Jump to content

2016 Democratic Thread


southsider2k5
 Share

Recommended Posts

I am aware of that. It's just that when you dive into libertarian corners of the internet, it's not too long before you start finding people making 'interesting' arguments regarding consent and the age of consent laws. Not accusing raBBit of that, just poking fun at what I see to be a pretty nutty ideology when you get down to its bedrock.

 

raBBit left some important parts out of his version of the rape allegations against Assange, which is why I made the libertarians and consent joke originally. One of the women claimed that she awoke to Assange having unprotected sex with her, something she had refused to do previously.

Edited by StrangeSox
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 6.8k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 10:52 AM)
This post:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevo...-palo-alto.html

 

Palo Alto is an extreme, but...man it drives me crazy.

 

There are a quite a few numbers out there that really give pause to talking about the extent of this economic recovery. Home ownership is a huge one. Despite essentially not having an interest rate in this economy for basically a decade, home ownership is still declining, and is at its lowest rate since the 1960s when it was essentially nearly impossible for a good portion of the country to even buy a house.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 10:58 AM)
There are a quite a few numbers out there that really give pause to talking about the extent of this economic recovery. Home ownership is a huge one. Despite essentially not having an interest rate in this economy for basically a decade, home ownership is still declining, and is at its lowest rate since the 1960s when it was essentially nearly impossible for a good portion of the country to even buy a house.

 

Productivity and home ownership.

 

I think I posted an article on this in here, but a blogger did a calculation that showed san francisco would require 200,000 new units to push its home prices down to 60% of where they are now (I forgot why they chose that number but it was to target some comparable median).

 

Chicago, to be sure, does a much better job. But of the high productivity areas of the country (New York, Seattle, San Fran, LA) the deference to community sentiment on what is allowed to build is way too onerous and it is killing future generations. Texas has had a huge leg up in just letting people build. This is, of course, how things were when the cities like Chicago, New Yorka nd San Fran were becoming cities.

 

It's amazing how ridiculous peoples ideas of the drivers of housing costs are. And people are way too accepting of them increasing "well if you want to live here you have to pay for it".

 

But, to first point, san francisco productivity for developers has been largely caught up by other areas. At one point are you going to keep accepting 40% of your pay getting sucked up into literal rent when you could live elsewhere and get paid same?

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 11:04 AM)
Productivity and home ownership.

 

I think I posted an article on this in here, but a blogger did a calculation that showed san francisco would require 200,000 new units to push its home prices down to 60% of where they are now (I forgot why they chose that number but it was to target some comparable median).

 

Chicago, to be sure, does a much better job. But of the high productivity areas of the country (New York, Seattle, San Fran, LA) the deference to community sentiment on what is allowed to build is way too onerous and it is killing future generations. Texas has had a huge leg up in just letting people build. This is, of course, how things were when the cities like Chicago, New Yorka nd San Fran were becoming cities.

 

It's amazing how ridiculous peoples ideas of the drivers of housing costs are. And people are way too accepting of them increasing "well if you want to live here you have to pay for it".

 

But, to first point, san francisco productivity for developers has been largely caught up by other areas. At one point are you going to keep accepting 40% of your pay getting sucked up into literal rent when you could live elsewhere and get paid same?

 

What does Texas's sprawl look like, though? Aren't cities like Houston and Dallas known for being nearly 100% car-dependent with horrific traffic? Not that SF or LA traffic is really great, but I don't know if that's really the model of the future for both environmental reasons and if younger people even want that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 11:04 AM)
Productivity and home ownership.

 

I think I posted an article on this in here, but a blogger did a calculation that showed san francisco would require 200,000 new units to push its home prices down to 60% of where they are now (I forgot why they chose that number but it was to target some comparable median).

 

Chicago, to be sure, does a much better job. But of the high productivity areas of the country (New York, Seattle, San Fran, LA) the deference to community sentiment on what is allowed to build is way too onerous and it is killing future generations. Texas has had a huge leg up in just letting people build. This is, of course, how things were when the cities like Chicago, New Yorka nd San Fran were becoming cities.

 

It's amazing how ridiculous peoples ideas of the drivers of housing costs are. And people are way too accepting of them increasing "well if you want to live here you have to pay for it".

 

But, to first point, san francisco productivity for developers has been largely caught up by other areas. At one point are you going to keep accepting 40% of your pay getting sucked up into literal rent when you could live elsewhere and get paid same?

 

Property taxes are also a very quiet and quickly expanding part of that problem in a lot of areas.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 11:00 AM)
What's the proposed solution? More high rises? I'm in and around they bay area frequently, and homes are already packed in really tightly.

 

Well palo alto is different in that it requires a certain plot with grass and height restrictions.

 

But San Francisco is only half as dense as Brooklyn. It doesn't require sky scrapers to build more densely (see paris), they are built closely, as in other areas, but they aren't serving as many tenants.

