy blog, part 1 and part 2):

• 6,777 / 17,552.3 (HK)
• 5,666 / 14,670 (London)
• 10,716.36 / 27,755.25 (NYC)
• 3,276.37 / 8,485.74 (LA)
• 2,400 / 6,300 (Auckland)
• 1,398.76 / 3,622.77 (Houston)

For context... Auckland consists of a bunch of small skyscrapers in a small area of about 4 square kilometres, but outside of that area consists almost entirely of single family homes, largely based on the ideal of the "quarter acre paradise". Houston, obviously, is even less dense than this. London consists largely of five and six storey buildings in my (tourist based) experience, and I'm sure we've all seen a lot of movies set in New York, even if we haven't been there ourselves.

Now, let's say that $10,000 amount applies to Houston. That suggests $13,980,000 (with the square kilometre measure). Now, let's decrease that $10,000 by $1000 for every additional 1000 people (with a floor of $1000), so that gives us takes of:

• Houston = $13,980,000
• Auckland = $21,600,000 (at $9000)
• LA = $29,487,330 (at $9000)
• NYC = $10,716,360 (at $1000)
• London = $33,996,000 (at $6000)
• Hong Kong = $33,885,000 (at $5000)

Hmm... maximising bang for buck per person isn't very good, is it? Houston just barely beats New York City despite our assumptions giving Houston 10 times as much tax per person.

Obviously it doesn't really work like this, but the idea generalises... you can be more profitable despite a lower per unit return if you've got more people. [url]=https://www.niche.com/k12/search/largest-high-schools/m/houston-metro-area/I imagine that schools in Houston are probably massive, of course, and this seems to back that up[/url]. But what are the costs of running a school of that size? Are their economies of scale? How many schools are in a district? I don't know and I rather suspect the answers to these vital questions aren't provided.

The other problem is that property taxes are obviously collected on a property basis, not a people basis.

[The Hazar Amisnery]

America should look at Australia's welfare system. We give people free houses and an income until they can get a good job and buy a house. Capitalism might be good but not everyone can afford everything so a little bit of socialism might be better.

[Forsher]

What is the precise nature of the housing crisis in the US? Is it another "oh noes, people can't do this really specific thing* that they probably shouldn't be doing anyway?" like NZ's popular framing of the housing crisis in NZ**? Or has the US somehow woken up to the fact the way it builds houses is literally bankrupting its towns and cities? Because those are two really different problems, albeit with somewhat similar solutions.

*i.e. buy houses

**The NZ subreddit (here) might as well be renamed "I can't buy real estate". The NZ Herald might as well be renamed "house price monitor".

partly the latter, in that people have realized that our towns and cities are being bankrupted, there is just an overrepresented faction opposed to public policy (and often opinion) that would connect the dots on or remedy how housing construction is causing that

Righto.

Well, what we want to end up with is:

• mixed use, medium density (i.e. three to six storey) neighbourhoods as the dominant image of commuting suburbs
• rural infrastructure schemes in areas with rural densities (e.g. if you don't have a neighbour, you're not on mains water), but with safe cycling routes
• the conversion of carpark and road space into public, residential and commercial buildings or public spaces
• the conversion of road space to active modes and public transport
• a restructuring of the retail environment away from big boxes and malls, or, at least, away from regional versions of the same
• walkable city and town centres (e.g. you can walk to school, the doctor, the supermarket, public transport, parks, the pharmacy, a mix of shops/amenities)

Probably some other things, but those strike me as the main ones.

Now, from an engineering point of view these are easily accomplished, it's actually getting them done that's difficult. For example, in Auckland, Auckland Transport (what it says on the tin) interprets text as narrowly as possible to avoid supporting these things and having unnecessary rounds of consultation in order to generate as much opposition as possible to them, so it can then say "backlash" and do nothing. Auckland Transport was, for the uninitiated, designed to be at an arm's length from Council as a "Council Controlled Organisation" to insulate it from said opposition.*

Since I've got bored, I won't speculate on any appropriate avenues to doing this... other than the obvious: for the love of God, stop having suburbs exist in entirely different jurisdictions to the cities they're part of. If the cities cross state lines you're probably stuck with it, but Jesus Christ, amalgamate.**

*The alternative argument is that the centre right national government forced the arrangement on Auckland as a kind of Batman Gambit, reasoning that an organisation largely intended to do the job of transport engineers would stymie a left leaning local government in the likely event one was returned by Auckland's first Super City elections.

