Thoroughly enjoy your writing particularly as a new resident of the Detroit area.
Kevin Eerdmann here on substack has been making the point about affordability in the bottom quintile being missing prior to 2008, and the problem spreading up through income brackets since the GFR.
His account of the GFR and housing price since then is worth engaging with - essentially, the panic about a supposed excess of housing led to restricting all but the highest credit score borrowers depressed home prices by excluding lower income brackets from home ownership, driving up rental cost. I think this dovetails possibly significantly with your observations on neighborhoods left behind by urban upswell.
Finally there are interesting and I think unanswered questions about what the current set of preferences are. IFS (I believe) has shown that fertility preferences remain stable among younger people (2-3 kids IIRC), but actual achieved family size is much smaller due to late or non existent marriage/partnering. I think this raises the question as to changing housing preferences - do people still desire SFH and it is unattainable? Do they genuinely desire family life in multi family but the stock is poor for family life (this is my experience)? Or are the surveys wrong and revealed preference is small/no family? And various other questions. I have hunches but I think these are open questions.
Finally, I wonder about hotel construction (or lack thereof), and the consequent effect on housing stock use for Airbnb or second homes. As a side note, I’ve puzzled over my unwillingness to stay at lower end motel chains (motel 6, red roof etc) that I found perfectly fine 15 years ago. Hedonic adaptation is a thing but I also wonder if housing shortages push people in precarious housing situations into those properties, and without any disparaging intent, bringing with them increased wear on the property. Certainly years ago I found them simple but reliably clean in most places but that is emphatically not my recent experience.
Incoherent oaragraph structure means you don’t have to run my comment through pangram….
Hopefully I conveyed what I meant which is an appreciation of your writing and inquiry into the web of different factors in housing and urban fabric. I believe supply is the first imperative, but humane design and community forming/sustaining is diminished in importance.
Not much to disagree with here but if there's a persistent multi-decade structural gap between what it costs to provide rental housing, and what low-wage workers in the United States earn, I'd like to better understand the causes on the wage side of the equation. I know this is an urban planning Substack not a labor economics one, and while the inadequacy of just building more new housing is well taken, at some point, one would expect upward pressure on wages. I read through the post linked to in this piece but it didn't seem like Mr. Mallach really addressed it. Perhaps he will in a future post.
This article is spot on! That being said, your earlier take regarding YIMBYs and their preferance for new housing in already expensive areas was not wrong either.
Absolutely the case that the middle class ignored (or worse) the housing crisis until it filtered up to them. Despite the hope that the new salience of the housing shortage and affordability crisis would change that disregard, it really hasnt happened that hasnt changed much. Middle/upper-middle YIMBYs and NIMBYs alike are both more focused on their self-interests, not solutions that address the crisis for the people most harmed. Both glibbly rely on filtering down to meet (or not) the needs of low income people despite the absence of evidence that was making a meaningful impact —-even in more looser, more forgiving market conditions. YIMBYs show no more willingness than NIMBYs to share space with low income people or assure that are included when & where new production occurs.
Thank you also for your nuanced comments about the broken housing finance system. Zoning reform is a necessary and relatively easy target for people new to housing to understand and get excited about. But alas there is no single cause or solution. Whether market rate or affordable housing its the financing system and decision makers that ultimately determine what kind of housing gets built, where its located, in what quantity, at what level of affordability. As usual, follow the money!
Thoroughly enjoy your writing particularly as a new resident of the Detroit area.
Kevin Eerdmann here on substack has been making the point about affordability in the bottom quintile being missing prior to 2008, and the problem spreading up through income brackets since the GFR.
His account of the GFR and housing price since then is worth engaging with - essentially, the panic about a supposed excess of housing led to restricting all but the highest credit score borrowers depressed home prices by excluding lower income brackets from home ownership, driving up rental cost. I think this dovetails possibly significantly with your observations on neighborhoods left behind by urban upswell.
Finally there are interesting and I think unanswered questions about what the current set of preferences are. IFS (I believe) has shown that fertility preferences remain stable among younger people (2-3 kids IIRC), but actual achieved family size is much smaller due to late or non existent marriage/partnering. I think this raises the question as to changing housing preferences - do people still desire SFH and it is unattainable? Do they genuinely desire family life in multi family but the stock is poor for family life (this is my experience)? Or are the surveys wrong and revealed preference is small/no family? And various other questions. I have hunches but I think these are open questions.
Finally, I wonder about hotel construction (or lack thereof), and the consequent effect on housing stock use for Airbnb or second homes. As a side note, I’ve puzzled over my unwillingness to stay at lower end motel chains (motel 6, red roof etc) that I found perfectly fine 15 years ago. Hedonic adaptation is a thing but I also wonder if housing shortages push people in precarious housing situations into those properties, and without any disparaging intent, bringing with them increased wear on the property. Certainly years ago I found them simple but reliably clean in most places but that is emphatically not my recent experience.
Incoherent oaragraph structure means you don’t have to run my comment through pangram….
Hopefully I conveyed what I meant which is an appreciation of your writing and inquiry into the web of different factors in housing and urban fabric. I believe supply is the first imperative, but humane design and community forming/sustaining is diminished in importance.
Not much to disagree with here but if there's a persistent multi-decade structural gap between what it costs to provide rental housing, and what low-wage workers in the United States earn, I'd like to better understand the causes on the wage side of the equation. I know this is an urban planning Substack not a labor economics one, and while the inadequacy of just building more new housing is well taken, at some point, one would expect upward pressure on wages. I read through the post linked to in this piece but it didn't seem like Mr. Mallach really addressed it. Perhaps he will in a future post.
The financial crisis of 2008 was caused by the "model" you describe. 2008 was a HOUSING finance crisis. The model broke down in 2008.
This article is spot on! That being said, your earlier take regarding YIMBYs and their preferance for new housing in already expensive areas was not wrong either.
Absolutely the case that the middle class ignored (or worse) the housing crisis until it filtered up to them. Despite the hope that the new salience of the housing shortage and affordability crisis would change that disregard, it really hasnt happened that hasnt changed much. Middle/upper-middle YIMBYs and NIMBYs alike are both more focused on their self-interests, not solutions that address the crisis for the people most harmed. Both glibbly rely on filtering down to meet (or not) the needs of low income people despite the absence of evidence that was making a meaningful impact —-even in more looser, more forgiving market conditions. YIMBYs show no more willingness than NIMBYs to share space with low income people or assure that are included when & where new production occurs.
Thank you also for your nuanced comments about the broken housing finance system. Zoning reform is a necessary and relatively easy target for people new to housing to understand and get excited about. But alas there is no single cause or solution. Whether market rate or affordable housing its the financing system and decision makers that ultimately determine what kind of housing gets built, where its located, in what quantity, at what level of affordability. As usual, follow the money!