The Wrecking Ball For City Budgets

[@strongbad635]

We often discuss how the wealthy mine the poor for resources (including labor) to enrich themselves. What we don't discuss enough is how the wealthy also depend on the poor to manage the things they abandon and clean up the messes they leave behind when they deplete their environs and move on to consume somewhere new.

[@mariusfacktor3597]

I know Chuck doesn't like top down control over things, but if we had someone like Chuck who really understands the mechanics of neighborhood health in charge of housing policy, we'd be in a really good position.

[@52flyingbicycles]

When the Soviets built cookie cutter housing, they built large apartment blocks. Americans mock commie blocks, yet we have the cookie cutter housing too, just more expensive. And at least the Soviets had an excuse to be cheap: their entire country had just been leveled by WW2.

[@southend26]

This is a great point. SFZ is extremely expensive in other ways too, like infrastructure, transportation, and social isolation. It's so shortsighted.

[@danielchristiansen5481]

Completely overlooked the entire point and origin of single-family zoning - overcoming the Supreme Court striking down racially segregated zoning in 1910s to create places that could exclude "undesirable" people.

[@tann_man]

Houston doesn't have zoning but they do have suburban car centric build patterns and a boom/bust oil economy. There's areas that were single family neighborhoods right next to the city center. As soon as they fell into disrepair all at once the whites who could afford to fled to newer bigger homes farther away. This has happened to at least 3 generations and each time it's farther and farther out so commutes in the 1.5hr range are very normal now. What's interesting is gentrification patterns. First homes are built for whites, then all at once the neighborhood turns undesirable and Hispanics/blacks take their place. By the 3rd generation the area is in such bad shape most of the homes are completely torn down for townhomes or apartment complexes or trendy restaurants all at once. All this development will undoubtedly go bad all once and the cycle will probably repeat but at least for the areas that need it we can tear down and build whatever is desired (within massively restrictive build requirements of course). Very slowly the oldest neighborhoods are transforming into pleasant walkable areas. The far suburbs will probably rot as it's too far and too unpleasant to redevelop. People will migrate either farther away or into redevelopment closer by.

[@nunyabidness3075]

I think you have really over racialized the history here, and I’m pretty sure most of the people who fled felt victimized in most cases. It certainly did not help their net worth. Houston did suffer from block busting much like most of the nation where there was black integration. I’d urge you to look into the history of the Park Hill suburb of Denver to really understand the process of block busting and what it took to resist it. In many cases since the days of bussing, the process has been less about race and more about immigrant and minority groups moving into cheap areas of town en masse. There’s various reasons for neighborhoods losing value from being built really badly, too many apartments, oil bust cycle, bad development, and, my favorite, bad school districts. Houston is one of the least racist, most diverse cities on this planet. One big reason for that is that it came up as a much less classist city than most. Though that seems to have changed in the last few decades, it’s not as ingrained as it is elsewhere.

[@tann_man]

@@nunyabidness3075 I'm sorry I don't follow. "...the process has been less about race and more about immigrant and minority groups moving into cheap areas of town en masse." Those are exactly the same thing. I'd honestly like to see Houston grow a spine and become more racist. Houston is the trafficking (drugs, girls) capital of USA thanks to "diversity". Thanks to our "greatest strength" violent crime rates are also high. Despite only being 20% of Houston Africans commit over 60% of all violent crime. The remaining 40% is largely Hispanic cartel members. The hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year is not good for our infrastructure, public services, a cohesive society, crime rates, productivity, housing market, etc...

[@موسى_7]

It sounds like the Middle East, especially Iraq

[@stevensimpson6872]

I’ve been listening to Chuck on podcasts for years. This is the first time I’ve seen him. Cool.

[@kenhunt5153]

My old City had a minimum sq footage for a SFH at 2,400 so ft. Up in the Avenues of SLC you have SLC bungalows about 1,000 sq ft that go for $700k. Why not allow 1,000 sq ft SFH with no basement and no parking requirements?

[@Alex_Plante]

There is a suburb near where I live where small single family homes on large lots, built in the 1950s and 60s, are being demolished to build townhouses and duplexes. Whole streets have been transformed in the past 10 years. This is however causing a great deal of political opposition among long-term residents, and I think it mainly comes from senior citizens on fixed incomes who own their own homes, have lived in the neighbourhood for decades, and are afraid that their property taxes will go up. Where I live, by law, property taxes need to reflect market values, and all houses are re-evaluated every 5 years, and some people who live in desirable neighbourhoods have seen their taxes more than double. The taxes are calculated by the mil rate X the evaluation, so if the average evaluation goes up 50%, the city will reduce the mil rate so that the average tax burden increases at a rate roughly equivalent to inflation, but what this means is that people who live in neighbourhoods where property values have increased much more rapidly than average see their taxes go up.

