Urban Expansion in the Age of Liberalism (worksinprogress.co) 120
The housing shortages plaguing Western cities today stem partly from the abandonment of a 19th century urban governance model that enabled cities like Berlin, New York and Chicago to expand rapidly while keeping real house prices flat and homes increasingly affordable.
A new analysis by Works in Progress argues that Victorian-era urban management wasn't laissez-faire but rather a system carefully designed to align private profit with public benefit. Infrastructure monopolies -- whether privately franchised, operated as concessions or municipally owned -- funded themselves entirely through user fees rather than public subsidies, and were structured so that building more capacity was the path to greater returns.
Landowners enjoyed a fundamental right to build when profitable, and height limits applied uniformly across entire cities rather than varying by neighborhood, meaning dense development remained legal everywhere. The system began collapsing after 1914, however. Inflation proved fatal to self-funding transport because governments found it politically impossible to raise controlled prices year after year. By the 1960s, trams had vanished from Britain, France and the U.S.
Meanwhile, differential zoning gradually banned densification in established neighborhoods, and rent controls decimated private homebuilding in many countries. In Britain, average house prices fell from twelve times earnings in 1850 to four times by 1914. They have since climbed back to nine times earnings. The article argues roughly 80% of postwar price increases trace directly to restrictions on building.
A new analysis by Works in Progress argues that Victorian-era urban management wasn't laissez-faire but rather a system carefully designed to align private profit with public benefit. Infrastructure monopolies -- whether privately franchised, operated as concessions or municipally owned -- funded themselves entirely through user fees rather than public subsidies, and were structured so that building more capacity was the path to greater returns.
Landowners enjoyed a fundamental right to build when profitable, and height limits applied uniformly across entire cities rather than varying by neighborhood, meaning dense development remained legal everywhere. The system began collapsing after 1914, however. Inflation proved fatal to self-funding transport because governments found it politically impossible to raise controlled prices year after year. By the 1960s, trams had vanished from Britain, France and the U.S.
Meanwhile, differential zoning gradually banned densification in established neighborhoods, and rent controls decimated private homebuilding in many countries. In Britain, average house prices fell from twelve times earnings in 1850 to four times by 1914. They have since climbed back to nine times earnings. The article argues roughly 80% of postwar price increases trace directly to restrictions on building.
Individual house size and lending (Score:2)
Everyone other than the family homeowner has a vested interest in keeping homes as expensive as possible:
1. City / county government gets more property tax revenue from a more expensive home as some jurisdictions exempt a fixed amount of the property value from taxation
2. Water / Sewer get higher fees, need to maintain less pipes, less water flow and infrastructure per square mile for larger homes
3. Bankers / Wall Street - They originate and securitize mortgage loans which only works if the loans are above
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Almost everything you said was wrong. "Need to maintain less pipes? Less water flow? Bankers - we're talking ROI, not actual mortages. Credit unions are far cheaper, and will mortgage. City/county/state doesn't need more sprawl. Feds don't care.
The (un)real estate "indrustry, on the other hand...
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Got it. You really don't want your neighbor to expand their house to add a mother-in-law apartment. Or to replace the ranch stile with a three-story apartment building. Or....
Two Questions (Score:5, Insightful)
1. What happened in 1914 that cause the system to collapse.
2. Do people actually like renting row houses and apartments, rather than having their own homes?
To be honest I always considered that style of housing to be barracks for the workers. Not something that I aspire to.
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Oh fuck you and that saying. Who actually says that besides the talking heads on Fox?
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Post a link.
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From your link:
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Who creates the incentives?
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In my experience, there's far more of a sense of community in denser inner-city neighborhoods than in cookie-cutter suburban developments where half the people don't even know their neighbors' names.
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>Do people actually like renting row houses and apartments, rather than having their own homes?
Suburban life is for the wealthy. We could do it for everyone with a lower population, more automation, and a sane economic system that doesn't depend on eternal population growth to prevent immediate collapse, but that combination doesn't seem to be likely any time soon.
Row houses and apartments mean more bodies to be at the base of the economy to hold that peak up a bit higher for the ultra-wealthy.
