Please build more dense housing. But please save wilderness and wildlife habitat. Also, please make valuable land, like waterfront, public land with nice walking/bike paths.
Keeping waterfronts public is another no-brainer—Strong Towns has talked about this in the context of Minnesota, with its many communities built around lakes. Homes with private lakefront might be worth a lot more money (and therefore more property tax revenue to the municipality), but a public lakefront improves the value (and therefore tax base) in a wide radius around the lake.
The smaller increment of value added to many properties is worth way more than the larger increment of fewer properties with private access.
Denser housing inherently conserves wilderness and wildlife. Lots of suburbanites have this idea that their way of living is "greener" because their day-to-day life is surrounded by greenery. This is nonsense. Dense cities have much lower emissions per capita, and /obviously/ much less land developed per capita. Not only in the actual dwelling units per acre of land, but also in the space taken up by transportation infrastructure. Trains and elevators move people around using much less land than roads and parking lots for cars.
Right, Minneapolis has done a great job, and is much closer to the ideal in that respect. I live in a different Midwestern city which has two great lakes, but most of this is just for private homeowners.
The property value added analysis is likely correct, but I think of it in a simpler way: what brings more value to the citizenry, a long unbroken stretch around the entire like with a strip of native greenery/plant life and a nice bike/walking path that can be used by EVERYONE, or segmented backyards that are each only available to the family at that lot?
My biggest fear about the future is that the entire surface of Earth will become one giant suburban sprawl with essentially no pockets of natural land left, but it seems like most people don't feel the same way as I do.
On property value vs “value to the citizenry”: I’d urge you to consider that they’re actually the same thing. Those properties become more valuable BECAUSE of the value provided to the citizenry by access to the lake. Property values go up when you make the place a better place to live, and making higher value uses of land (ie a duplex instead of a single family home) is also a literal manifestation of more wealth and more value being created within the community.
Then the real level-up is to think of property value not as value per parcel, but value-per-acre. A big box store is a very valuable property in a suburban municipal budget, but it takes up a HUGE amount of space, which requires lots of infrastructure to service. A hole-in-the-wall pizza shop might seem like a drop in the budget to a town’s budget, but when you realize how little space the pizza shop uses, that’s an incredible value-add to the community. (This is also a great argument in favor of replacing property taxes with land value taxes, if you want to open that can of worms.)
NIMBYs want their individual property to become more valuable. Urbanist a want the community as a whole to be more valuable.
I think basically all urbanist share the same concern as you about sprawl ruining what’s left of nature. It’s interesting to consider that agriculture is actually a much more space-consuming human land use than places where people actually live en masse, so reducing food waste and meat consumption probably has a larger land conservation impact than urban development.
I agree with everything you said. I understand the point you are making that they are actually the same thing, all that I was saying was that I tend to use a different conceptual frame for that particular issue (although I understand that in the end they are equivalent). And I love discussions about land value taxes.
Yes, agriculture is the real issue for land use. Vertical farming and (vertical?) lab grown meat are exciting technologies that might be able to reduce the space consumption of agriculture.
Rent vs Buy depends on the circumstance. Buying just a few years ago would have been a huge win.
There are a lot of tax incentives related to owning a home versus other investments. And I don't just mean taxes paid, its easier to shield owner owned real estate from lots of means tested stuff (college financial aid, medicaid, etc).
There are also some places where it's not practical to rent. Looking at the rental options in my town they are pretty abysmal. If you want a nice house in this location, buying is your only option.
If your single I get renting but if you've got a big family buying usually (not right now) makes sense.
Please build more dense housing. But please save wilderness and wildlife habitat. Also, please make valuable land, like waterfront, public land with nice walking/bike paths.
Keeping waterfronts public is another no-brainer—Strong Towns has talked about this in the context of Minnesota, with its many communities built around lakes. Homes with private lakefront might be worth a lot more money (and therefore more property tax revenue to the municipality), but a public lakefront improves the value (and therefore tax base) in a wide radius around the lake.
The smaller increment of value added to many properties is worth way more than the larger increment of fewer properties with private access.
Denser housing inherently conserves wilderness and wildlife. Lots of suburbanites have this idea that their way of living is "greener" because their day-to-day life is surrounded by greenery. This is nonsense. Dense cities have much lower emissions per capita, and /obviously/ much less land developed per capita. Not only in the actual dwelling units per acre of land, but also in the space taken up by transportation infrastructure. Trains and elevators move people around using much less land than roads and parking lots for cars.
Right, Minneapolis has done a great job, and is much closer to the ideal in that respect. I live in a different Midwestern city which has two great lakes, but most of this is just for private homeowners.
The property value added analysis is likely correct, but I think of it in a simpler way: what brings more value to the citizenry, a long unbroken stretch around the entire like with a strip of native greenery/plant life and a nice bike/walking path that can be used by EVERYONE, or segmented backyards that are each only available to the family at that lot?
My biggest fear about the future is that the entire surface of Earth will become one giant suburban sprawl with essentially no pockets of natural land left, but it seems like most people don't feel the same way as I do.
On property value vs “value to the citizenry”: I’d urge you to consider that they’re actually the same thing. Those properties become more valuable BECAUSE of the value provided to the citizenry by access to the lake. Property values go up when you make the place a better place to live, and making higher value uses of land (ie a duplex instead of a single family home) is also a literal manifestation of more wealth and more value being created within the community.
Then the real level-up is to think of property value not as value per parcel, but value-per-acre. A big box store is a very valuable property in a suburban municipal budget, but it takes up a HUGE amount of space, which requires lots of infrastructure to service. A hole-in-the-wall pizza shop might seem like a drop in the budget to a town’s budget, but when you realize how little space the pizza shop uses, that’s an incredible value-add to the community. (This is also a great argument in favor of replacing property taxes with land value taxes, if you want to open that can of worms.)
NIMBYs want their individual property to become more valuable. Urbanist a want the community as a whole to be more valuable.
I think basically all urbanist share the same concern as you about sprawl ruining what’s left of nature. It’s interesting to consider that agriculture is actually a much more space-consuming human land use than places where people actually live en masse, so reducing food waste and meat consumption probably has a larger land conservation impact than urban development.
I agree with everything you said. I understand the point you are making that they are actually the same thing, all that I was saying was that I tend to use a different conceptual frame for that particular issue (although I understand that in the end they are equivalent). And I love discussions about land value taxes.
Yes, agriculture is the real issue for land use. Vertical farming and (vertical?) lab grown meat are exciting technologies that might be able to reduce the space consumption of agriculture.
Rent vs Buy depends on the circumstance. Buying just a few years ago would have been a huge win.
There are a lot of tax incentives related to owning a home versus other investments. And I don't just mean taxes paid, its easier to shield owner owned real estate from lots of means tested stuff (college financial aid, medicaid, etc).
There are also some places where it's not practical to rent. Looking at the rental options in my town they are pretty abysmal. If you want a nice house in this location, buying is your only option.
If your single I get renting but if you've got a big family buying usually (not right now) makes sense.
Great piece Logan. Stupid is as stupid does. Not only is the housing crisis and unnecessary burden, it's downstream effects is very serious.
The Housing Theory of Everything holds that, if we can solve housing, most everything else follows: https://www.lianeon.org/p/the-housing-theory-of-everything
Really good writing. Well done
I imagine because it's a necessity, it's inelastic and land has a fixed supply.