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Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier
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All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this book.Good. https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healt...
The author of the article is also author of https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healt...He is an expert on cities. I live in NYC and much of Manhattan is low density (4 story brownstones). It may not be building 100,000 apts. per year, but it would be far, far greater number than what is being built today.
⬐ kafkaesqSo are you suggesting we rip out (all but the upper-crust of) the brownstones, and put in glass boxes as high as we can build them? And that even if we did -- that there would realistically be any way to ensure that even a significant portion of these would be affordable -- without a good heaping dose of, you know, coercion (courtesy of your pals on the left)?I'm not sure what you're advocating, actually.
⬐ davidf18> "I'm not sure what you're advocating, actually."If you read the Edward Glaeser article, that's what I'm advocating. Briefly, by simply eliminating the rent-seeking laws of zoning density restrictions and also eliminating overuse of historic landmark status, market forces will take care of the rest. Removing the market inefficiencies will ensure that market forces turn unproductive land or low productivity land into more productive land in terms of housing.
Edward Glaeser: Build Big Bill http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1....
⬐ kafkaesqBriefly, by simply eliminating the rent-seeking laws of zoning density restrictions and also eliminating overuse of historic landmark status, market forces will take care of the rest.Unfortunately he doesn't make a coherent argument that will actually happen (other than, more or less: "Just close your eyes and pretend it's 1920 again. Or OK, if that doesn't work, pretend that Manhattan is just like Atlanta or Houston.")
Completely ignoring the fact that a whole host of fundamental factors have completely changed in the intervening time; and the rather obvious negative side effects of some of the measure he proposes, as well (like "drastically raising building limits" and its actual effect on median rents in surrounding neighborhoods, for example).
I mean, sure he's a respected academic, and all. But he's just not making a coherent argument.
Highly recommend Ed Glaeser's book if you'd like to further understand the socioeconomics and urbanisation aspects of this trend: https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healt...
I strongly recommend "The Undercover Economist" written by Tim Harford, A Financial Times columnist with a BS and MS Economics from Oxford. It is fun to read and focuses on microeconomics (market inefficiencies, market failures). He has a chapter dedicated to the failing economy of Cameroon which he visited and the growing economy of China.https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199926514/
Harford also as a book on macroeconomics, "The Undercover Economist Strikes Back" https://www.amazon.com/dp/159463291X/
Harvard Economist Eduard Glaeser is an expert on cities and he will help to explain (as does Harford) that the reason for the high cost of housing in NYC, London, SF, SD, LA, DC, Boston, and other cities is because of "economic rents" which is a market inefficiency that in this case uses politics to create artificial scarcity in housing through zoning density restrictions. These economics rents benefit landlords by transferring wealth from apartment renter to landlord.
Glaeser: Build Big Bill: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1....
Glaeser book: "Triumph of the City" https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143120549/
The book Left Coast City (https://www.amazon.com/Left-Coast-City-Progressive-Francisco...) describes the characters of the anti-highrise “growth wars” of the 1980s. In short, San Francisco’s 1980s-era progressives believe that the private market is greedy and irrational (since big business redeveloped slums in the 1950s and overbuilt vacant downtown offices in the 1980s) and can’t be trusted to build what people need, and therefore we need community veto power and strong eviction protection. These activists also grew up back when the media taught that urban life was un-environmental (see the chapter on ditching the Lorax in Triumph of the City https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healt...), so they support height limits too. The same anti-development activists of the 1980s (e.g. Tim Redmond, Calvin Welch, Sue Hestor) are still active today to oppose all big development including housing.
Once again — why everyone needs to be in Bay Area to work productivelyThis has been answered by the field of economic geography; if you keep asking the question, read Glaeser's Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier for a definitive answer (https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healt...).
⬐ nine_kSo, let's make Bay Area a city, instead of an endless suburb sprawl?
Because zoning codes mandate it: see The Rent is Too Damn High (http://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0...) and The Triumph of the City (http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Health...) for more.The short version is this: Property owners now have shocking amounts of control over what their neighbors do with property. Owners, especially of single-family houses, elect officials who restrict development through zoning and similar means. Height limits and parking requirements effectively mandate single, detached housing in most of the U.S.
This only really got started in the 70s (see http://jakeseliger.com/2013/07/03/jane-jacobs-is-everywhere-...), and it didn't get really bad until the 2000s, when the shift back to cities ran into insane urban zoning rules to produce huge affordability crises. By now, most developers who dare to build condos or apartments have to build luxury apartments: http://www.wsj.com/articles/rents-rise-faster-for-midtier-ap... because that's the only way to make the economics work.
In the meantime, much of the population growth has shifted to Sun Belt cities in Texas, Arizona, Georgia, and Florida where development is easier and/or simply sprawls more.
Someone living in New York has half the energy footprint of the average AmericanThis is absolutely true and some of the daughter comments are missing the point; see Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City (http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Health...) for more details, but people in urban environments tend to drive less and drive shorter distances; they're less likely to own cars in general and more likely to take mass transportation or bike; and their overall energy usage for heating and cooling is much lower because they share those costs (and walls) with neighbors.
Everyone has to live somewhere, and every time a five to fifty story building gets blocked in a city, dozens or hundreds of high-energy-cost, detached single-family houses get built in Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta.
If a political party outlined how they'd fix spiralling house prices they'd get my vote.It's really not that hard: remove height limits and parking minimums, per Yglesias in The Rent Is Too Damn High: http://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0.... Glaeser's The Triumph of the City is also good on this subject and discusses the UK more: http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Health.... This is a simple issue of supply and demand: rising demand in the face of limited supply means higher prices. Want lower prices? You need more housing or fewer people who want it. The former is easy to accomplish with century-old technologies, like steel and elevators.
⬐ twicWhat do you mean by 'parking minimums'?FWIW, the London Plan currently contains restrictions on the maximum amount of parking provided:
http://www.london.gov.uk/thelondonplan/docs/londonplan08_ann...
table A4.2 Maximum Residential Car Parking Standards Predominant housing type 4+ bed units 3 bed units 1–2 bed units Car parking provision 2–1.5 spaces 1.5 – 1 space 1 to less than 1 per unit per unit space per unit* * All developments in areas of good public transport accessibility and/or town centres should aim for less than 1 space per unit.⬐ rogerbinnsParking minimums are fairly common in the US, and cause problems especially in cities because they take up so much land. Here is one random article about them, and how inconsistent they are: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/08/exposed-americas-tota...Brazil has problems too - http://cities-today.com/2014/07/finished-brazils-largest-cit...
If you're very interested in your question, I highly recommend Ed Glaser's Triumph of the City[1]. Short answer: Density is valuable, and developing a new dense area is difficult. No one is going to pay for a skyscraper or a cute, tiny Victorian house in the middle of nowhere because the demand isn't there. You have to build where people are, but neither San Francisco nor the peninsula suburbs want to let that happen.[1] http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Health...
⬐ mc32What about San Jose? They have lots of land and or low density tracts which they could rezone for high density -and the city is amenable to actual renewal and progress, unlike SF.I know it has a reputation for bland mega-suburb feel (as though it were just a bunch of adjoined and conglomerated suburbs called a city) but it could change. Geology* could be an issue, if going over, say, 20 floors, but anything above 8 to 10 is good for density and could be made a viable alternative to SF hegemony in the region.
As a bonus, SJ, compared to SF has a functional gov't and has lower crime.