We Can Fix the Housing Crisis by Looking at How We Raised the Legal Drinking Age (archive.ph)

submitted 2 months ago by LigOleTiberal@hexbear.net to c/urbanism@hexbear.net

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basically by tying it to federal funding to force states to allow more housing to be built, which is how the federal government got the states to all raise their minimum drinking age to 21 in the 1980s.

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[-] lemmyseizethemeans@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 2 months ago

It's not the lack of housing

It's the capitalism

Put a pin in that

[-] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 9 points 2 months ago

I mean, it’s both. The capitalism is definitely a problem but ultimately the vacancy rates in most of the US, especially major cities, are too low. There isn’t enough housing in the places it’s needed.

Just comparing US cities, which all have the capitalism problem, cities with higher vacancy rates have lower rents and lower rates of homelessness.

[-] Diuretic_Materialism@hexbear.net 7 points 2 months ago

The capitalism is causing the lack of housing.

[-] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 5 points 2 months ago

Fr. Capitalism incentivizes homeowners to block new housing because they want to "protect their investment" and that's how we got high rents.

[-] lemming934@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 month ago

That is not an example of market capitalism. It's an example of regulatory capture by homeowners: capitalist developers would like to build more housing, but homeowners cause the local government to block this.

With housing, we are in an unusual circumstance where both less government intervention (let people build more housing) and more government intervention (build public housing) would be better than the status quo.

[-] LigOleTiberal@hexbear.net 3 points 2 months ago

agree!!! there's plenty of housing available RIGHT NOW but the rock all have to have 5 houses each. scum.

[-] Infamousblt@hexbear.net 11 points 2 months ago

We probably couldn't use this method anymore because these days the courts absolutely do not allow the US government to do anything that could possibly be good. They would shut it down

[-] dukedevin@hexbear.net 5 points 2 months ago

something like 15,000 empty houses right now further more building brand new single family homes doesn't empower the working class, it empowers landlords

[-] lemming934@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month ago

something like 15,000 empty houses right now

This statistic is meaningless because many of the cities with excess housing are in places with no jobs

building brand new single family homes doesn’t empower the working class, it empowers landlords

This is incorrect. The important statistic to look at is vacancy rate In almost all the major cities in the US vacency rates are well below the tenant empowering 8% and many are below the 5% rate where tenant have a fighting chance. We absolutely need more housing. I'd prefer duplexes, triplexes, row houses and apartments for urbanist reasons, but the idea that building more houses empowers landlords over the proletariat is ridiculous.