[@nunyabidness3075]

Reverse mortgages could theoretically fix this, but it seems the industry is unscrupulous.

[@موسى_7]

Property taxes are evil. Tax should only be on liquid assets and on income, not frozen assets like real estate.

[@nunyabidness3075]

@ That absolutely would end badly. Even caps on real estate taxes can be disastrous for good land use. See California.

[@Pyedr]

I like this insight. Props

[@iyamaxx]

Wow, I've never thought about this problem! Do you know if anyone one has collected data on this?

[@ttopero]

This might be an argument for HOAs as they’re supposed to keep their subdivision from falling into decay, but as we saw in the late aughts, they couldn’t do anything about the forces that were significantly larger than them to prevent decay. The idea of preventing evolution by imposing artificial restrictions is a definition of fragility when the system weakens.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

HOAs and the NIMBY attitude of "I don't want this neighbourhood to ever change" have done immense harm. Change is constant, and if HOAs and local NIMBYs are blocking development, instead of upward change, their neighbourhood will eventually see downward change.

[@ttopero]

@@JohnFromAccounting this might be a good research thesis for an urban planner

[@موسى_7]

​@@ttopero Charles Marohn's Strong Towns is exactly what you described. It's a book.

[@ttopero]

@ I’m a member & have read his books, articles, videos. Good eye!

[@nunyabidness3075]

Garage apartments and multi family probably did save the Montrose area of Houston which is now mostly very desirable anywhere there aren’t too many of the split lot zero lot line townhomes that got built in the 90’s and early aughts. I never thought about how much that helped the neighborhood despite my buying a home with a dilapidated garage apartment which I renovated and then rented to pay off half my mortgage and tax bill. I do wonder why it’s only the affluent who can leave a neighborhood as it turns to decline. Seems to me anyone can sell. I’d say it’s less about affluence and more about paying attention.

[@sevenofzach]

One thing is if you have money and connections that makes moving easier

[@sevenofzach]

Also perhaps the less affluent who have connections to the community are going to find it harder to move somewhere without those connections because they can't just rely on money instead (eg childcare)

[@nunyabidness3075]

@@sevenofzach I moved a lot as a child, and as an adult. I did it when I was both poor and reasonably affluent. Seems to me what you need is just the willingness to do it.

[@sevenofzach]

@@nunyabidness3075 I know people where it is not the same, but I never said your case didn't exist. I don't think you were "wondering" considering your response, you just have a specific reason in mind and are sticking to that

[@microproductions6]

@@nunyabidness3075 Sure, but I think Chuck's point is that the affluent are going to be more likely to not want to live in a neighborhood that they see as declining a lot earlier than other people will. And as the previous commenter said, it takes time to move and potentially get a different job which is something that less affluent people are going to be more likely to have less of.

[@Novusod]

Declining neighborhoods in the suburbs are pretty rare. If a suburban neighborhood is declining it is usually the result of some outside factor such as a factory closing down. The real problem with Suburbia these days is excessive gentrification. Suburbia used to be cheep and affordable. Now it is full of million dollar homes and nobody can afford to live there. In recent years there are these private equity firms moving in and taking over suburbia. They price all the working class people out of the neighborhood and the whole thing just turns into an investment scam. If anything ends up destroying suburbia it will be private equity not some imaginary aging out problem. I have worked with people who flip homes for a living and the math pencils out really well. Buy some junk property for 200k, put in a 100k in repairs, sell for 600k or more. It is 50% return on investment which is extremely good. Maybe too good and that is why the private equity firms came in and gobbled everything up.

[@davidsmind]

This was more inarticulate than usual

[@ronvandereerden4714]

Almost 3 minutes before we see a single other person. Awful. A 7:25 video shot on a beautiful, warm, sunny day and there are just 3 other people ever seen , just a parent and child at the playground and a random other. It's a ghost town. What a horrible place to live.

[@brianm5060]

this is an odd take and strange thing to focus on

[@ronvandereerden4714]

@@brianm5060 Nope. Though not mentioned specifically in this video, it's part of the problem with the single family zoning he's talking about. Nobody walks because nothing is walkable. It's too far from your house to anywhere, so the streets are deserted and devoid of any life. This makes them dangerous too - in many ways.

[@brianm5060]

@@ronvandereerden4714 We don't know what time of day he filmed this at - and he's made it very clear that his small town has a lot of bad development choices that limit how much walking you can do.

[@ronvandereerden4714]

@@brianm5060 It's 85F (30C in real units) in Minnesota in September. It's almost certainly after noon. And yes, I was clarifying just how dreadful a place it is.

[@marc1164]

Are you sure people aren’t just at work? Also we are literally watching this man walk around, it seems to be a 7 minute walk to the park which is pretty navigable. It honestly seems a lot more pleasant and peaceful than downtown where I live.