**Though, avoid council controlled organisations like the fucking plague.

[Herador]

I don't get your point? Rural land is much cheaper in almost all circumstances... whether you have zoning, YIMBYs, NIMBYs or whatever. It's why urban sprawl appears to make sense.

I was more trying to agree with Kowani's point about single family zoning, even in towns in the "orbit" of large cities.

[Shofercia]

Shofercia's Guide to Literacy

Step One: read post that doesn't mention bankruptcy, the United States, cities or housing once

Step Two: assert that the post is about bankruptcy, the United States, cities and housing

What a fucking joke.

I should not reward bad behaviour but Shofercia is a lost cause and some other people might have had the same issue, though, presumably, the sense to identify that posts not talking about "America is bankrupting its cities in large part because it's obsessed with detached single family dwellings" aren't talking about that. Bad luck for them because I'm not going to do tl;dw's:

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

The last one is MUCH longer than the others but iirc it does discuss Shofercia's obsession with California. Can't remember... random American city #11 doesn't really register beyond "random American city #11", ya know?

Forsher's guide to literacy:

1. Post an inane theory without any real World examples backing up it
2. Attack posters who ask for real World examples
3. Pretend that you're doing said posters a favor by continuing to post nonsensical theories, that no one actually gives a flying fuck about

Honestly, I find theories from homeless posted on YouTube to be more accurate, because they have a grain of reality to them. Your theories? Let's take a look at your latest claim:

Property taxes are probably the dumbest way of funding education anyone's ever devised.

And in reality California's schools were primarily funded by property taxes until the Serrano v Priest decision, which forced property taxes to be applied on a statewide basis, rather than a zip code basis. This caused a taxpayer revolt known as Proposition 13, which restricted growth of property taxes, and led to a fusion of funding K-12 programs, between property tax, income tax, and other taxes. Furthermore, California actually spends more tax dollars per pupil in disadvantaged areas, than it does in wealthier areas:

https://edpolicyinca.org/sites/default/ ... re%204.jpg

And I've yet to see Forsher prove this point: single family zoning is a major feature of the main reason cities go bankrupt in the US

American cities that Forsher named so far? Zero. I'm asking you to support your claim with actual example. Instead, you drop a bunch of YouTube links. You're the one who made that claim, Forsher, either admit that you were wrong once again when it comes to reality instead of theory, or cite a city in the US.

[Forsher]

Forsher's guide to literacy:

Nothing you've wriiten has anything to do with whether or not you interpreted a very easily understood post correctly. Stop wasting everyone's time.

Literally no-one else on this forum has a problem with saying, "Whoops, I meant to reply to your other post". For fuck's sake.

Property taxes are probably the dumbest way of funding education anyone's ever devised.

And in reality California's schools were primarily funded by property taxes until the Serrano v Priest decision, which forced property taxes to be applied on a statewide basis, rather than a zip code basis. This caused a taxpayer revolt known as Proposition 13, which restricted growth of property taxes, and led to a fusion of funding K-12 programs, between property tax, income tax, and other taxes. Furthermore, California actually spends more tax dollars per pupil in disadvantaged areas, than it does in wealthier areas:

Which has nothing to do with anything I said.

And insofar as it does have some connection to my point... that property taxes shouldn't be used (seeing as it neither contradicts my claim about the implications of property taxes as a funding mechanism nor asserts that they were intended to reduce inequality)... your grand conclusion in defence of California (which I wasn't talking about, because I wasn't talking to you or responding to something you said) comes to "spends more tax dollars per pupil in disadvantaged areas". You know, the very thing I literally just said wasn't good enough.

