Urban Expansion in the Age of Liberalism (worksinprogress.co)
- Reference: 0180679878
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/28/1937218/urban-expansion-in-the-age-of-liberalism
- Source link: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/urban-expansion-in-the-age-of-liberalism/
A [1]new analysis by Works in Progress argues that Victorian-era urban management wasn't laissez-faire but rather a system carefully designed to align private profit with public benefit. Infrastructure monopolies -- whether privately franchised, operated as concessions or municipally owned -- funded themselves entirely through user fees rather than public subsidies, and were structured so that building more capacity was the path to greater returns.
Landowners enjoyed a fundamental right to build when profitable, and height limits applied uniformly across entire cities rather than varying by neighborhood, meaning dense development remained legal everywhere. The system began collapsing after 1914, however. Inflation proved fatal to self-funding transport because governments found it politically impossible to raise controlled prices year after year. By the 1960s, trams had vanished from Britain, France and the U.S.
Meanwhile, differential zoning gradually banned densification in established neighborhoods, and rent controls decimated private homebuilding in many countries. In Britain, average house prices fell from twelve times earnings in 1850 to four times by 1914. They have since climbed back to nine times earnings. The article argues roughly 80% of postwar price increases trace directly to restrictions on building.
[1] https://worksinprogress.co/issue/urban-expansion-in-the-age-of-liberalism/
Two Questions (Score:2)
1. What happened in 1914 that cause the system to collapse.
2. Do people actually like renting row houses and apartments, rather than having their own homes?
To be honest I always considered that style of housing to be barracks for the workers. Not something that I aspire to.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
It is all part of "You'll own nothing and be happy." If you have no personal property and no community it is much easier to centrally control you.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh fuck you and that saying. Who actually says that besides the talking heads on Fox?
Re: (Score:1)
It is part of published statements by World Economic Forum (WEF), they want that to happen by 2030.
Re: (Score:2)
Post a link.
Re: (Score:1)
[1]A link. [wikipedia.org].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You'll_own_nothing_and_be_happy
Re: (Score:2)
Not at all. That would require a multi-country, massive conspiracy over a hundred years. Instead the results are much more prosaic; the same basic economic incentives as well as the same basic desires (against change, neighborhood expansion, or new people who look or sound different) all come together badly. Never propose a nefarious conspiracy when simple incentives will do.
Re: (Score:2)
Who creates the incentives?
Re: (Score:2)
> Do people actually like renting row houses and apartments, rather than having their own homes?
Suburban life is for the wealthy. We could do it for everyone with a lower population, more automation, and a sane economic system that doesn't depend on eternal population growth to prevent immediate collapse, but that combination doesn't seem to be likely any time soon.
Row houses and apartments mean more bodies to be at the base of the economy to hold that peak up a bit higher for the ultra-wealthy.
Re: (Score:2)
Lots of people like row houses. In places like New York and Boston, those sort of houses are in high demand. it turns out that lots of people want to live near other people and actually like the density. As for high population, we all benefit from the high population. More people mean more ideas, more comparative advantage, and more economies of scale, which translate into better standards of living in general. There's some point beyond which very high populations would cause standards of living to get wor
Re: (Score:2)
I'm halfway into a 30 year mortgage and looking back I'd rather rent something. Roofs are $20k and a new furnace is close to $15k now. Much easier when those are the landlords problem. Unless of course I'm wealthy enough to have some isolated property but at that point those expenses are minor.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm assuming you've got a fixed interest mortgage?
The whole advantage of that is that as inflation does its thing, if your employer gives raises (or you hop to greener pastures if they don't), your mortgage payment actually becomes easier to pay over the life of the loan. Rent, on the other hand, keeps going up.
So no, despite $20k roofs and $15k furnaces (you do know you can buy those online for a lot less, then get a HVAC tech to install it on the side, if you ask around), you're still coming out ahead.
Re: (Score:2)
Those expensive maintenance costs will occur maybe once during your 30 year mortgage. Once your mortgage is over you now own a great big asset where if you just rented all those years you would own nothing . Post mortgage that house will be much cheaper to live in than paying monthly rent - even if that's a push it will be an arguably better place to live.
Re: (Score:1)
> I'm halfway into a 30 year mortgage and looking back I'd rather rent something.
Really? 15 years ago means you purchased in 2010-2011. Rather implies that you would be better off in some aspect. Clearly, it is not from financial point of view, you'd pay more in rent and would have no equity. No roof or furnace costs would come anywhere near eating that equity, you'd have to have something really catastrophic, like foundation getting washed out, for that to happen. So why do you think renting is better?
Re: (Score:2)
Around here, detached houses are being knocked down so developers can build a block of condos on the same land and make a ton of money. It doesn't matter whether people want to own or rent detached houses if they've all been knocked down.
