“Housing Roundup #11” by Zvi

The book of March 2025 was Abundance. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson are making a noble attempt to highlight the importance of solving America's housing crisis the only way it can be solved: Building houses in places people want to live, via repealing the rules that make this impossible. They also talk about green energy abundance, and other places besides. There may be a review coming.

Until then, it seems high time for the latest housing roundup, which as a reminder all take place in the possible timeline where AI fails to be transformative any time soon.

Federal YIMBY

The incoming administration issued an executive order calling for ‘emergency price relief’‘ including pursuing appropriate actions to: Lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply’ and then a grab bag of everything else.

It's great to see mention of expanding housing supply, but I don’t [...]

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Outline:

(00:44) Federal YIMBY

(02:37) Rent Control

(02:50) Rent Passthrough

(03:36) Yes, Construction Lowers Rents on Existing Buildings

(07:11) If We Wanted To, We Would

(08:51) Aesthetics Are a Public Good

(10:44) Urban Planners Are Wrong About Everything

(13:02) Blackstone

(15:49) Rent Pricing Software

(18:26) Immigration Versus NIMBY

(19:37) Preferences

(20:28) The True Costs

(23:11) Minimum Viable Product

(26:01) Like a Good Neighbor

(27:12) Flight to Quality

(28:40) Housing for Families

(31:09) Group House

(32:41) No One Will Have the Endurance To Collect on His Insurance

(34:49) Cambridge

(35:36) Denver

(35:44) Minneapolis

(36:23) New York City

(39:26) San Francisco

(41:45) Silicon Valley

(42:41) Texas

(43:31) Other Considerations

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First published:
April 1st, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7qGdgNKndPk3XuzJq/housing-roundup-11

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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