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Lots of people like row houses. In places like New York and Boston, those sort of houses are in high demand. it turns out that lots of people want to live near other people and actually like the density. As for high population, we all benefit from the high population. More people mean more ideas, more comparative advantage, and more economies of scale, which translate into better standards of living in general. There's some point beyond which very high populations would cause standards of living to get wor
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It depends on the quality of row houses, or terrace houses as we call them.
Many have extremely thin walls that transmit sound, so it feels like you live with your neighbours. They can lead to boundary disputes too, and issues when trying to modify or do maintenance work. They can also work if well designed and constructed, but around here those things are a rarity.
I much prefer how Japan does it. Almost every home is detached, and different. There is so much choice, and they tend to be much larger than UK o
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Lots of people like row houses. In places like New York and Boston, those sort of houses are in high demand. it turns out that lots of people want to live near other people and actually like the density.
London too. I want to be closer to things more than I want more space.
Meanwhile, even if you put everyone into individual suburban homes, even with a lower population, you do tremendous environmental damage because suburbs spread out more, and because they require more roads, pipes and other infrastructure,
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Suburban life is for the wealthy.
My sweet summer child I see you've never looked at the cost of buying an apartment before. They are often far more expensive than burb houses.
Row houses and apartments mean more bodies to be at the base of the economy
I own one of each. My row house was by far the more expensive. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about: Hint: The style of the place has little to do with the cost. Location is *EVERYTHING*.
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I'm halfway into a 30 year mortgage and looking back I'd rather rent something. Roofs are $20k and a new furnace is close to $15k now. Much easier when those are the landlords problem. Unless of course I'm wealthy enough to have some isolated property but at that point those expenses are minor.
Re:Two Questions (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm assuming you've got a fixed interest mortgage?
The whole advantage of that is that as inflation does its thing, if your employer gives raises (or you hop to greener pastures if they don't), your mortgage payment actually becomes easier to pay over the life of the loan. Rent, on the other hand, keeps going up.
So no, despite $20k roofs and $15k furnaces (you do know you can buy those online for a lot less, then get a HVAC tech to install it on the side, if you ask around), you're still coming out ahead.
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There's evidence that renting vs. home ownership is a wash [pwlcapital.com] financially if you are disciplined.
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There's evidence that renting vs. home ownership is a wash [pwlcapital.com] financially if you are disciplined.
This is a ludicrous analysis for most families. It makes the assumption that families will invest (and effectively invest) all of the money that they don't spend on a downpayment or have 'tied up' in a house if they are renting instead. Not realistic at all.
And, add to that, landlords are not dumb. Mean, cruel, cynical, maybe. But not dumb. If renting was less profitable than selling, they'd sell. So clearly the landlords believe renting is better for them.
In the end, you have to live somewhere. If you'r
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Rent, on the other hand, keeps going up.
So does your PITI (Principal, Interest, Taxes, and Insurance) when there is inflation because taxes and insurance costs have to keep up. Furthermore, the bank isn't going to loan you money for 30 years at a rate less than the expected inflation. The econ lit suggests that over longish time periods, housing prices tend to rise at only the rate of inflation plus about 1%. You can often do much better by either renting or at least not buying that starter castle the bank tells you you can afford and putting the
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I guess that people make the point that if you wisely invest the money that you would otherwise spend on home improvements, you can come out with about equal amount of cash in the end.
Totally depends on the situation, where you live and what the housing market is doing at the time of sale. It also requires a lot of discipline on the part of the renter.
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I'm halfway into a 30 year mortgage and looking back I'd rather rent something.
Really? 15 years ago means you purchased in 2010-2011. Rather implies that you would be better off in some aspect. Clearly, it is not from financial point of view, you'd pay more in rent and would have no equity. No roof or furnace costs would come anywhere near eating that equity, you'd have to have something really catastrophic, like foundation getting washed out, for that to happen. So why do you think renting is better?
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Not sure you're aware that parent only listed SOME of the potential costs. There are numerous more, appliances, plumbing issues... ugh, they are always expensive. I ended relining all the sewage pipes under my home all the way to curb. I've probably spend almost 30k in plumbing, 20k for the roof, 20k in AC units as my house has two.
