I agree. Let’s just stop promoting it with land use restrictions, counterproductive building codes, lack of pricing of urban streets and roads, inadequate policing of crime and public order, dysfunctional urban schools, etc.
You claim that land prices are cheaper in greenfield developments. That's not true. In our 32-floor high-rise there could be 280 apartments -- our building also houses a hotel -- with a footprint only about the size of two normal lots for single-family residences with lawns (about 60 X 20 metres). The cost of land for our high-density building with its 280 apartments is much, much less than the cost of land for 280 single homes even in a greenfield setting. True, our apartments may be smaller than the normal single home, but the balconies, gym, the parking garage, the lifts, (tiny) storage units, lack of worry about many maintenance issues, all add to the use-value and convenience of our homes. The ability to walk to the grocery store and city market, the doctor, the barber, museums and all shopping, education and entertainment venues as well as the jogging track along the river and local forests and meadows make for a very healthy and interesting lifestyle. The local council likes developments like ours because it is much more efficient and much cheaper to run utilities to one large building than it is to run lines to 280 individual homes and to maintain the roads and easements for such a spread-out housing estate. Emergency services also respond more quickly here -- numerous hospitals are within walking distance. Insurance is much less, too, but I am not certain about rates/property taxes. And when we travel we just shut the door and do not have to worry about roof leaks, landscaping, bushfires, etc.
I've lived in suburban homes and they were great when I had children at home playing ball out back, but now in my dotage I much prefer living in a high-rise. Both high-density living and suburban spread are desirable in individual circumstances and governments should support both. But it is not true that land prices are cheaper for 280 individual homes than for a building like ours that houses that many apartments.
I am glad that you like your home. This series of articles on housing is not trying to convince people to live a different life-style. It is about understanding how housing became so unaffordable, and how we can make housing more affordable.
What is the value of your home per square foot?
I am confident that your home is a higher price per square foot than a single-family residence built on cheaper land on the outskirts of metro areas, particularly those metro areas without Urban Containment Zones. Most likely, it is far higher in price per square foot.
No, I did not "claim that land prices are cheaper in greenfield developments." I never even used the term "greenfield." A greenfield site can be in the middle of a dense city or in the middle of a rural area. It is not "greenfield" that matters.
You have repeatedly left comments claiming that I said something that I did not and then arguing against something that I did not say.
This is either because:
1) You are not reading the article very carefully, or
2) You are deliberately distorting my claims because it threatens your ideological convictions.
I am guilty of both. One, I am new to Substack and yours are articles I read regularly among about fifteen others, and I half-scan them and if something sets me off I dash out a reply. I should re-read to make certain what I thought I read is actually what is there in black and white. I apologise for mis-stating your views. Secondly, you seem to have bought into the right-wing populist view that anything Left is bad, and use "Left" as a pejorative. I am centre-left myself and am proud of the Left's many achievements, while admitting that the recent plunge into wokeism, especially in America, is mostly over-the-top. I like your first book and most of your work and admire the effort you have put into it all. You seem mostly fair-minded except for your anti-Left bias. Here in Australia where I live, almost all social progress (with a couple of notable exceptions) has been instituted by the Labor governments, not the conservative coalition. Anyway, I will try to do better double-checking my paultry efforts, and I ask you to re-think the anti-Left animus that haunts most of yours.
As a heterodox thinker, I find that a large percentage of my replies are "I did not claim..." People constantly think they understand my argument with a brief scan, but they are rarely correct.
My "anti-Left bias" is not due to any allegiance to right-wing populist views.
They are due to my decades of study of history and material progress. I believe that it is one of humanity's greatest achievements, but we are unintentionally implementing policies that are undermining the necessary preconditions of that material progress.
I have no allegiance to conservatism, but I cannot help but notice that 80+% of those policies that undermine the necessary preconditions of that material progress have been implemented and expanded by the Left.
That is why I am anti-Left as it currently exists. My goal is to transform the Left so that it supports material progress and upward mobility rather than Equality or Social Justice. That cannot be done without criticizing the Left. People do not fundamentally rethink their goals until they realize that their current path leads to a dead end.
I give you credit for continuing to read despite not liking my opposition to the Left.
Would you please provide complete references to these studies? A lot of things are available online these days, perhaps that Internet archive, and it would be very helpful to be able to link. Both studies seem to make robust claims.
To save printing costs and lower the purchase price for customers, the bibliography for my books (and the excerpts from my books on this Substack) are on my website:
I agree. Let’s just stop promoting it with land use restrictions, counterproductive building codes, lack of pricing of urban streets and roads, inadequate policing of crime and public order, dysfunctional urban schools, etc.
it?
