Rent Is Too Damn High
by Matthew Yglesias · first published 2012
73% recommend18% neutral9% critical
Why HN recommends it
Short, accessible argument that restrictive zoning and building limits drive up housing costs, often paired with The Gated City; recommended for readers new to urban housing policy and the housing crisis.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…is a symptom; it's zoning, which forbids market-clearing prices and a sufficient number of units to satisfy demand for living in and visiting the city. For more on this, see e.g. Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High: https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B... . When we have sane zoning, we'll have sane prices. Today there was an NYT opinion piece that comes at the issue from a racial angle:…
on “Airbnb dominated by professional landlords” ↗…outbidding first-time homebuyers, depriving families of the opportunity to build wealth, and what their impact on rents will be. This is an insane comment, for the reasons Matt Yglesias discusses in The Rent is Too Damn High and, to a lesser extent, here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/26/housing_isn_t... . Over the long term buying versus renting should ideally be revenue neutral, and whether or not you can…
on “Wall Street Unlocks Profits from Distress with Rental Revolution” ↗…that you want to make cities like SF and NYC more affordable, favor the removal of building height limitations and setbacks. The real problem in such cities is with supply, as Matt Yglesias writes in The Rent is Too Damn High and Ryan Avent writes in The Gated City. SF and NYC aren't expensive because of some natural law; they're expensive because of man-made laws, which can be changed. Don't yield to torpor!
on “What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco” ↗they exist for a reason: water, sewage, traffic, pollution Not really. See Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City, Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High, and Ryan Avent's The Gated City for more; pay particularly close attention to the sections about how urban life tends to be far more sustainable than alternatives.
on “Dumb rules prevent Silicon Valley from building needed houses and offices” ↗…past two years have seen a twenty-per-cent rise in homelessness, largely because of the soaring cost of housing." But he doesn't mention how supply and demand affect pricing, as Matt Yglesias does in The Rent is Too Damn High or Edward Glaeser does in The Triumph of the City. Both writers have correctly observed that many urban jurisdictions prevent housing from being built to accommodate growing demand; as a result, prices…
on “Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age” ↗…coastal CA, building in Seattle is still difficult and expensive. Austin, Texas is perhaps the most interesting possibility on a cost-of-living basis. (For more on why this matters, see Yglesias, The Rent is Too Damn High: http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Damn-High-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO).
on “The next Silicon Valley is probably going to be Silicon Valley” ↗…this actually is true, it seems like a failure of voters and public policies to a) allow enough housing to built (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francis... or Matt Yglesias's The Rent Is Too Damn High) and b) to build better public transportation, which is related to a). To the extent that tech company buses mean anything, they mean that the current system works so poorly that people are routing around…
on “Stupid Simple Things SF Techies Could Do To Stop Being Hated” ↗My question is, what is the problem, really Take a look at Matt Yglesias's The Rent Is Too Damn High (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO); many "fun" municipalities like Seattle have restricted development to the point that housing is extremely expensive. If you move from Seattle to, say, Houston or…
on “Ask HN: What is really wrong with the US economy, really?” ↗…http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/07/whats-the-matter-with.... The Bay Area has an entirely self-inflicted housing crisis that primarily benefits existing owners. Matt Yglesias describes more in "The Rent is Too Damn High" (http://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0...). Housing affordability is primarily a political / legal problem. It can be solved relatively easily, if and when voters (and by extension…
on “The Fight to Save a Silicon Valley Trailer Park” ↗…basically tries to prove that the transition to dual income households damaged the financial security of many families A great book. It can also be read profitably in conjunction with Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High. School districts are weirdly tied to real estate in the U.S.; many places with good districts also have severe land-use control laws that prevent the creation of new housing units on a given parcel land;…
on “American parenting is killing the American marriage (2014)” ↗Unaffordable housing, especially in cities, is a huge and regressive drag on the economy. Housing is unaffordable primarily due to parochial land-use restrictions, as Matt Yglesias explains in The Rent Is Too Damn High (http://www.amazon.com/TheRent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp...) and I explain here: http://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a-futu.... If we want cheaper housing, all we have to do is…
on “The Rise of Renting in the U.S” ↗…SF, or Seattle, but those municipalities have strict rules that prevent the building of sufficient housing to meet demand. So people move elsewhere. Matt Yglesias discusses this in more detail in The Rent is Too Damn High (http://www.amazon.com/TheRent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp...).
on “How gentrification really changes a neighborhood” ↗…other major problems in parts of the U.S. and Europe (in particular) that're underrated: 1. insane land-use control laws that make it illegal to build reasonably price housing (see Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High for more: http://www.amazon.com/TheRent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp...) and 2. transfer payments to older people that were originally conceived and executed when the number of workers to retirees was…
on “In Japan’s Slow Economy, Rare Price Rise Prompts Surplus of Remorse” ↗…This isn't really true in the case of California real estate, because the government restricts supply through height limitations. See Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City and Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High for deeper discussions of the issue.
on “The Great California Exodus” ↗Re: real estate prices, go read "The Rent Is Too Damn High" by Yglesias. Yes, it's a problem. And regulation is a big, big part of it. Also, there are plenty of places where you can make money working in tech and have a relatively low cost of living. Austin,…
on “How the Internet ruined San Francisco (1999)” ↗