The Californians Are Coming. So Is Their Housing Crisis.
Is it possible to import growth without also importing housing problems? “I can’t point to a city that has done it right.”
NYTIMES
From the comments section:
The problem with multi-family dwellings in the US is that there are insufficient noise-mitigation requirements. This leads to unlivable situations and neighbors at war with one another…
Income inequality deserves more than a passing mention, and acceptance as a fact of life. The housing-affordability problem is more about wage suppression than housing costs. Median income has stagnated since 1980, even has labor productivity has continued to rise. Nearly all the gains from income growth have gone to the top 10%, and most of that has gone to the top 1%…
Our immediate neighbors, however, are mostly terrible. Noisy, rude, filthy, not to mention brashly flouting public health law which affects us all when living in small spaces. The sidewalks are covered in broken glass and debris. My BIPOC daughters are sexually harassed if they walk in the wrong direction. We have hit-and-runs on a regular basis…
US population:
1970: 205m
1980: 226m
1990: 250m
2000: 282m
2010: 309m
2020: 330m
…Plus, the comprehensive planning (and no mass transit) we have is a joke. We’re well on our way to becoming any western sprawling area. At least some of the foothills were saved.
Once you’ve lured people to a place, which the city of Boise has done with its PR firms for the past 15 years, you can’t turn them away. So for me the question is: can’t you build better?…All it takes is one noisy neighbor constantly ruining the peace and quiet in your own home. I’d live in a cardboard box before I’d return to a situation where I’d be vulnerable to that again….
As a California who currently lives in Montana, the sentiment is palpable. I no longer tell people where I am from and have experienced instances of discrimination from repairmen to hairstylists when calling from a California area code.
The biggest problem that causes the housing problem is good public transportation. If we had a system like anywhere else in the world then people would not be in a pickle with having to live close to work. No need to own so many cars. We can actually walk on the present almost non-existent sidewalks. There can be more family friendly neighborhood parks with BENCHES. I find it so strange that we cannot take our elderly parents to green areas here due to lack of seating.