About Here
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2022–2023
16:03 · 1.7M views · Nov 1, 2022
About Here looks at the housing crisis and argues for non-market solutions such as co-op and social housing, drawing on Vancouver's situation. It discusses how public supply can hold down rents.
Recommended in housing threads as a decent dive into the problem and possible long-term solutions.
5 comments from Hacker News
Making landlords compete with low-cost government subsidized housing. Vienna[0] is a fantastic model. Though I think implementing this in the US has a lot of stigma and challenges to overcome (ie, how can the government mass purchase apartments/land to create subsidized housing). Also, cooperative housing. A group of people buy a property with a Loan, and the cost of the loan + management is payed by all people in the apartment. Eventually, the loan is payed off and the cost of rent is lowered to cover only maintenance/mangement. This also has to come with restrictions about ownership and renting out the apartment. Because its ultimately a collective, its unfortunately totally possible there will be biases at play with these kinds of housing setups (ie, biases against allowing POC to move in, disagreements on how common space can be used). And lastly, fast public transit to expand the area its possible to live by people who can't afford cars. I found this youtube video[1] about the Vancouver housing situation interesting. Maybe a bit over-simiplified, but gives you an idea of some possible solutions. I know these aren't silver-bullet solutions. But I think it helps think of this in a different way then just a supply/demand problem. Its also a policy and profiteering problem. [0] [LINK] [1] this video
i watched a couple youtubes over the past few months on this -- if you supply at least some public housing, it can have an outsized ability to keep rents down: Bloomberg Originals: Vienna's Radical Idea? Affordable Housing For All [LINK] About Here: The Non-capitalist Solution to the Housing Crisis (indy urban planning-types out of Vancouver, BC) this video
That might work for some but moving away from common infrastructure creates other problems. I found this video [0] a decent dive into issues and possible long term solutions. None quick or easy but I think are most likely to succeed in a lot of places. [0] this video
A recent video on co-op and social housing, that makes simlar points, with the somewhat clickbaity title of: The Non-capitalist Solution to the Housing Crisis this video The video seems to switch to "non-market" as a description.
> If we do that you'll have two social classes. You'll have the price fixed low income housing that looks like it belongs in a Command & Conquer game It does not have to be this way. this video [LINK]