And flint is not the only city like this with shrinking population yet rising housing values. A quick google shows me also Rockford, IL, Decatur, IL. Youngstown OH. Saginaw, MI. Binghamton, NY with no apparent end to the list
While it's true that zoning worsens the problem, cities with essentially no zoning rules also have have rising housing prices.
The crux of this universal problem is that housing has been turned into an international investment class rather than being housing.
That and that retirement support is so dismal, individuals must have large returns on home purchase to avoid life threatening poverty in old age.
So of course change zoning rules, it's bound to help some but it's not the core problem.
[1] for the curious, start here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shrinking_cities_in_th...
This is not the city to use in any argument, unless it involves EPA super sites.
those cities may have laxer zoning/land-use laws than other US cities but they're still very strict compared to cities outside US.
You'll see political change as specific demographic cohorts enter the political process and others die out. I feel like we are at the start of that shift as boomer politicians are starting to die and millenial/gen x politicians are starting to come to prominence. Since millennials are an echo of the boomers population wise, they will probably dominate over the gen x generation.
I can think of many pro-market initiatives that would alleviate society’s ailments. But allowing more, denser housing to be built is one of the easiest, least burdensome solutions placed on the taxpayer. The damage caused by more housing is to delicate sensibilities as a homeowner’s “view” is blocked by new towers and the “character” of a neighborhood is ruined by lower income newcomers.
I’m also happy to pay the current market value of the (nicer) house I grew up in to my landlord every four years, all for that mountain view that’s occluded by the neighbors’ single story houses anyway.
Ditto for not having workable public transit, no decent restaurants walkable from the house, etc, etc.
/s
Most new stuff, at least in New Hampshire and Mass, is just SO UGLY inside and out. The people complaining about new construction do have legitimate grievances here.
(I say all this as a huge walkable towns, new urbanist-ish advocate)
You can't have your cake and eat it too: either prices represent the value people give to things (a commitment held by free-marketeers) or they're "artificial". And there's no reason to believe that freedom automatically creates happy outcomes, especially because inertia can leave inequities (e.g. redlining still affecting both familial wealth and [/therefore] segregation) or undesirable externalities (e.g. formerly livable land polluted by industry dumping, or disused commercial/industrial buildings that are now rotting hulks) still in place for loooong after the capital that created the problem has left the community.
An active market for mostly-interchangeable housing units is a great thing. No one wants to see a world where housing isn’t a commodity, unless they already live in their ideal home. We want to see a world where it’s cheaper.
Look at Japan- their housing is surprisingly affordable in Tokyo despite being in a major city. Due to flexible zoning laws, houses can be built almost anywhere. Houses are deprecating assets, like cars, rather than investments, like houses in America/Canada/etc.
If housing prices were going up in towns without people moving there, that would be a different issue, but that's the opposite of what is happening. Interest rates are going up slowly, that should slow housing price gains.
That’s not happening. Also, back when houses were $200K cheaper, and interest rates were almost 1% lower, you needed exotic mortgages (like adjustable rate) to make the cash flow associated with buying make sense (assuming you make apples to apples comparisons between owning and buying).
Where is the outrage? Where are the action plans and policy proposals? It bothers me.
"Where is the outrage?", you ask. The outrage is on the other side. Homeowners don't want their own homes to be affordable. When property values go down, the people who live on those properties get outraged, and those people are overrepresented among voters. When property taxes go up to redistribute even some of this unearned housing wealth, that leads to "constitutional amendment" levels of outrage.
https://www.attomdata.com/news/market-trends/home-sales-pric...
Zillow wants you to buy houses, so it'll make it look like you make money out of nothing. I
Next up in not surprising news, people with $500k stock portfolios likely earn more in appreciation & dividends than the median US worker.
this isn't news, this is the design: make enough money fast enough that you can live off it forever. if you do it too slow, you have to live off the principle and it is more likely that a large cost destroys your principle.
