A paper came out about this recently: The City as an Anti- Growth Machine.

> Logan and Molotch's “urban growth machine” remains foundational in urban theory, describing how coalitions of landowners, developers, and politicians promote urban growth to raise land values. This paper argues that under financialized capitalism, the dynamics have inverted: asset appreciation now outweighs productive investment, and urban land is increasingly treated as a speculative asset.

https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.70145

I've never seen the evidence where density increases drive down existing land/home values.

I'm not sure why new housing devalues old housing. In my mind, higher density generally makes an area more desirable (e.g. because higher density enables more jobs, better infrastructure) and raises the value. Imagine as an extreme example and existing house in the middle of nowhere around which a metropolis is developed. Surely the value of the house, or at least the land it is built on, goes up, even though it loses its "cabin in the woods" appeal.

>For most Americans, A house is their primary savings account

This is true for California, where people (foolishly) rely on their home value as their retirement plan, which further incentivizes NIMBYism.

But in places like Texas (and other areas with affordable housing), the house is just treated as something you pay off to have a low housing cost in retirement. And your investments are your retirement+savings account.

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It’s going to take a SCOTUS decision overturning Ambler vs Euclid in my opinion.

We certainly will not see zoning reform until the Boomers die.

Fundamentally as a society we need to stop treating housing as an investment. It is and should be a utility.

Suring property prices is a relatively new phenomenon (as in, post-WW2). The true origins of NIMBYism, at least in the US, is (you guessed it) racism. Long before segregation ended, and long after, there was economic segregation. Redlining [1], HOAs [2], the post-WW2 GI Bill [3], where highways were built [4][5], etc.

In fact this is a good rule of thumb: if you're ever confused why something is the way it is in the US, your first guess should pretty much always be "because racism".

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

[2]: https://www.furman.edu/fu/placing-furman/what-are-racially-r...

[3]: https://www.history.com/articles/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans...

[4]: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/07/984784455/a-brief-history-of-...

[5]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-mo...

TBF a lot of the complaints are coming from businesses that are _probably_ renting. There is absolutely the chance that their business will go under due to construction disruptions before they can benefit from the increased foot traffic once the development is complete.

And, of course, once the development is complete, and the value of their land goes up, so too does their rent....

Well, in Menlo Park they're just flat surface parking lots, not even multi-story structures. The planned development is multi-story housing with parking underneath.

To be fair, I am boycotting the (similar) underground garage over at Springline because they're clearly made only for people in Range Rovers or whatever. They have those AWFUL ticket machines, set too far back (to avoid getting hit) and too high to access from a normal car.

> To be fair, parking structures always look and feel pretty distopian.

What a lot of the new buildings in Austin are doing is putting an attached garage directly behind a 4 + 1 mixed use development - the street-facing facade is the apartments and shops, and the garage is directly behind (and usually attached) to the apartments. You basically never see them.

Menlo Park has a higher population density than Austin...

The majority of it is not Bel Air...

I think this is a bunch of retrospective justification when the truth is that home-owners vote against supply expansion measures that may decreases their home value (their main investment).

Just like how people pretend "I'm actually super concerned about emergency vehicles" when it comes to replacing a car lane with a bus/bike lane. It sounds better than admitting they don't want to be inconvenienced, they'd rather have an extra car lane than someone else get a bus/bike lane, etc. So the hand waving begins.

Austin is unique even in Texas for its aggressive construction boom + decreased rent, so it's not even a Texas thing.

> In California people are very scared of poor people because they tend to commit more crime and the justice system refuses to prosecute and imprision them, especially if they are criminally insane.

Funny to read this when it’s common knowledge the rich commit so much tax evasion the IRS doesn’t bother investigating, and tech billionaires like Thiel are regularly abusing hard drugs and spewing unhinged theories about the end times and an AI god. You can just say you don’t like poor people. You don’t have to use some statistical fallacy that supports your confirmation bias.

The reality is that the visibility of criminal acts is inversely correlated with income. Why would a rich criminal spray paint graffiti on a building when they’re making so much money off white collar crime that they can just buy it and do whatever they want?

That’s not even getting into all of the things that should be crimes but aren’t, because the ultra wealthy and their megacorps can legally bribe politicians to their hearts content. Or the child sex trafficking. Epstein’s buddies weren’t living rough.

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