8 ms·

We don't always have to consider the apparently very fragile and fickle motivations of investors. Social housing can and has worked very well in many cases.

by tmnvix 3mo ago

tommica 3mo ago
Where has it been successful, and what counts as success in that? I genuinely do not know.
- BobaFloutist 3mo ago
  It's been exceptionally successful in Singapore, for one.
  - dreijs 3mo ago
    I currently live in an HDB property in Singapore. It's great. I'm originally from the Netherlands, which traditionally had a strong social housing sector: regions and cities would have their own housing corporations ('woningbouwcorporaties') tasked with building affordable housing. Those corporations were given government support after 1950 to help with the post-WW2 housing shortage, but were semi-privatized in the mid-90s, and in 2015 their scope was strongly curtailed. It would be reductive to say that this privatization was the sole cause of the current housing crisis affecting the Netherlands -- rents and housing prices have also increased a lot in Singapore since Covid -- but it probably didn't help.
    - eru 3mo ago
      Rents and housing prices went down a lot in Singapore during Covid. So them going up again afterwards is just a reversion to the mean.
  - youre-wrong3 3mo ago
    Singapore doesn’t have social housing. HDB is government built and sold for 99 year lease hold.
    - tovej 3mo ago
      You're describing a form of social housing.
      - youre-wrong3 3mo ago
        No. Because HDBs are not owned by the government.
        bluebarbet 3mo ago
        Yes. Because "social housing" is a general term that implies subsidization and affordability rather than any one specific ownership model.
        youre-wrong3 3mo ago
        No. Social housing is government owned and rented. Singapore is government built and sold. Singapore is a tiny island with little space. The government has to control what is built where and avoids it turning into Hong Kong slums.
        bluebarbet 3mo ago
        You're being stubborn. From Wikipedia: >Public housing, also known as social housing, is subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a combination thereof.
        youre-wrong3 3mo ago
        ITS NOT OWNED AND MANAGED BY THE GOVERNMENT. You literally just quoted why it’s not public housing. Jesus Christ.
        eru 3mo ago
- inigyou 3mo ago
  Primarily Vienna. There's nothing complicated about what Vienna did - other cities just prefer to please billionaires instead of providing services to citizens.
  - Plasmoid 3mo ago
    Do you actually know what Vienna did? Because the overwhelming number of people who reference the city basically just repeat a few dubious talking point about restricting rent.
    - raybb 3mo ago
      I don't know about restricting rent but they certainly had a progressive tax on high rents, a 1% income tax to fund housing, and then used that to build a ton of high quality social housing with balconies and amenities for all. I also like to think it helped that they slapped a big sign on each to proudly let people know it was their tax dollars at work. I didn't stay in social housing while I living there but I never once heard people complain about it. They basically just didn't think much about it at all and felt it was a good system and then would ask me why the US only makes it for poor people.
    - CalRobert 3mo ago
      Have a massive empire and then lose it resulting in a capital city with surplus housing?
      - chadgpt3 3mo ago
        That was Berlin several decades ago. The gap has closed now and it's just another city.
        eru 3mo ago
        Well, Berlin's history was a bit more complicated. Between the 'losing the empire' bit and the 'surplus housing' was a whole generation or two of the city being divided and one part living under siege and the other under real world socialism. But you are right, that surplus housing is no longer a thing in Berlin.
- pyrale 3mo ago
  Basically, all of Europe post-WW2. A significant share of new build in the 50s-60s was social housing.
  - woodpanel 3mo ago
    No one absolutely no one considers that to be remotely true. Look at French banlieues, German Plattenbauten or British Councils - they are synonymous with Crime and physical as well as cultural despair. And while Vienna or Stockholm are often cited as Utopias, the citees often intentionally leave out the negative side effects (ie. Waiting-times of years, housing black markets, etc) that are eventually coming full circle to the thing they were proposed as a solution against. Just with much less transparency. There have been social housing projects that paint a more nuanced picture, eg Hamburg-Steilshoop, where a giant block (for EU standards) has been erected in the 1970s and was basically divided into three sections: one to be run by existing housing coops, one by owner occupants, and one by the city. Needless to say that those parts run by the city were quickly becoming a prime example of a German „banlieue“ while the other parts became a prime example for those eager to dismiss any criticisms.
    - pyrale 3mo ago
      > Look at French banlieues, German Plattenbauten or British Councils - they are synonymous with Crime and physical as well as cultural despair. Sure, because what existed before was absolutely fine [1][2]... The truth is that these policies worked so well that pepole completely forgot what existed before. The alternative to housing projects wasn't a country without crime or despair, it was more crime, shanty towns, people displaced by war and unable to get back to normal life, and young workers unable to move to places of employment in the postwar economic boom. That topic was so uncontroversial that every european government, leftwing or rightwing, did it. I agree that a social housing project alone isn't enough to fix every problem, but that doesn't make it the source of other unsolved problems. [1]: Nanterre's shanty towns, https://www.defense-92.fr/exposition/la-vie-des-bidonvilles-de-nanterre-a-decouvrir-en-photos-59647 https://www.defense-92.fr/exposition/la-vie-des-bidonvilles-... [2]: pre-war shanty town, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2019/jul/04/how-paris-defence-zone-grew-into-shantytown-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2019/jul/04/how-p...
CalRobert 3mo ago
Unfortunately, most housing "investors" are people who bought a home 10-30 years ago and will be furious if they can't sell at a large profit compared to what they bought it for. Sadly, a lot of places (Netherlands and Ireland come to mind) _discourage_ you from investing in things like stocks, and _encourage_ you to "invest" in a primary residence, making the problem even worse.
eru 3mo ago
Seems like a non sequitur? If you want people to be able to live in a place without paying rent, please just outright gift that to them and make that official policy. That may or may not be good policy, but at least it's honest. But if the deal that people agreed to is to pay rent, then the courts should also enforce that. You can get from one regime to the other, by eg buying out the landlords or outright expropriating them. But if you want to do that, please just advocate so outright. Social housing may or may not be a good idea. But it's a completely separate issue from non-enforcement of existing rental contracts.
- tmnvix 3mo ago
  Not a non sequitur. I was responding to this specifically: > In the longer one, you need building and renting out shelter to be reasonably profitable, so that people do it.
  - eru 3mo ago
    Maybe. That narrower focus definitely makes your remark more defensible. On a tangent: along with most economist, I generally prefer giving poor people money that they can spend on goods and services as they please; instead of having some pencil pusher decide what they need and giving that to them in-kind.

