Thanks for sharing this piece Alex. Consumables like beer are not the same as durable products, especially essential durables like housing, and a lot of people forget that, so thank you for reiterating.
I have some rambly thoughts, shared in no particular order below:
A clarification: It almost sounds like you are saying the private housing market cannot deliver the combination of small-scale “microbrew” developers and large scale “mass produced” developers in a way that is similar to the beer market. Am I understanding correctly?
You are certainly right that the housing market and beer market are different: Cities don’t say “you can only produce 1 beer per acre of land,” they don’t have arbitrary restrictions on beer production like floor area ratios dictating that beer production must be proportional to land quantity. If anything, the biggest constraint on beer production in cities is zoning for breweries.
Taking a long view, the phrase “nobody votes on their beer” is only true in America right now because beer has been widely legalized. During Prohibition days, a lot of people voted on their beer!
We live in the days of widespread housing prohibition. While I agree in abstract we need to “rebuild the housing economy according to the logics and needs of housing and homebuilding, not the ideological buzzwords of markets and capital and sectors,” I don’t know what that means in practice. Ending housing prohibition is one example of something that feels a lot more concrete.
As you say, it’s not an either/or issue, and the ideological buckets we trap ourselves in prevent us from pursuing comprehensive solutions. We need fewer restrictive regulations, we need more federal funding, we need more state productive capacity (ie social housing), we need more tenant protections, preservation, emphasis on race and class and sustainability and comprehensive systems change.
Yet I worry we lose sight of the concrete, achievable wins when we get caught up in abstraction. Money, zoning, tenant protections, social housing—these are tangible, winnable things that lead to the housing we need. Getting “housers to move beyond ‘single narratives’ - both economically, politically and in terms of ‘solutions - and to really internalize just how dangerous ideology of all stripes is to our housing” feels a lot more abstract. Who or what are you even referring to? Maybe rather than throwing out ideology altogether, we should be creating an all-encompassing ideology of housing abundance, with an all-of-the-above strategy to get us there.
Thanks again for the piece, I’m looking forward to the long form follow up this fall!
I love this comment. I hope other readers write too!
A few thoughts in response:
- You are very right that the politics of beer have changed. A footnote and a thank you will follow. Very important point.
- I'm not sure what you mean by 'private market' when it comes to a healthy ecosystem of small and large (and mid-sized) organizations and companies - I use the term private sector, meaning for me both for-profit and nonprofit. I think a healthy ecosystem is something the housing economy can support, and is necessary. Right now it's too tilted towards larger companies, and ones that don't actually bring economies of scale, just more extractive profits. The 'private market' is one of the terms I will take on soon when I write about the affordable v. market rate morass.
- I appreciate the caution around abstraction, especially around housing, which is so tangible. Alas, any thinking of this kind will always run that risk. I think if this was all either of us were doing in housing it would be a problem. Thankfully we're not, and I like to think that this level of reflection helps us build things better. This is what the missing mirror piece from earlier this summer was all about.
- I think this is especially true when it comes to ideology. I think you have both ideological and nonideological points in your argument, and to me the nonideological ones are the ones that will get us those concrete wins both politically and technically - wins that will make a real difference in people's housing lives, and will actually change the housing system. This level of reflection is essential for both good comms and good program design.
- Let's end on beer. So beer is restricted by zoning - not by FAR but by the size of the operation in certain zones. Effluent sucks to live by. Having smaller breweries is way less of a nuisance than larger ones. So we do keep neighborhood breweries neighborhood scale. It's the kinda zoning we need to keep, and we need to remember one of it's core purposes (while getting rid of the racist part). There is a different conversation to be had around zoning reform that gets us not to more or less regulation but to better regulation, regulation that is part of a functioning system that makes and maintains things.
Thanks for your reply Alex, great stuff. I use “private market” the same way you use “private sector”—all nongovernmental orgs, for-profit and nonprofit. Strongly agree that a healthy housing ecosystem would have a lot more small companies filling local niches. Navigating the modern web of rules and regulations and financing seems to require larger development teams. I don’t have much data to back this up, but I have a sense that at one point in the not-so-distant-past America had a lot more small business developers. Excited for your take on affordable v market rate!
I like your focus on “zoning reform” instead of “zoning abolition” and agree our goal should be getting to “the right” regulations, not no regulations. Yet making zoning actually work will require a renegotiation of the local social contract to enable change. Maybe keeping neighborhood breweries “neighborhood scale” works for one point in time, but what if the neighborhood grows? And who gets to decide what “neighborhood scale” means? Right now, most local decisions get made by a cartel of homeowners, with veto power given to whoever lives closest to a proposed change. (Being a little dramatic for effect, but only a little!) I think this is the “different conversation” you refer to, and my questions really get at the structure of local governments more than housing itself, so I’ll save more thoughts for another time :)
Thanks for sharing this piece Alex. Consumables like beer are not the same as durable products, especially essential durables like housing, and a lot of people forget that, so thank you for reiterating.