Oh yeah, then because of said plumbing, you have termites and related damage, roof rats that tunnel under the house and come up under the bath tub.
As a home owner, it can be qu
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It depends on when you bought your house and when you want to sell it. In Canada, annualized appreciation for residential real-estate over the last 20 years has been about 5.11% [theglobeandmail.com] which is nowhere near as good as the Canadian stock market which has a long-term average ROR of around 10%.
And homes are not a liquid asset. If you need to sell at the wrong time, it can take weeks or even months to unload your home. So it's not a clear-cut case of owning always being better financially than renting.
I do own a
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As I posted earlier, renting vs owning a home is a wash [pwlcapital.com] financially if you're disciplined enough.
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Roofs are $20k and a new furnace is close to $15k now. Much easier when those are the landlords problem.
These may be the landlord's responsibility. But, you'd be fooling yourself if you think that the renters aren't paying for it with the rent. These very predictable maintenance expenses are planned for and built into the rent.
If you the homeowner for the last 15 years haven't planned on replacing your roof, furnace/AC, flooring, paint... ya goofed. You should also plan on a complete remodel at 20-30 years max.
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In the long run, the hassles of home ownership are well worth it. Either way, you're paying someone's m
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Roofs are $20k and a new furnace is close to $15k now. Much easier when those are the landlords problem.
The cost of those replacements are factored into rent. So you're paying those costs if you rent or if you own, just monthly (if you rent) and one-time (if you own). So if you own, you need to set aside an additional percentage of your monthly payment to cover these sorts of costs (just like you would be paying if you were paying rent). The percentage depends on many factors, such as the age of the home, the build quality, etc.
The big problem with renting is that decisions about if or when to repair items
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2. Do people actually like renting row houses and apartments, rather than having their own homes?
I own my own terraced house and yes I like it.
An example of the wrong attitude (Score:4, Informative)
2. Do people actually like renting row houses and apartments, rather than having their own homes?
To be honest I always considered that style of housing to be barracks for the workers. Not something that I aspire to.
Thank you for confirming one of the causes. You don't want to live like that so you vote to not allow anyone else to live like that. You vote to only allow the housing you aspire to live in. And it is impossible for everyone to live in single family homes and still have functional communities. Sure you can live in a small, older rich neighbourhood near shops and near where you work but most people won't be able to. They will either have no home (and not be able to take a good job) or have to commute long distances to work stuck in traffic with all the other commuters. Public transit won't work because the density won't permit it. These people will get in their cars almost every time they want to do anything, shopping, work, school, entertainment. And then they will raise a generation by driving them to sports practice, crafting, entertainment, friends houses....
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Renting might seem bad, but sometimes it's the best option - if you plan on only staying for a short while (1-5 years), renting is far preferable to owning after all the fees and taxes and effort needed to buy and sell the property you're in are factored in.
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Who said renting? There's nothing about row houses or apartments that precludes ownership. Yes I own a row house and I like it. I also own a massive house freestanding on a property in the burbs and chose to rent that out because living in isolation outside of the city centre was a shit lifestyle for me. Big place needs extra work, not everyone's cup of tea. Not sure why sharing a wall suddenly makes you think you're in a worker barracks simply because your neighbour is closer. I look around the inside of t
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I also own and like a row house. I can walk to a library in 8 minutes, a shopping centre in 12 minutes, and a transit station in 10 minutes. It's great.
Re: Two Questions (Score:3)
I recommend trying living in a city! You can make a very cozy and welcoming home in close proximity to others, and it also guarantees a neighborhood where you can walk to know your neighbors and most likely to get your groceries to. Having lived in an apartment in a city now Iâ(TM)d never trade it for a house. The friction to seeing other people and doing things is just too high. And man, not being required to drive everywhere is just so nice.
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If our urban planning wasn't so bad you could have both. Some decent public transport and estates designed for walking are all you need.
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If our urban planning wasn't so bad you could have both. Some decent public transport and estates designed for walking are all you need.