Re: (Score:2)
2. Do people actually like renting row houses and apartments, rather than having their own homes?
I own my own terraced house and yes I like it.
An example of the wrong attitude (Score:2)
> 2. Do people actually like renting row houses and apartments, rather than having their own homes?
> To be honest I always considered that style of housing to be barracks for the workers. Not something that I aspire to.
Thank you for confirming one of the causes. You don't want to live like that so you vote to not allow anyone else to live like that. You vote to only allow the housing you aspire to live in. And it is impossible for everyone to live in single family homes and still have functional communities. Sure you can live in a small, older rich neighbourhood near shops and near where you work but most people won't be able to. They will either have no home (and not be able to take a good job) or have to commute lo
Re: (Score:2)
Renting might seem bad, but sometimes it's the best option - if you plan on only staying for a short while (1-5 years), renting is far preferable to owning after all the fees and taxes and effort needed to buy and sell the property you're in are factored in.
Hmmm...... (Score:2)
I'm simply happy to have an old home surrounded by roses and a back yard garden in a quiet neighborhood. I live in the Midwest but the housing market is weird. All of the new houses are cheaply made and overpriced. All of the good houses keep getting bought up by weird companies that only want to rent them. Same thing with the old crack houses, rental only. Hopefully, prices drop soon.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but that's evil and you should live in a Stalinist apartment block comrade.
In the real world, communists love "high-density development" but actual people want to live in a house with some room and a yard and in much of the West suburbs exist because much of the population will literally pay hundreds of thousands of dollars more to not have to live with the kind of people who live in "high-density development" in the inner cities.
Communists can't solve that, but they can force people to live where the
In short: bullshit (Score:2)
The Victorian Era cities were a good approximation of hell. As for "moar density" bullshit, no large city in the US, Western Europe, or Japan lowered down housing prices by increasing density. But sure, we just need to allow real estate developers run rampant. Just trust me, bro.
As a practical example: Vancouver, BC rapidly built out fully automated grade-separated transit system. It then allowed unlimited density near transit stations (resulting in nauseatingly ugly high-rises), it (effectively) banned p
Re: (Score:2)
I guess people really want to live in the city centre.
Re: (Score:1)
I feel that NIMBYism and zoning laws are as much an obstacle as geography if not more even in those cases, projects frequently fall into limbo this way despite being hours inland and on stable ground. Certainly keeping buildings up to code is an important thing, just ask the City of Burnaby about Onni's wonderful handling of Gilmore Place. That being said, surely a distinction should be drawn between building a skyscraper in peat bog and a building that is slightly too tall and "doesn't fit the character o
Re:Shortage of building permits (Score:4, Insightful)
your argument
shortages of housing are shortages of permits to build houses
and then your justification
urban planning was captured through long march through institutions
and then
ideologues that believe raising families, community-based neighborhoods, and even ownership of personal property are all a bad thing
.... but total lack of proof or even a hint that your claims could be backed up somewhere. I love it, this is peak 1999 shitposting, keep up the good work
Re: (Score:2)
Since when does a 15min city preclude a parking space? Does using your legs cause the wheels of your car to fall off or something? I live in a 15min city with basically perfect public transport and zero reason to actually own a car. Yet I still have one and it's still parked outside my place.
Please engage your brain before shitposting.
It wasn't institutions or businesses that did it (Score:2)
It was voters. Voter greed. The majority of voters live in owner occupied dwellings. In Canada that number is 67%. Homes shouldn't be a good investment. They should depreciate with time the way cars do. However through greed and ignorance, home owners used their majority to enact laws and regulations that would restrict the building of competing housing. Home owners feel entitled to house prices going up significantly faster than inflation. In Canada 44% of people plan on using the profit of their h
Re: (Score:2)
Another factor in restrictive zoning is discrimination against other races and lower social economic classes. It's not an accident that low density, single family homes are mostly owned by rich white people. In these neighborhoods, apartments are negatively correlated with school test scores, which significantly affect home values.
Yet an other factor in the US is the huge disparity in the quality of neighborhood schools. This desire toward "better" schools creates an artificial scarcity even in the face
Re: (Score:1)
> It's not an accident that low density, single family homes are mostly owned by rich white people.
No, they are owned by rich people. Why are you trying to make it about race?
Re: (Score:1)
An area of land can only support so many dwellings before adding more makes it a place no one wants to be, including current owners. At that point adding more housing to that area is counter productive, good urban planning doesn't allow an area to get to that point.
You can't just keep packing more people in, we aren't sardines. Yes there is plenty of land, so build out there and not where it's already too crowded.
- btw, I hate cities and really don't understand why anyone willingly lives in one.