I’m the only person on my street actually in favor of the proposed multi-use housing/shopping complex a developer wants to build a block over from us. I can’t change the minds of all these old people. I’m pretty sure we’re just fucked until they all move out or pass on.
Mixed use land developments increase property values. My neighbors believe urban myths and lies, so I’m not particularly inclined to be any more fair to them than I would be to someone who believes that vaccines cause autism.
I own a house here too, ya know. I don’t share their misguided concerns. Yes there will be traffic. I believe we have reasonable options to mitigate that.
But it looks like the rich, old NIMBYs are going to win this fight, and keep people locked out as always.
Oh for sure, they’re mostly misguided, but not usually malicious. When housing is such a big investment people tend to behave very conservatively which means it’s lots of work to shift the needle…
I heard some pushback on a plan for a mixed use development in an abandoned office park. The person had zero to do with the property, lived in a completely different area. But didn’t want it because “traffic”. Like pushing those potential residents to live further away was somehow more beneficial for traffic than putting them close to it.
Why are you in favor of it? They wanted to build one near me, and I think it would bring more people and more traffic into an otherwise quiet neighborhood. I think it would also take away part of the exclusivity of the neighborhood, and lower property values (or otherwise make them grow more slowly)
Multi use land developments increase property values, and I would love to have some shops that I can walk to. Fuck suburbs. Fuck excluding people. I want housing density and actually walkable neighborhoods. YIMBY. Thanks.
If you want to live in high density housing and extremely walkable areas, why not move to those areas rather than trying to force your desires on a neighborhood that entirely disagrees with your preferences?
I live in the suburbs because I like low density housing. Why do you feel entitled to force your preference on me?
The suburban model is not viable. This is a ponzi scheme where the county need to always build new houses that will generate new taxes to maintain the current infrastructure but won’t be enough to cover the new infrastructure when the time comes to service it.
Mixed density buildings is the solution to this Ponzi scheme. Denser population will generate more tax on the same existing infrastructure and be sustainable.
I moved here because this is what exists lol. I didn’t design this place. It’s what’s here.
I’m obviously not forcing my opinion on anyone because we live in a democracy. I’m allowed to have a different opinion from my neighbors. I hope you realize that. Maybe ask why you’re allowed to force your preferences on ME even though I have actual data and evidence that it’s nicer on my side of things and you’ll be happier here even though you’ve been taught to believe otherwise.
Let me introduce you to some great resources on just how modern and terrible an anomaly American suburbs are. Really, they’re terrible. Terrible for your health, terrible for the environment, terrible for society and the economy. Ugly, soulless, fragile, useless Ponzi scheme that needs to end.
I’m pretty sure we’re just fucked until they all move out or pass on.
Most young people that support multi-use housing today will stop supporting it by the time they retire. It’s not the today’s old people that are against everything, it’s all old people. The next generation will not be different.
Which is a silly conclusion… What’s the point? The better question would be why isn’t more housing being built? And I suspect the answer to that question is there is a vested interest in increasing that deficit.
Whenever someone starts to conclude that housing is so expensive purely because there aren’t enough homes, they often follow that up with pointing to construction costs. Which to me screams deregulation and wage complaints, two things an improving society should not be encouraging.
Investors, and not just mega corporations, local investors are a major issue.
We have collectively come to understand the idea that you can get free money by buying houses and renting them out. If you talk to any lay person and ask them how they’d spend a million dollars the most common answer seems to be “buy property”
Our issue is in our collective minds, but the inertia of the idea means it will probably never be fixed unless there’s a catastrophe
Data: Hines analysis of Census Bureau and Moody’s data; Note: Population demand is a theoretical housing demand metric based on long-term household formation and homeownership rates by age cohort; Chart: Axios Visuals
Planet Money had a good episode going into three of the reasons (boomers aging in place, zoning laws, and losing people/expertise in home building industries) npr.org/…/three-reasons-for-the-housing-shortage#….