 

And worse, that same lack of density is pushed outside the geographic constraints of San Fran where they all have archaic and stupid rules against building (see Palo Alto)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 11:07 AM)
Property taxes are also a very quiet and quickly expanding part of that problem in a lot of areas.

 

Property taxes as an exclusion tactic you mean or just taxes being too high for new workers to arrive?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 11:06 AM)
What does Texas's sprawl look like, though? Aren't cities like Houston and Dallas known for being nearly 100% car-dependent with horrific traffic? Not that SF or LA traffic is really great, but I don't know if that's really the model of the future for both environmental reasons and if younger people even want that.

 

That's more of a product of building in an era of the car than their policy of sprawl. They let people build, and the demand for single family homes was a driving factor for that.

 

The good news is that houston and Dallas are attracting more people now that want to live in urban areas and they are not restricting that. What you would see in places like Washington DC and LA are parking space requirements, which have become a key driver in useless space and a reduction of housing units. The market in Chicago/LA/NYC would dictate less parking space requirements, but they are regulating more because incumbents have cars and care about parking.

 

In Houston, they don't have to build any. Your assumption is that their sprawl is because of their policy. But realistically, I have yet to see a movement of regulating density and anti-sprawl. More regulation would likely have led to more sprawl in those areas.

 

For example: DC

 

If DC had same ability to build as Houston, you'd have far, far less sprawl.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 11:16 AM)
Property taxes as a cost factor.

 

Gotcha. This spiral seems 98% due to education funding through prop taxes. As hard as it is to convince people building is good for the country, telling locals to stop funding their schools so much is probably harder/not as much fun.

Edited by bmags
Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 11:18 AM)
That's more of a product of building in an era of the car than their policy of sprawl. They let people build, and the demand for single family homes was a driving factor for that.

 

The good news is that houston and Dallas are attracting more people now that want to live in urban areas and they are not restricting that. What you would see in places like Washington DC and LA are parking space requirements, which have become a key driver in useless space and a reduction of housing units. The market in Chicago/LA/NYC would dictate less parking space requirements, but they are regulating more because incumbents have cars and care about parking.

 

In Houston, they don't have to build any. Your assumption is that their sprawl is because of their policy. But realistically, I have yet to see a movement of regulating density and anti-sprawl. More regulation would likely have led to more sprawl in those areas.

 

For example: DC

 

If DC had same ability to build as Houston, you'd have far, far less sprawl.

 

I don't know if you follow Atrios/eschatonblog but oh man does he hate parking spaces requirements.

 

Portland has pretty strong anti-sprawl legislation.

Edited by StrangeSox
Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 11:24 AM)
Gotcha. This spiral seems 98% due to education funding through prop taxes. As hard as it is to convince people building is good for the country, telling locals to stop funding their schools so much is probably harder/not as much fun.

 

California also gets the added weird effects of Prop 13 where those people who bought houses in Palo Alto in the 70's that are now worth $2M+ are probably only paying a couple hundred in property taxes. The new owners would get a new evaluation and their taxes would be more in line with what you'd expect for a house of that value.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 11:30 AM)
California also gets the added weird effects of Prop 13 where those people who bought houses in Palo Alto in the 70's that are now worth $2M+ are probably only paying a couple hundred in property taxes. The new owners would get a new evaluation and their taxes would be more in line with what you'd expect for a house of that value.

 

Ha, that too. The capacity of the baby boomers to uniformly screw younger generations and then act like the younger generations are the ones trying to get a special deal without working for it really makes me laugh.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 11:27 AM)
I don't know if you follow Atrios/eschatonblog but oh man does he hate parking spaces requirements.

 

Portland has pretty strong anti-sprawl legislation.

 

Totally. DC/LA the worst. Again, Chicago is very reasonable but still has them, Chicago did probably the worst in Wicker Park.

 

Did not know about Portland.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 11:40 AM)
Totally. DC/LA the worst. Again, Chicago is very reasonable but still has them, Chicago did probably the worst in Wicker Park.

 

Did not know about Portland.

 

There was some Netflix documentary I watched that touched on it several years back, but I can't remember the name of it now. The people who own the farmland right on the border of the "no more buildings" line are uber-pissed because their property is only worth a tiny fraction of what it would be because no developers are interested in it. Environmentally, this is great as long as you can still meet your housing stock. I was in Portland recently and checked out home prices out of curiosity. Seemed comparable or maybe a little bit higher than Chicago but definitely cheaper than Seattle or pretty much anywhere in the non-terrible parts of California.

 

edit: it may have been this

http://www.lincolninst.edu/subcenters/maki...place/portland/

 

In googling for that, I also came across this somewhat recent article on Portland's city planning and trying to strike that balance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/realesta...ver-sprawl.html

Edited by StrangeSox
Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 12, 2016 -> 01:06 PM)
Based on polling as of today, Clinton currently has 1023 ways to win. Trump has 1. (scroll down to the bottom)

 

You've posted a few times about ground game advantage and I think Ohio is going to be where we learn a lot about that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...