The issues around zoning are not comparable. For one, here in the Netherlands we have plenty of density and not a lot of missing-middle, but still a giant shortage.
The problem here was never zoning, it was a lack of building.
> problem here was never zoning, it was a lack of building
Why isn’t the latter an effect of the former? I believe the Netherlands restricts building height by parcel unless a deviation procedure is granted, something I understand to be expensive and risky.
It’s expensive to build (many rules, not enough construction workers, expensive materials), expensive land, nitrogen policies, economic crisis 2008-2013 when there were no buyers for new houses caused a backlog of new houses.
For one, Cities in the netherlands are already quite dense, and the dutch are focused on building family houses attachted to each other mostly (row housing).
Also, thanks to the massive agricultural sector and a lack of oversight on industry, the netherlands has a massive problem with nitrogen in its soil which prevents building because building stuff generates more nitrogen.
Speculation and the liberalisation of the housing market has also massively contributed to price increases.
This is news to me and interesting re: nitrogen crisis. That said, isn’t construction a very minor contributor relative to the agricultural nitrogen impact? Like, taken to an extreme, preventing construction based on this is like preventing people from having children because children will produce nitrogen compounds
Am I understanding that the solution proposed in the article is to allow more dense building in suburbs/outskirts of cities in Europe? This doesn't solve the actual problem that many European cities face, which is a housing shortage in the actual city center, where people want to live; there's generally not that much a lack of housing the further you get outside of a major city center in Europe, and people don't want to live outside of the city center because, well, they want to be in the city.
I live in Amsterdam; nobody wants to live in the city center. There are plenty of ways to keep an old city center AND build out the surrounding areas in a way that people actually would like to live there.
We do really need to have a serious conversation about single-family homes; you will even find them right next to metro stations. Some of these low-density neighborhoods really need to be demolished and reconstructed into higher-density housing that can still reasonably house a family.
No, but they are don't rise nearly as much as real estate prices in city centers, and it's mostly irrelevant to the point I was making, because it doesn't matter how the prices are outside of the city center if you want to live in the city center.
> they are don't rise nearly as much as real estate prices in city centers
Pick the low-hanging fruit. More housing outside the city centre (with requisite transit infrastructure) still means more-affordable housing. That, in turn, should relieve pressure on the centre.
Many cities and areas close to major European cities have good transit infrastructure, yet people don't want to live there, they want to live in the city. So making more housing outside of the city, again, doesn't solve the actual problem facing major European cities.
> European policy debates often become Americanized because of the American domination of social media.
No it doesn't. And America doesn't dominate social media in Europe, except repeated administration scandals, paedofiles and history's largest pedo ring cover-up.
Lol, Europeans are quick to adopt all the worst things from America related to tech, including social media, streaming services, proprietary software, iPhones, and random IoT garbage.
Every European you meet on social media is necessarily the subset of Europeans who adopted social media. A subset of the population adopting a subset of the stuff doesn't mean adoption in general is as universal as you might assume.
e.g. podcast I was listening to the other day had a German complaining about their bank, after the bank suggested they send a fax.
That is weird article. Suburban zone nobody really cares about exists in some places therefore Europeans should make it big polarized political issue on the assumption that any suburban zone is the reason of all issues.
But like, did that polarized angry rhetorics actually solved the American issue?
> did that polarized angry rhetorics actually solved the American issue?
The issue was already polarized by the NIMBY’s. They just had a political monopoly. Pro-growth policies have resulted in new housing and abated price increases in several American cities.
Funny how everything worked pretty well, zoning restrictions and all, until public policy shifted towards papering over population decline with mass migration. An immigrant needs a house _today_, a baby needs their own separate housing unit in roughly 20 years. One approach towards population growth flattens the housing demand curve considerably, and it's not the one we're pursuing any longer. That's what's changed.
You can see it in the Japanese data. Japan is more or less closed to immigrants, is experienced a (for now) slow population decline, and house prices are plummeting.
Yeah I do, it's called supply and demand. To have a growing population, every couple needs to have an average of 2.1 children.
Let's say a couple have two children. From t=0 until approximately t=20, all four people require one housing unit.