It's because we're completely car-brained in this country. People obsess over cars. Even the prime minister things that "working people" drive rather than take the bus. We won't get better urban planning until people stop assuming cars are the be-all and end all of everything.
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People won't stop being car obsessed until public transport dramatically improves, and I think there is very little chance of that happening. It doesn't help that we closed a lot of it, and can't build anything new.
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People won't stop being car obsessed until public transport dramatically improves
Well we won't have the latter until the former happens. Motorists kick and scream and yell continually over even the slightest perceived inconvenience. Anything that makes it better for anyone else gets billed as the "war on drivers".
and can't build anything new.
We absolutely can, see e.g. the Elizabeth line.
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To be honest, that's putting the cart before the horse.
Public transport has been intentionally run down because a sizable number of those in power are so car obsessed they find it impossible to believe not everyone is like them. You can actually see the attitude on Slashdot, whenever walkability comes up there are people who absolutely refuse to believe anyone else would want to live in a walkable society with good public transport when there are cars to be driven, and literally want such lifestyles banned.
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I think it's more to do with cost when they close parks. It affects libraries and other public services too. Austerity really decimated the UK. Worse than that, really.
Commercial operation of public transport is a problem too. Around here they recently "improved" bus timetables and routes by making them far, far worse, but presumably more profitable. I see Japan has an interesting idea for this, at least as far as railways go, called vertical separation. The local government takes ownership of the tracks an
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I own a house. Before I bought this house, I rented for 6 years.
All in all, I'd probably rather rent assuming I have a good landlord (which I did for the 6 years.) Much less hassle. I don't have a large amount of capital locked in a non-liquid asset. I don't need to budget for home repairs, or home insurance. Tenant's insurance, sure, but that's much cheaper.
I ended up buying because I happened t
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1. What happened in 1914 that cause the system to collapse.
According to the article, it was mostly zoning (and similar regulation).
The author presents the hypothesis (and supports with evidence, which is rare) that in a free economy, housing prices will be roughly the same as land plus construction costs. Starting around 1914, market disrupting regulation increased, for example limiting the height of buildings, and preventing construction in the countryside. Over time, housing prices became much more than land + construction.
Some of the regulations are desira
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Didn't a lot of those UK row houses start as worker housing? Also, a couple of years after 1914, Communism began to rise. The Communist vision was to have massive factories with attached worker housing and arts/entertainment facilities (like those Foxconn factories
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Around here, detached houses are being knocked down so developers can build a block of condos on the same land and make a ton of money. It doesn't matter whether people want to own or rent detached houses if they've all been knocked down.
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Around here, detached houses are being knocked down so developers can build a block of condos on the same land and make a ton of money.
This is happening almost everywhere and it is done with encouragement of city planners. It is ideological. [slashdot.org]
Hmmm...... (Score:2)
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Yeah, but that's evil and you should live in a Stalinist apartment block comrade.
In the real world, communists love "high-density development" but actual people want to live in a house with some room and a yard and in much of the West suburbs exist because much of the population will literally pay hundreds of thousands of dollars more to not have to live with the kind of people who live in "high-density development" in the inner cities.
Communists can't solve that, but they can force people to live where the
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actual people want to live in a house with some room and a yard
You mean, actual people who think the way you do.
I own a small row house (around 100 square metres / 1000 square feet). It's great! The worst thing about it is the yard. I wish I didn't have one. I have no interest in gardening; I don't like mowing the lawn; and the yard is under snow anyway for 4 months of the year. It's completely wasted on me.
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I don't think you have a very good understanding of communism. The reason city centres are often horrendously expensive and people are prepared to live in small apartments is because of the free market.
In short: bullshit (Score:2, Informative)
As a practical example: Vancouver, BC rapidly built out fully automated grade-separated transit system. It then allowed unlimited density near transit stations (resulting in nauseatingly ugly high-rises), it (effectively) banned p
Re:In short: bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess people really want to live in the city centre.
Age of Liberalism??! Please!! (Score:1)
This is the age of neo-liberalism.
Everything is up for sale.
