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We’reTexas

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by We’reTexas

  1. Housing is now a commodity in America because there is not enough supply for demand. There are investors in the housing market because they have identified this problem and see an investment opportunity. Invitation Homes spelled this out in their S-1. But the fact is that institutional investors are something like 1% of the housing market (though they certainly have had an increased presence in certain housing markets in recent years). But they are not the cause of the housing supply crisis. Lack of supply is. You keep stating this, but virtually every study done on the topic finds that building more housing, and in particularly increasing density, puts downward pressure on housing prices. But to the extent your ideal case study is a city that has decreased housing prices in a reasonably short period of time to allow middle class affordability, well, we live in a country where housing zoning and regulations have largely been established by local control (ie, NIMBYs). Do you expect that to have ever happened? Have you followed California’s and New York’s efforts to address this at the state level?
  2. I mean, at worst he could only strike out.
  3. Yeah, we need to accept that the ship has sailed on affordability and this is a generational issue, at best. NIMBY’s spent decades getting us here and we won’t alleviate it overnight, but that doesn’t we shouldn’t do anything at all. “A developer might get rich! Working class folks couldn’t afford those new townhouses! And what about the parking?!”. Straight off the greatest hits list of Nextdoor boomer NIMBY pearl clutching, as they amass wealth gatekeeping their neighborhoods increasingly accessible only to, well, the wealthy.
  4. It boggles the mind that one’s response to a housing supply crisis would be to do nothing.
  5. Yes, the housing situation is insane in UCSC (and several other UCs). From what I hear from colleagues, pretty common for kids to live in nearby towns like Watsonville, which sounds like it would suck. But again, very common experience for UC students who aren’t affluent - not like most UCSD kids live in La Jolla for four years either.
  6. Agreed. I, for one, was looking forward to getting a jump on my Black Friday shopping.
  7. I’d add copping drops as well.
  8. It took me a while to shake my way of thinking as a UT grad, but it’s not “Cal and then everyone else”, it’s “Cal/UCLA=best public’s in the US and the rest are simply excellent”. It’s becoming more so as competition increases. No reason why Texas can’t aspire for that.
  9. State of Jefferson.
  10. On the one hand, a lot of that was fucking stupid. Leaving out swaths of Broadmoor, Gentilly and 7th ward seem as absurd now as they did almost twenty years ago. Moon Landrieu lived in Broadmoor! But the lower 9 and parts of New Orleans East? Yeah, the city had been stagnating for fifty years by K and those neighborhoods had been in steep decline and there should have been a conversation about how much territory the city could properly administer going forward. Instead we punted and let Brad Pitt rebuild the 9 with a bunch of shitty houses. Also, pretty crazy how some of those proposed greenways actually ended up being built. Lafitte Greenway is one of my favorite things that’s happened in the past decade.
  11. I don’t understand what this is trying to solve for. The levee reconstruction cost the Corp of Engineers something like $15B - it will need to be bolstered again soon and will be expensive but I’d doubt anything close to $100B over the next century.
  12. Well, for context, this happens pretty much every year to some extent in Lower Plaquemines. When I was a kid the saltwater went all the way to Kenner in 1988 and there was a barge with freshwater outside the FQ iirc. But that was a few days and this could last longer. So not entirely an issue of the folly of New Orleans’ existence, though that’s definitely a fruitful debate that could go on for hours over beers in the S&WB’s sex dungeon.
  13. I had to lol
  14. Big boi hit 🍌🍌🍌
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