What “it” are we promoting?
You claim that land prices are cheaper in greenfield developments. That's not true. In our 32-floor high-rise there could be 280 apartments -- our building also houses a hotel -- with a footprint only about the size of two normal lots for single-family residences with lawns (about 60 X 20 metres). The cost of land for our high-density building with its 280 apartments is much, much less than the cost of land for 280 single homes even in a greenfield setting. True, our apartments may be smaller than the normal single home, but the balconies, gym, the parking garage, the lifts, (tiny) storage units, lack of worry about many maintenance issues, all add to the use-value and convenience of our homes. The ability to walk to the grocery store and city market, the doctor, the barber, museums and all shopping, education and entertainment venues as well as the jogging track along the river and local forests and meadows make for a very healthy and interesting lifestyle. The local council likes developments like ours because it is much more efficient and much cheaper to run utilities to one large building than it is to run lines to 280 individual homes and to maintain the roads and easements for such a spread-out housing estate. Emergency services also respond more quickly here -- numerous hospitals are within walking distance. Insurance is much less, too, but I am not certain about rates/property taxes. And when we travel we just shut the door and do not have to worry about roof leaks, landscaping, bushfires, etc.
I've lived in suburban homes and they were great when I had children at home playing ball out back, but now in my dotage I much prefer living in a high-rise. Both high-density living and suburban spread are desirable in individual circumstances and governments should support both. But it is not true that land prices are cheaper for 280 individual homes than for a building like ours that houses that many apartments.
I am glad that you like your home. This series of articles on housing is not trying to convince people to live a different life-style. It is about understanding how housing became so unaffordable, and how we can make housing more affordable.
What is the value of your home per square foot?
I am confident that your home is a higher price per square foot than a single-family residence built on cheaper land on the outskirts of metro areas, particularly those metro areas without Urban Containment Zones. Most likely, it is far higher in price per square foot.
No, I did not "claim that land prices are cheaper in greenfield developments." I never even used the term "greenfield." A greenfield site can be in the middle of a dense city or in the middle of a rural area. It is not "greenfield" that matters.
You have repeatedly left comments claiming that I said something that I did not and then arguing against something that I did not say.
This is either because:
1) You are not reading the article very carefully, or
2) You are deliberately distorting my claims because it threatens your ideological convictions.
I am guilty of both. One, I am new to Substack and yours are articles I read regularly among about fifteen others, and I half-scan them and if something sets me off I dash out a reply. I should re-read to make certain what I thought I read is actually what is there in black and white. I apologise for mis-stating your views. Secondly, you seem to have bought into the right-wing populist view that anything Left is bad, and use "Left" as a pejorative. I am centre-left myself and am proud of the Left's many achievements, while admitting that the recent plunge into wokeism, especially in America, is mostly over-the-top. I like your first book and most of your work and admire the effort you have put into it all. You seem mostly fair-minded except for your anti-Left bias. Here in Australia where I live, almost all social progress (with a couple of notable exceptions) has been instituted by the Labor governments, not the conservative coalition. Anyway, I will try to do better double-checking my paultry efforts, and I ask you to re-think the anti-Left animus that haunts most of yours.
Apology accepted and appreciated.
As a heterodox thinker, I find that a large percentage of my replies are "I did not claim..." People constantly think they understand my argument with a brief scan, but they are rarely correct.
My "anti-Left bias" is not due to any allegiance to right-wing populist views.
They are due to my decades of study of history and material progress. I believe that it is one of humanity's greatest achievements, but we are unintentionally implementing policies that are undermining the necessary preconditions of that material progress.
I have no allegiance to conservatism, but I cannot help but notice that 80+% of those policies that undermine the necessary preconditions of that material progress have been implemented and expanded by the Left.
That is why I am anti-Left as it currently exists. My goal is to transform the Left so that it supports material progress and upward mobility rather than Equality or Social Justice. That cannot be done without criticizing the Left. People do not fundamentally rethink their goals until they realize that their current path leads to a dead end.
I give you credit for continuing to read despite not liking my opposition to the Left.
(Hsieh and Moretti; Herkenhoff)
Would you please provide complete references to these studies? A lot of things are available online these days, perhaps that Internet archive, and it would be very helpful to be able to link. Both studies seem to make robust claims.
To save printing costs and lower the purchase price for customers, the bibliography for my books (and the excerpts from my books on this Substack) are on my website:
https://frompovertytoprogress.com/bibliography-for-promoting-progress-book/
https://frompovertytoprogress.com/bibliography-for-from-poverty-to-progress/
Yes, I will try to add hyperlinks going forward.