Parking garages in HCOLs are expensive, they definitely aren’t free. You can’t build a new multi family without planning for one or two levels of garage underneath. But you are correct that sub-basements, at least in the USA, wouldn’t have been used for living space anyways.

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fc417fc802 3 days ago | parent [-]

Right, I specifically called out that I agree with you on that. They aren't cheap. But then most places around here charge $50 or even $150 per month per parking space so it's not like the spots are being given away either.

> you are correct that sub-basements, at least in the USA, wouldn’t have been used for living space anyways.

That isn't what I said. I claimed that the amount of space dedicated to parking, if converted to housing, would not meaningfully reduce the housing shortage. It's a simple numbers game. The shortage is far larger than all of the current parking combined. We badly need to build much farther upwards but it is not permitted to anywhere near the extent necessary.

Another way of looking at it is to ask, if every unit of housing in a major city added additional square footage equal to a single car, would that make or break the market? Even at the scale of the entire market it would still be well under 10%, probably under 5%. The typical apartment in the US is definitely larger than a 5x2 grid of parking spaces. Meanwhile most HCoL cities could do with double the housing inventory at absolute minimum. Probably substantially more.

This is the same problem with reducing setbacks. Unscrupulous developers keep lobbying for that (and often getting it). We don't need to reduce buffer space. A few extra feet around the perimeter of a lot is nothing compared to doubling (or 3x, or 5x, or ...) the height.

We are suffocating under our own political dysfunction.

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seanmcdirmid 2 days ago | parent [-]

> That isn't what I said. I claimed that the amount of space dedicated to parking, if converted to housing, would not meaningfully reduce the housing shortage. It's a simple numbers game.

In HCOLs places, parking garages, usually basements, are the solution to this problem. If you want to argue that they wouldn't solve the housing problem in SFH neighborhoods...well, SFHs aren't going to solve the housing problem anyway that you look at it, so...

> We badly need to build much farther upwards but it is not permitted to anywhere near the extent necessary.

You are also right. You just need to add your budget of the garage into your housing projects costs, or not, since people of the option to buy condos in buildings that do not mandate you also buy a parking spot (which can pay for the underground garage construction).

> Another way of looking at it is to ask, if every unit of housing in a major city added additional square footage equal to a single car, would that make or break the market?

OMG, yes, if you mean major cities in China. How the heck would you even build enough underground garage space to even think about doing that? The US is nice because our cities are small and not very dense, so we aren't talking about adding parking for every unit in a 40 story...heck, the road infrastructure alone to get that many cars in and out of the garages would bankrupt Beijing or Shanghai.

> This is the same problem with reducing setbacks. Unscrupulous developers keep lobbying for that (and often getting it). We don't need to reduce buffer space. A few extra feet around the perimeter of a lot is nothing compared to doubling (or 3x, or 5x, or ...) the height.

More first world problems and American exceptionalism I guess. No, I disagree, but you should really visit Tokyo.

	▲	fc417fc802 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> If you want to argue that they wouldn't solve the housing problem in SFH neighborhoods I am arguing that anyone who blames the presence of parking for housing supply issues has failed to understand both the geometry and scale of the problem (or more likely imo is actively attempting to push an anti-personal-car narrative). > the road infrastructure alone to get that many cars in and out of the garages would bankrupt Beijing or Shanghai. I wasn't talking about traffic engineering problems. Only raw square footage for living space. You can generalize the question I posed as - in an alternate reality where every housing unit in (say) Beijing were precisely 10% larger, and total stock were reduced proportionally to accommodate that change, but everything else were exactly the same (improbably, I know) would that make or break the housing market in terms of supply and demand? The answer is that it would not. Housing supply problems are not due to a mere 10% shortage. > More first world problems and American exceptionalism I guess. I don't follow? What about my objection to reducing buffer space comes across as "American exceptionalism" to you? And why do you disagree? It's simply a matter of geometry. Expanding the footprint by a few feet versus duplicating the entire structure upwards multiple times. Obviously that doesn't apply to places that already build upwards to the extent physically possible but since approximately nowhere in the US does that it's neither here nor there.