We don't always have to consider the apparently very fragile and fickle motivations of investors. Social housing can and has worked very well in many cases.

by tmnvix 3mo ago

We don't always have to consider the apparently very fragile and fickle motivations of investors. Social housing can and has worked very well in many cases.

tommica 3mo ago

Where has it been successful, and what counts as success in that? I genuinely do not know.

BobaFloutist 3mo ago
It's been exceptionally successful in Singapore, for one.
- dreijs 3mo ago
  I currently live in an HDB property in Singapore. It's great. I'm originally from the Netherlands, which traditionally had a strong social housing sector: regions and cities would have their own housing corporations ('woningbouwcorporaties') tasked with building affordable housing. Those corporations were given government support after 1950 to help with the post-WW2 housing shortage, but were semi-privatized in the mid-90s, and in 2015 their scope was strongly curtailed. It would be reductive to say that this privatization was the sole cause of the current housing crisis affecting the Netherlands -- rents and housing prices have also increased a lot in Singapore since Covid -- but it probably didn't help.
  - eru 3mo ago
    Rents and housing prices went down a lot in Singapore during Covid. So them going up again afterwards is just a reversion to the mean.
- youre-wrong3 3mo ago
  Singapore doesn’t have social housing. HDB is government built and sold for 99 year lease hold.
  - tovej 3mo ago
    You're describing a form of social housing.
    - youre-wrong3 3mo ago
      No. Because HDBs are not owned by the government.
      - bluebarbet 3mo ago
        Yes. Because "social housing" is a general term that implies subsidization and affordability rather than any one specific ownership model.
        youre-wrong3 3mo ago
        No. Social housing is government owned and rented. Singapore is government built and sold. Singapore is a tiny island with little space. The government has to control what is built where and avoids it turning into Hong Kong slums.
        bluebarbet 3mo ago
        You're being stubborn. From Wikipedia: >Public housing, also known as social housing, is subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a combination thereof.
        youre-wrong3 3mo ago
        ITS NOT OWNED AND MANAGED BY THE GOVERNMENT. You literally just quoted why it’s not public housing. Jesus Christ.
        eru 3mo ago
inigyou 3mo ago
Primarily Vienna. There's nothing complicated about what Vienna did - other cities just prefer to please billionaires instead of providing services to citizens.
- Plasmoid 3mo ago
  Do you actually know what Vienna did? Because the overwhelming number of people who reference the city basically just repeat a few dubious talking point about restricting rent.
  - raybb 3mo ago
    I don't know about restricting rent but they certainly had a progressive tax on high rents, a 1% income tax to fund housing, and then used that to build a ton of high quality social housing with balconies and amenities for all. I also like to think it helped that they slapped a big sign on each to proudly let people know it was their tax dollars at work. I didn't stay in social housing while I living there but I never once heard people complain about it. They basically just didn't think much about it at all and felt it was a good system and then would ask me why the US only makes it for poor people.
  - CalRobert 3mo ago
    Have a massive empire and then lose it resulting in a capital city with surplus housing?
    - chadgpt3 3mo ago
      That was Berlin several decades ago. The gap has closed now and it's just another city.
      - eru 3mo ago
        Well, Berlin's history was a bit more complicated. Between the 'losing the empire' bit and the 'surplus housing' was a whole generation or two of the city being divided and one part living under siege and the other under real world socialism. But you are right, that surplus housing is no longer a thing in Berlin.