You want to have a conversation about whether property taxes are good funding mechanism for schools. Sure. Fine. Have that conversation. But respond to the claims people are actually making instead of asserting that they're participating in conversations they're obviously not. And if you are going to through out "but actually" counter-examples, make sure they actually counter the points people raise. The first thing you have to realise is that an ought claim need not be based on an actual reality. You shouldn't drink petrol to cure yourself of Covid. Does that mean anyone's actually doing that? Propagating the idea that you should? I don't think so... bleach, yes (at least, once upon a time), but not petrol. The right to be forgotten shouldn't exist. Does that mean it does exist everywhere? No? No.

Conservative Republic Of Huang appears to have confused your conclusion for your specific discussion of property taxes. Unfortunately for me, I responded to CROH without reading Shofercia's post because, you know, I try to avoid reading shit Shofercia says wherever possible because it invariably results in shit like this. I responded to:

For example, you assume that local property tax must be the only way to collect education funding.

Nothing to do with California. Nothing to do with a mixed funding system.

And I've yet to see Forsher prove this point: single family zoning is a major feature of the main reason cities go bankrupt in the US

American cities that Forsher named so far? Zero. I'm asking you to support your claim with actual example. Instead, you drop a bunch of YouTube links. You're the one who made that claim, Forsher, either admit that you were wrong once again when it comes to reality instead of theory, or cite a city in the US.

Either watch the sources and critique them, or don't reply. Your choice.

[Shofercia]

Single family homes offer the biggest bang for the buck per person and that's where I'm coming from.

Not sure what you're saying here. If you mean investors, while apartments and multi-family houses are more expensive to maintain, they can attract a greater number of tenants, thereby generating more income.

To go back on property taxes, apartments and MF homes actually pay more taxes than SF ones. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/defa ... /w05-2.pdf.

And that's not accounting for the enormous costs of SF zoning. https://medium.com/sidewalk-talk/is-it- ... 233d69a25a

The paper that you listed, and thank you for listen a real World example, if only more posters focused on the real World rather than what they think works, but actually fails, anyway, the paper focus on property tax rates. That's not the same as property taxes paid per person. Let's say that you have two families, the Smith and Wills families, each with two adults and two kids, with the Smiths living in a house and the Wills living in a condo. The Smiths' property tax rate is 1%, but their house is valued at $500,000, whereas the Wills' property tax rate is 2%, but their house is valued at $200,000. As thus, the Smiths pay $5,000, or $2,500 per kid in school, whereas the Wills' pay $4,000, or $2,000 per kid in school, even though their property tax rate is higher.

Furthermore, the Medium paper that you've linked makes quite a few faulty assumptions. For instance: Existing tenants can be protected If you're going to build heavily, eventually the renters of new apartment complexes will outnumber the single family home tenants, and will outvote them during city elections, and there go all of the protections. Yet another claim: Upzoning won’t necessarily spoil housing investments

The reason for most land value growth, and quite a few NIMBYs have over half of their retirement wealth in their homes, is that the land is more valuable than the home on it. On the other hand, in a place of urban sprawl, the apartment is more valuable than the land. Quite a few NIMBYs are old and nearing retirement, so they do not have the funds to make improvements to their homes, and thus it'll be hard to keep up with the necessary land value improvements as well, such as a better plumbing and sewage system to handle increased demand. If upzoning didn't spoil their retirement portfolios, they'd be for it.

Additionally, the ones who are promoting this whole upzoning craze are the developers, the same ones that pull shit like this: https://www.randomlengthsnews.com/archi ... ino-effect

On July 15, the residents of Imperial Avalon Mobile Estates and their supporters rallied in front of Carson City Hall to protest the announced closure of the facility, which would leave more than 445 residents to fend for themselves in the wilds of an unaffordable housing market. Three more mobile home parks are slated for closure after the Imperial Avalon Mobile Estates, bringing worry and uncertainty to the city’s remaining park residents. Most residents of the mobile home park live on fixed incomes, are senior citizens, veterans and disabled people who had expected to live their golden years in the parks. Eighteen-year Imperial Avalon resident, Peggy Apodaca, warned other Carsonites at the Thursday afternoon rally: “It can happen to you if you have a mobile home.” The dark side of Carson’s new developments have been discovered...