Houston: a modern case study (Score:3)
Houston is the largest city in the US that does not have land use zoning. One result of this is that it's a quite affordable city. It's possible, for example, to rent a nice 2-bedroom apartment for $1,400 a month. A three bedroom home sells for an average of about $300,000; five bedrooms and a pool sell for less than $500,000. While that's significantly more than 10 years ago, it's a whole lot less than similar residences on the west coast. Most of the recent price increases stemmed from the COVID housing craze of the early 2020s.
Despite the lack of zoning, Houston looks and feels like any other big city in the country.
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Well, the downside of living in Houston with no zoning is that people are allowed to build in areas that are prone to flooding when it gets lots of rain. Those areas need to be denied to build on so it can turn back into the marsh it was before it was "built up". "No zoning" is great until greed causes people to do stupid things.
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That is not related to zoning. Flood zoning is controlled by the state, and yes, most building should not be allowed in these zones.
California's real estate problems have nothing to do with keeping people from building in flood planes. They have everything to do with strict zoning that does not allow apartments or high rises in most areas.
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I live in Houston. One thing to keep in mind is that this comes at the cost of sprawl and long commutes. Those $300k 3 bedrooms and $500k five bedrooms are often 20+ miles from the urban core even if they are technically still in Houston. You are signing up for long commutes and some of that cost savings on housing ends up getting spent on transportation cost and vehicle maintenance. You are still going to pay $750k+ for a 3 bedroom in a reasonably nice area within 15 minutes of Downtown/Med Center/Galleria
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While you are correct about sprawl, I don't think you can attribute that to the lack of zoning. Los Angeles and the Bay Area both have strict zoning, *and* sprawl equal to what we see in the Houston area.
And that $750K 3-bedroom house in Houston would be $1.25 million in the San Francisco Bay area. Of course, you can find pricey neighborhoods in every major city, even Houston. We're talking about averages here however.
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Zoning could be used to prevent sprawl, but it can also CAUSE sprawl. It all depends on how you use it. Zone everything single-family residential and you get sprawl. Houston does effectively zoning that causes sprawl because many lots have deed restrictions preventing subdividing or multi-family developments.
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This is true, deed restrictions can act like zoning. But it's also a fact that Houston has reasonable housing prices. This indicates that there are enough areas free of restrictions, that dense housing can be built as needed. And I see this on the ground, there are new apartment complexes and high rises sprouting up everywhere, and they're needed to accommodate the 10,000 new residents that move to the city each month.
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Despite the lack of zoning, Houston looks and feels like any other big city in the country.
I am guessing that you live in Houston. As someone who does not live in Houston, it does NOT feel like any other big city in this country. It feels more alive and real and meaningful than almost every other city I have visited... kind of like Miami in a way. Both cities feel "alien" compared to most other cities. They clearly have more culture than most places on this planet.
As bad as Houston is, I low-key kind of want to live there to experience it in all of its weird glory. Every time I visit, I find some
Important context missing: sustained growth (Score:1)
People from the vastly peopled countryside were willingly flocking to cities en masse in that era to work in the numerous light and heavy industries that concentrated in cities during the relatively short period when industrialization had already begun but before widespread mechanized transportation and electrification rendered density less necessary for industrial purposes than it had been in the age of water power and company towns.
Agricultiral dominance helped too (Score:2)
Agriculture is spread out by nature, industry centralizes by nature.
- Nimby conservatism
- Anti-sprawl environmentalism/elitism
- Economic efficiency clumping people up
- Mass migration
- Demographic shift to elderly and/or singles
A perfect storm from all sides.
No more housing, education & healthcare (Score:2)
That's because homes and market-facing apartments are commodities, not a a tool to make more consumers and tax-payers. That economic reality, which also applies to education and healthcare, has changed how families exist and why they don't.
How to fix the problem (Score:1)
1. Use something like the "Back to the Land" model, except without the racism.
Buy some acreage as a corporation, maybe an LLC.
People buy shares in the corporation, which gives them the right to live on the acreage.
People build their own homes for a fraction of the cost.
