I wonder when we will cross the post-scarcity point on housing. Considering that about 50% of my monthly expenses goes to rent, I think reducing the cost of housing is where most of my mental energies should be devoted. My partial solution is "Commodity Housing", i.e., housing so abundant that what you pay is close to the maintainance costs, which I estimate would be on the order of $50-60/month (excluding electric/gas, water/sewage and garbage disposal expenses which most of us already pay for separately).
I can't seem to figure out why, when there is so much land in the U.S. [1], the rents are still so crushingly high [2]? I only have a partial answer in rent controls [3] and zoning laws.
Well, as someone in the rural US, I don't want to see the landscape peppered with suburbs. I think suburbs are a terrifically ugly invention and have a number of nasty externalities (a rant for another time).
So places like where I live (semi-rural northwest) are incentivized to make it difficult to expand. I like urban apartments/condos/flats, I think those are a good solution, but as a culture, outside of the urban areas, people like houses.
You should look up state-planned housing and in general, socialist , communist and anarchist ideas. I think the communists hit a dead end with their ideas of the state controlling everything while the anarchists have alternative ideas (which are continually borrowed though to various degrees).
I wonder when we will cross the post-scarcity point on housing. Considering that about 50% of my monthly expenses goes to rent, I think reducing the cost of housing is where most of my mental energies should be devoted. My partial solution is "Commodity Housing", i.e., housing so abundant that what you pay is close to the maintainance costs, which I estimate would be on the order of $50-60/month (excluding electric/gas, water/sewage and garbage disposal expenses which most of us already pay for separately).
I can't seem to figure out why, when there is so much land in the U.S. [1], the rents are still so crushingly high [2]? I only have a partial answer in rent controls [3] and zoning laws.
[1] http://persquaremile.com/2011/01/18/if-the-worlds-population...
[2] http://shine.yahoo.com/green/simple-life-in-manhattan-a-90-s...
http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-113345-10728...
[3] http://www.baycitizen.org/columns/elizabeth-lesly-stevens/sm...
@pnathan: I reposted this above, hoping it gets more visibility. Once again thanks for the rent reminder.