The developers aren't doing it from the goodness of their hearts, they're doing it to make money and kick out the elderly. And if you think that politicians are responding to students, rather than developers, ask yourself: why are students the only demographic not allowed to discharge their loans through bankruptcy? Banks can do it. Donald Trump can do. Actual criminals, like Avenatti can do it. Mortgage holders can do it. Why are students holding the bag?

[Shofercia]

10,716.36
California is funny when it comes to housing. When I was a kid (Birth through 18) I lived in this place called Gilroy. Nice town 35 minutes outside of San Jose. We had a nice little house, 3 bed 2 bath, 1400 sq feet, 6,825 sq foot lot, the works. No pool, but what can you do? My parents got that house in 1994 for $175,000. In 2012 when I graduated high school, that home was sold for $370,000, and the estimate on its price at the moment is $892,400.

Compare that to where they live now. It's in Butte County, not rural but certainly not urban, and not a great part of California besides. 3 bed 2 bath, 1,782 sq feet on a 5 acre lot (rounding up a tad). They bought it in 2012 for $171,000, as of now it's estimated to go for ~$400,000 today.

I don't get your point? Rural land is much cheaper in almost all circumstances... whether you have zoning, YIMBYs, NIMBYs or whatever. It's why urban sprawl appears to make sense...

Not sure what you're saying here. If you mean investors, while apartments and multi-family houses are more expensive to maintain, they can attract a greater number of tenants, thereby generating more income.

To go back on property taxes, apartments and MF homes actually pay more taxes than SF ones. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/defa ... /w05-2.pdf.

And that's not accounting for the enormous costs of SF zoning. https://medium.com/sidewalk-talk/is-it- ... 233d69a25a

Bang for buck per person is a delusional metric.

The first problem regards density... a 1 square kilometre (or mile) area. Suppose we fill it with 10 people who each pay $10,000. Voila $100,000... but that kind of density (especially if it's in miles) is extremely rural. Let's take Hong Kong, London, New York, LA, Auckland and Houston's densities (just the ones listed on Wikipedia... density actually gets quite controversial, as I suspect Picairn knows... for reference I present a guest post on an urban policy blog, part 1 and part 2):

• 6,777 / 17,552.3 (HK)
• 5,666 / 14,670 (London)
• 10,716.36 / 27,755.25 (NYC)
• 3,276.37 / 8,485.74 (LA)
• 2,400 / 6,300 (Auckland)
• 1,398.76 / 3,622.77 (Houston)

For context... Auckland consists of a bunch of small skyscrapers in a small area of about 4 square kilometres, but outside of that area consists almost entirely of single family homes, largely based on the ideal of the "quarter acre paradise". Houston, obviously, is even less dense than this. London consists largely of five and six storey buildings in my (tourist based) experience, and I'm sure we've all seen a lot of movies set in New York, even if we haven't been there ourselves.

Now, let's say that $10,000 amount applies to Houston. That suggests $13,980,000 (with the square kilometre measure). Now, let's decrease that $10,000 by $1000 for every additional 1000 people (with a floor of $1000), so that gives us takes of:

• Houston = $13,980,000
• Auckland = $21,600,000 (at $9000)
• LA = $29,487,330 (at $9000)
• NYC = $10,716,360 (at $1000)
• London = $33,996,000 (at $6000)
• Hong Kong = $33,885,000 (at $5000)

Hmm... maximising bang for buck per person isn't very good, is it? Houston just barely beats New York City despite our assumptions giving Houston 10 times as much tax per person.

Obviously it doesn't really work like this, but the idea generalises... you can be more profitable despite a lower per unit return if you've got more people. [url]=https://www.niche.com/k12/search/largest-high-schools/m/houston-metro-area/I imagine that schools in Houston are probably massive, of course, and this seems to back that up[/url]. But what are the costs of running a school of that size? Are their economies of scale? How many schools are in a district? I don't know and I rather suspect the answers to these vital questions aren't provided.

The other problem is that property taxes are obviously collected on a property basis, not a people basis.