If that same couple does not have children (guess what's happening in every single western country!) and we instead lean on migration to increase the population for them, at t=0 you have at least 2, maybe 3 housing units required for the same number of people. It's not complicated.
This is not how one attributes principal causation among multiple potential causes.
> at t=0 you have at least 2, maybe 3 housing units required for the same number of people
Plenty of families immigrate. And at least in America, immigrant households seem to be denser than native-born ones. You’re assuming immigrant households are smaller than average, which would indeed be surprising unless they’re all quite wealthy.
> you agree it certainly must contribute to the problem?
As a multi-decade effect? No, not really. Absent migration I don’t think home prices would be flat in Europe.
In some cases, in the short term? Sure. But to answer to what extent is it a distraction versus actual driver of home unaffordability, you need numbers. The article provides compelling evidence for zoning. Given the animus against immigrants in Europe, I’d guess I’m assuming if these data existed they’d already have been found.
Considerably less immigration was required for said workers because guess what, the requisite 2.1 children average per couple threshold was being met during those times.
The problem here was never zoning, it was a lack of building.
Why isn’t the latter an effect of the former? I believe the Netherlands restricts building height by parcel unless a deviation procedure is granted, something I understand to be expensive and risky.
Even with the stuff in the sibling comments, the Netherlands also famously makes new land.
For one, Cities in the netherlands are already quite dense, and the dutch are focused on building family houses attachted to each other mostly (row housing).
Also, thanks to the massive agricultural sector and a lack of oversight on industry, the netherlands has a massive problem with nitrogen in its soil which prevents building because building stuff generates more nitrogen.
Speculation and the liberalisation of the housing market has also massively contributed to price increases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_crisis_in_the_Netherl...
We do really need to have a serious conversation about single-family homes; you will even find them right next to metro stations. Some of these low-density neighborhoods really need to be demolished and reconstructed into higher-density housing that can still reasonably house a family.
Are home prices just outside the city center stagnant?
Pick the low-hanging fruit. More housing outside the city centre (with requisite transit infrastructure) still means more-affordable housing. That, in turn, should relieve pressure on the centre.
This is obviously untrue if the prices have risen.
No it doesn't. And America doesn't dominate social media in Europe, except repeated administration scandals, paedofiles and history's largest pedo ring cover-up.
Every European you meet on social media is necessarily the subset of Europeans who adopted social media. A subset of the population adopting a subset of the stuff doesn't mean adoption in general is as universal as you might assume.
e.g. podcast I was listening to the other day had a German complaining about their bank, after the bank suggested they send a fax.
There are no countries in europe who’s native language is english, and all online discourse would be in european languages.
( apart of course from the uk, but the author makes the distinction)
But like, did that polarized angry rhetorics actually solved the American issue?
The issue was already polarized by the NIMBY’s. They just had a political monopoly. Pro-growth policies have resulted in new housing and abated price increases in several American cities.
Do you have a source showing price increases correlate with migration? (The article seems to show a timing relationship between zoning and prices.)
Japan also famously builds lots of housing. (Agree they are a good example, though, for measuring these effects.)
Let's say a couple have two children. From t=0 until approximately t=20, all four people require one housing unit.
If that same couple does not have children (guess what's happening in every single western country!) and we instead lean on migration to increase the population for them, at t=0 you have at least 2, maybe 3 housing units required for the same number of people. It's not complicated.
> at t=0 you have at least 2, maybe 3 housing units required for the same number of people
Plenty of families immigrate. And at least in America, immigrant households seem to be denser than native-born ones. You’re assuming immigrant households are smaller than average, which would indeed be surprising unless they’re all quite wealthy.
As a multi-decade effect? No, not really. Absent migration I don’t think home prices would be flat in Europe.
In some cases, in the short term? Sure. But to answer to what extent is it a distraction versus actual driver of home unaffordability, you need numbers. The article provides compelling evidence for zoning. Given the animus against immigrants in Europe, I’d guess I’m assuming if these data existed they’d already have been found.
Answer true or false. One couple+one child requires less housing (in the short-to-medium term) than one couple+one immigrant.