I have some rambly thoughts, shared in no particular order below:
A clarification: It almost sounds like you are saying the private housing market cannot deliver the combination of small-scale “microbrew” developers and large scale “mass produced” developers in a way that is similar to the beer market. Am I understanding correctly?
You are certainly right that the housing market and beer market are different: Cities don’t say “you can only produce 1 beer per acre of land,” they don’t have arbitrary restrictions on beer production like floor area ratios dictating that beer production must be proportional to land quantity. If anything, the biggest constraint on beer production in cities is zoning for breweries.
Taking a long view, the phrase “nobody votes on their beer” is only true in America right now because beer has been widely legalized. During Prohibition days, a lot of people voted on their beer!
We live in the days of widespread housing prohibition. While I agree in abstract we need to “rebuild the housing economy according to the logics and needs of housing and homebuilding, not the ideological buzzwords of markets and capital and sectors,” I don’t know what that means in practice. Ending housing prohibition is one example of something that feels a lot more concrete.
As you say, it’s not an either/or issue, and the ideological buckets we trap ourselves in prevent us from pursuing comprehensive solutions. We need fewer restrictive regulations, we need more federal funding, we need more state productive capacity (ie social housing), we need more tenant protections, preservation, emphasis on race and class and sustainability and comprehensive systems change.
Yet I worry we lose sight of the concrete, achievable wins when we get caught up in abstraction. Money, zoning, tenant protections, social housing—these are tangible, winnable things that lead to the housing we need. Getting “housers to move beyond ‘single narratives’ - both economically, politically and in terms of ‘solutions - and to really internalize just how dangerous ideology of all stripes is to our housing” feels a lot more abstract. Who or what are you even referring to? Maybe rather than throwing out ideology altogether, we should be creating an all-encompassing ideology of housing abundance, with an all-of-the-above strategy to get us there.
Thanks again for the piece, I’m looking forward to the long form follow up this fall!
Hi Jeremy,
I love this comment. I hope other readers write too!
A few thoughts in response:
- You are very right that the politics of beer have changed. A footnote and a thank you will follow. Very important point.
- I'm not sure what you mean by 'private market' when it comes to a healthy ecosystem of small and large (and mid-sized) organizations and companies - I use the term private sector, meaning for me both for-profit and nonprofit. I think a healthy ecosystem is something the housing economy can support, and is necessary. Right now it's too tilted towards larger companies, and ones that don't actually bring economies of scale, just more extractive profits. The 'private market' is one of the terms I will take on soon when I write about the affordable v. market rate morass.
- I appreciate the caution around abstraction, especially around housing, which is so tangible. Alas, any thinking of this kind will always run that risk. I think if this was all either of us were doing in housing it would be a problem. Thankfully we're not, and I like to think that this level of reflection helps us build things better. This is what the missing mirror piece from earlier this summer was all about.
- I think this is especially true when it comes to ideology. I think you have both ideological and nonideological points in your argument, and to me the nonideological ones are the ones that will get us those concrete wins both politically and technically - wins that will make a real difference in people's housing lives, and will actually change the housing system. This level of reflection is essential for both good comms and good program design.
- Let's end on beer. So beer is restricted by zoning - not by FAR but by the size of the operation in certain zones. Effluent sucks to live by. Having smaller breweries is way less of a nuisance than larger ones. So we do keep neighborhood breweries neighborhood scale. It's the kinda zoning we need to keep, and we need to remember one of it's core purposes (while getting rid of the racist part). There is a different conversation to be had around zoning reform that gets us not to more or less regulation but to better regulation, regulation that is part of a functioning system that makes and maintains things.
Thanks for your reply Alex, great stuff. I use “private market” the same way you use “private sector”—all nongovernmental orgs, for-profit and nonprofit. Strongly agree that a healthy housing ecosystem would have a lot more small companies filling local niches. Navigating the modern web of rules and regulations and financing seems to require larger development teams. I don’t have much data to back this up, but I have a sense that at one point in the not-so-distant-past America had a lot more small business developers. Excited for your take on affordable v market rate!
I like your focus on “zoning reform” instead of “zoning abolition” and agree our goal should be getting to “the right” regulations, not no regulations. Yet making zoning actually work will require a renegotiation of the local social contract to enable change. Maybe keeping neighborhood breweries “neighborhood scale” works for one point in time, but what if the neighborhood grows? And who gets to decide what “neighborhood scale” means? Right now, most local decisions get made by a cartel of homeowners, with veto power given to whoever lives closest to a proposed change. (Being a little dramatic for effect, but only a little!) I think this is the “different conversation” you refer to, and my questions really get at the structure of local governments more than housing itself, so I’ll save more thoughts for another time :)