Elon Musk is selling awesome prefab homes for about $12K. You can also get some great tiny homes on Amazon starting around $10K. Buy the time it's said and done, expect to spend around $40K - about 1/10th the price of a lot of suburban homes
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Re:Shortage of building permits (Score:4, Interesting)
your argument
>shortages of housing are shortages of permits to build houses
and then your justification
>urban planning was captured through long march through institutions
and then
>ideologues that believe raising families, community-based neighborhoods, and even ownership of personal property are all a bad thing
.... but total lack of proof or even a hint that your claims could be backed up somewhere. I love it, this is peak 1999 shitposting, keep up the good work
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The Rents of Whiteness: Dismantling Possession and Exclusion in Anti-Racist Urban Planning [tandfonline.com]
Planning against planning [sciencedirect.com]
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Re:Shortage of building permits (Score:5, Informative)
Since when does a 15min city preclude a parking space? Does using your legs cause the wheels of your car to fall off or something? I live in a 15min city with basically perfect public transport and zero reason to actually own a car. Yet I still have one and it's still parked outside my place.
Please engage your brain before shitposting.
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That's a good article. You should read it. Specifically note that precisely no where does it say you don't get to own a car. It says you can live and experience the city without a car.
Again, does the ability to do one thing suddenly preclude you from doing another? Does living in a nice city mean you battery is flat when you go to start your car.
Please read your own post then engage your brain before shitposting.
Re:Shortage of building permits (Score:5, Informative)
Ah yes, also a sports field, an indoor swimming pool and an artificial lake with a swimming bath. And a golf course.
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Can you charge your electric car in your own parking space?
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Yes. Parking in a city core is a terrible use of land. Of course, for the city to function with limited parking, you also need excellent public transit.
A bunch of European cities have that. Pretty much no city in North America does, at least outside a relatively small part of the city.
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Sure. Multi-storey parking garages are great. But people expect free parking and that becomes completely uneconomical if you have to build parking garages.
I'm OK with people paying the actual cost of parking.
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Multi story car parks are not quite as much as a waste of land but they are still a massive waste of space.
It wasn't institutions or businesses that did it (Score:4, Insightful)
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Canada has lots of land, that's for sure. But most of it's up north and is cold and basically uninhabitable.
Many Canadian cities are already unmanageable sprawls. The last thing we need are more developments outside existing urban boundaries. Because sprawling developments don't have a concentrated-enough tax base to pay for infrastructure maintenance (population density is too low) so the productive cores of our cities end up subsidizing the unproductive suburbs that (bonus!) have also remove producti
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Our zoning laws prevent something called the "missing middle", which is the middle ground between highrise forests and sprawling single-family homes. The old parts of Canadian cities, like Old Toronto, Ottawa South, and so on have a lot of houses that are pretty small by McMansion standards, but still perfectly suitable for raising a family. They are also fantastic neighborhoods because they gelled before stupid restrictive zoning became a thing, and so they were grandfathered. It's not for nothing that
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You didn't have to look it up because it's not true and basically you're full of shit.
All this zoning change means is that if developers want to, they can build semidetached houses instead of single-family homes. Or a 4-plex. Or whatever they think will sell. There's nothing mandating "rentals" or any particular style of building.
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Aren't you right wing loonies usually in favour of freedoms and free markets? Funny to see you wanting big daddy government to enforce your desires about housing on everyone else!
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Another factor in restrictive zoning is discrimination against other races and lower social economic classes. It's not an accident that low density, single family homes are mostly owned by rich white people. In these neighborhoods, apartments are negatively correlated with school test scores, which significantly affect home values.
Yet an other factor in the US is the huge disparity in the quality of neighborhood schools. This desire toward "better" schools creates an artificial scarcity even in the face
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It's not an accident that low density, single family homes are mostly owned by rich white people.
No, they are owned by rich people. Why are you trying to make it about race?
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It's not an accident that low density, single family homes are mostly owned by rich white people.
No, they are owned by rich people. Why are you trying to make it about race?
This is an attempt at misdirection because the rich people are overwhelmingly white and the rich people in these types of homes are even more overwhelmingly white.
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You can't just keep packing more people in, we aren't sardines. Yes there is plenty of land, so build out there and not where it's already too crowded.
- btw, I hate cities and really don't understand why anyone willingly lives in one.