pyrale 3mo ago
Basically, all of Europe post-WW2. A significant share of new build in the 50s-60s was social housing.
- woodpanel 3mo ago
  No one absolutely no one considers that to be remotely true. Look at French banlieues, German Plattenbauten or British Councils - they are synonymous with Crime and physical as well as cultural despair. And while Vienna or Stockholm are often cited as Utopias, the citees often intentionally leave out the negative side effects (ie. Waiting-times of years, housing black markets, etc) that are eventually coming full circle to the thing they were proposed as a solution against. Just with much less transparency. There have been social housing projects that paint a more nuanced picture, eg Hamburg-Steilshoop, where a giant block (for EU standards) has been erected in the 1970s and was basically divided into three sections: one to be run by existing housing coops, one by owner occupants, and one by the city. Needless to say that those parts run by the city were quickly becoming a prime example of a German „banlieue“ while the other parts became a prime example for those eager to dismiss any criticisms.
  - pyrale 3mo ago
    > Look at French banlieues, German Plattenbauten or British Councils - they are synonymous with Crime and physical as well as cultural despair. Sure, because what existed before was absolutely fine [1][2]... The truth is that these policies worked so well that pepole completely forgot what existed before. The alternative to housing projects wasn't a country without crime or despair, it was more crime, shanty towns, people displaced by war and unable to get back to normal life, and young workers unable to move to places of employment in the postwar economic boom. That topic was so uncontroversial that every european government, leftwing or rightwing, did it. I agree that a social housing project alone isn't enough to fix every problem, but that doesn't make it the source of other unsolved problems. [1]: Nanterre's shanty towns, https://www.defense-92.fr/exposition/la-vie-des-bidonvilles-de-nanterre-a-decouvrir-en-photos-59647 https://www.defense-92.fr/exposition/la-vie-des-bidonvilles-... [2]: pre-war shanty town, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2019/jul/04/how-paris-defence-zone-grew-into-shantytown-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2019/jul/04/how-p...

CalRobert 3mo ago

Unfortunately, most housing "investors" are people who bought a home 10-30 years ago and will be furious if they can't sell at a large profit compared to what they bought it for. Sadly, a lot of places (Netherlands and Ireland come to mind) _discourage_ you from investing in things like stocks, and _encourage_ you to "invest" in a primary residence, making the problem even worse.

eru 3mo ago

Seems like a non sequitur? If you want people to be able to live in a place without paying rent, please just outright gift that to them and make that official policy. That may or may not be good policy, but at least it's honest. But if the deal that people agreed to is to pay rent, then the courts should also enforce that. You can get from one regime to the other, by eg buying out the landlords or outright expropriating them. But if you want to do that, please just advocate so outright. Social housing may or may not be a good idea. But it's a completely separate issue from non-enforcement of existing rental contracts.

tmnvix 3mo ago
Not a non sequitur. I was responding to this specifically: > In the longer one, you need building and renting out shelter to be reasonably profitable, so that people do it.
- eru 3mo ago
  Maybe. That narrower focus definitely makes your remark more defensible. On a tangent: along with most economist, I generally prefer giving poor people money that they can spend on goods and services as they please; instead of having some pencil pusher decide what they need and giving that to them in-kind.