[Wojtek v. Jordan]:
> housing prices in the US are grossly overvalued due to inefficiencies
> in the housing market ...
Yes, a disease has been identified. Now, as to the cure?
> [...] produced mainly by the idiocy of the American dream ...
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You guys are not thinking about these problems right. Behind the housing price is the housing bubble and behind that is the location of development and the allocation of finance for those developments. And behind that are the central planning problems at the multitiered government agencies that coordinate (or don') the general direction of development via zoning laws and construction contracts. At each of these levels are the political decisions and general conceptual frames of what is the best for society.
Around our urban areas are the vast suburban sprawls where these houses infrastructure were developed and the chaotic planning for the design of these spaces.
We've been through these problems for nearly a century. Remember the Marx Bros on Florida real estate? (Coconuts?) And, the old joke, if you like that, I have some desert property you might be interested in.
I admit I am a strong central planning advocate coupled with the opening of these agencies to public decision making and incorporation of public interest in the concrete---meaning the people themselves.
The housing mess was the result of big finance, cheap land, and fly by night construction-developer plans to get rich quick with no interest at all in the social and enviornmental effects.
I am keenly aware of these issues because I was born and raised in the central and rotten example, Los Angeles. And, to top that off, my ex-wife got her degree in city planning and worked for years in the City of Berkeley. These are reason why David Harvey lit me up with his lectures on urban geography. Yes, yes, yes.
You have to step back and realize our cities are also our collective treasures (well in degrees of lesser and greater). They provide us, like our families and work, our social, political, and cultural milieu. They (potentially) frame our understanding of the world and our place in the full existental measure.
God, let's get off this narrow nonsense about the housing crisis.
You guys are both much smarter than quibbling. Start dreaming and planning.
In the early 1970s Berkeley faced a series of local urban problems and thank Marx the grad students and city officials saw the threat of corporate franchises, unregulated development and all the other threats that would transform most of our urban centers. The old industrial sections were all down near the bay and industrial rot was setting in. That for a few years provided me with great studio space that was wholly undeveloped. Then the City of Berkeley got a HUD grant to develop the area. I was offered money to move. I would have to move anyway, so I went to see the woman handling these get out of town checks. We sat in her office and discussed exactly what the city planned to do with the area. The answer was a second retail area for small shops and business. So now we have the 4th Street of overpriced boutique shit. It is a very popular shopping area, but there is little parking and since the surrounding area is still low income housing it provides very little for the people who live nearby.
Now that plan made no sense. It was designed to suit the life style of upper income people all of whom live somewhere else. It requires a car because the location has only awkward bus service. The streets are narrow. There are no markets. Cody's Books moved there and failed. And there are other problems of servicing a local community.
I envy Oakland Chinatown, although I never go there, except for servicing medical equipment back when I was still working. Around one block you could get practically everything you need to live, and just a few blocks away was an excellent elementary school with a small park somewhere nearby. The old men used it during the day to people watch and talk. Downtown offices for city, county, and state (also jail) are all located within a very short bus ride.
I don't know how you can design such things. They seem to grow organically out of the social life of the people. But hey, we can start thinking along those lines
Well you all have examples of your own on what is to be done in your particular cities. So let's start thinking along those lines when the bullshit `housing' issues comes up.
(Got up too early with no plans.)
CG