Property taxes pay for city services, which are done on a per person basis, not a per property basis. A house doesn't flush its own toilets. 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.

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.

[Wabberjocky]

1. Make housing affordable
2. Build houses
3. Pay workers a fair wage

Problem solved

[Shofercia]

Forsher's guide to literacy:

Nothing you've wriiten has anything to do with whether or not you interpreted a very easily understood post correctly. Stop wasting everyone's time.

Literally no-one else on this forum has a problem with saying, "Whoops, I meant to reply to your other post". For fuck's sake.

Property taxes are probably the dumbest way of funding education anyone's ever devised.

And in reality California's schools were primarily funded by property taxes until the Serrano v Priest decision, which forced property taxes to be applied on a statewide basis, rather than a zip code basis. This caused a taxpayer revolt known as Proposition 13, which restricted growth of property taxes, and led to a fusion of funding K-12 programs, between property tax, income tax, and other taxes. Furthermore, California actually spends more tax dollars per pupil in disadvantaged areas, than it does in wealthier areas:

Which has nothing to do with anything I said.

And I've yet to see Forsher prove this point: single family zoning is a major feature of the main reason cities go bankrupt in the US

American cities that Forsher named so far? Zero. I'm asking you to support your claim with actual example. Instead, you drop a bunch of YouTube links. You're the one who made that claim, Forsher, either admit that you were wrong once again when it comes to reality instead of theory, or cite a city in the US.

Either watch the sources and critique them, or don't reply. Your choice.

Here's your entire post that started this conversation:

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

In response, I asked you to name a single city in California, as California has a sizable chunk of America's cities. Fine, don't limit it to California, do the US as a whole. Do you need an entire YouTube video to provide a single city name Forsher?

New York. Los Angeles. Chicago. Dallas. Orlando. Oh look, I just posted the names of five cities, without needing a single YouTube link to help me. All I'm asking is for you to back up your crazy assertion, just one city. And no, midwestern cities that were destroyed by businesses moving out do not count as failing because they were single family zoned cities. I'm willing to bet that for every city you name, single family zoning won't be the real cause, and you've realized it, but you're too proud to admit it, so you're doing the whole song and dance to avoid the inevitable reality. How ironic, then, that your post that had nothing to do with reality, started with the following words: In reality

[Shofercia]

1. Make housing affordable
2. Build houses
3. Pay workers a fair wage

Problem solved

1. Make home loans affordable and revitalized redlined cities
2. Don't really need more stuff built; I think at this point we have more bedrooms than people
3. Not just a fair wage, but fair benefits

Yep, then the problem would be solved, but developers wouldn't profit, so it's not going to happen.

[Forsher]

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.

A house doesn't flush its own toilets.

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

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.

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.

[Forsher]

Nothing you've wriiten has anything to do with whether or not you interpreted a very easily understood post correctly. Stop wasting everyone's time.

Literally no-one else on this forum has a problem with saying, "Whoops, I meant to reply to your other post". For fuck's sake.



Which has nothing to do with anything I said.



Either watch the sources and critique them, or don't reply. Your choice.

Here's your entire post that started this conversation:

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

In response, I asked you to name a single city in California, as California has a sizable chunk of America's cities. Fine, don't limit it to California, do the US as a whole. Do you need an entire YouTube video to provide a single city name Forsher?

New York. Los Angeles. Chicago. Dallas. Orlando. Oh look, I just posted the names of five cities, without needing a single YouTube link to help me. All I'm asking is for you to back up your crazy assertion, just one city. And no, midwestern cities that were destroyed by businesses moving out do not count as failing because they were single family zoned cities. I'm willing to bet that for every city you name, single family zoning won't be the real cause, and you've realized it, but you're too proud to admit it, so you're doing the whole song and dance to avoid the inevitable reality. How ironic, then, that your post that had nothing to do with reality, started with the following words: In reality

Watch the videos.

[Berhakonia]

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.

[Forsher]

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.

Because an Englishman's home is his castle.

Banning foreigners has nothing to do with it. They'll speculate themselves because they're obsessed.