Anyone else frustrated that this discussion always goes 'housing cost → effect' and not at all 'interesting new effects → housing'?
We all know about interest rates, credit access, and supply—but what we don't hear enough about is the structure and dynamics of 'bad areas.'
If you could suddenly flip a switch and make 'bad people' turn into nice, agreeable, conscientious neighbors, wouldn't that instantly solve the housing crisis?
Of course, this gets political, but that's exactly why I crave a publication that treads the line and engages a broad range of meat blobs.
Perhaps this is a problem more in Europe and not the US. I'm not sure how many areas in the US would be good locations if they were not so crummy. In the UK, it feels like one faces trading off paying for "nice" vs dealing with crummy and trying to predict which areas will become nicer in the next five years.
> If you could suddenly flip a switch and make 'bad people' turn into nice, agreeable, conscientious neighbors, wouldn't that instantly solve the housing crisis?
I don't see how, the core issue is supply of housing close to work and amenities not niceness of neighbourhood.
However maybe you are thinking further along, because indeed playing nice with your neighbours is important for increased density. But the US may never bump into that problem if it never lets citizens build densely in the first place.
We all know about interest rates, credit access, and supply—but what we don't hear enough about is the structure and dynamics of 'bad areas.'
If you could suddenly flip a switch and make 'bad people' turn into nice, agreeable, conscientious neighbors, wouldn't that instantly solve the housing crisis?
Of course, this gets political, but that's exactly why I crave a publication that treads the line and engages a broad range of meat blobs.
Perhaps this is a problem more in Europe and not the US. I'm not sure how many areas in the US would be good locations if they were not so crummy. In the UK, it feels like one faces trading off paying for "nice" vs dealing with crummy and trying to predict which areas will become nicer in the next five years.