The same happened to Amsterdam. Almost none of the people that I know that were born there could live there today. Rich outsiders are buying up desirable property all over the world and it is a real problem. They also definitely will use this disaster to grab what they can, mitigating circumstance is that the fact that this may happen again is maybe causing them to pause from doing so: but that in turn should worry the residents as well.
I suspect that climate change and the resulting rash of natural disasters (though, technically they are man made it is hard to identify what would have happened normally and what not) will make whole swaths of the planet unfit for human habitation. The refugee crisis that could cause is one that will upset all kinds of apple carts. None of that diminishes this tragedy, and it also doesn't reduce my loathing of the people that would try to profit from a thing like this.
Municipalities all over the world refusing to build enough housing (and hotel space) is what's pricing people out. These are all pretty simple problems to solve but there's fractal resistance to making enough room.
In New York we built like 100k new units in the 2010s but we grew by 500k people and still, the default position of people who theoretically advocate for cheaper housing is to block new development.
This is like proposing to dig a bigger basement to fit more flood water. No matter how much you dig, there will always be more water in the ocean to flow in.
In the case of New York, it will never have "enough" housing - what will instead happen is, eventually, it will become so overgrown that it will be unattractive for new arrivals.
You make it sound like the opposition to expansion don't know that there is housing demand in their areas - that the solution is "simple" and they are just dummies. But this feels kind of dishonest. There is a conflict between people who want to live in an area and people who don't want that area to become overcrowded (and then there's the myriad of second-order problems that stem from those two outcomes). That's the problem statement in a nutshell, and it's unfortunately complex both logistically and emotionally (and therefore politically, too), which is a disastrous combination. One of the hallmarks of that combination is that each side at even the highest levels of discourse tend to exhibit very little respect for the other (no sympathy, no benefit of the doubt, etc).
One of the few things both sides should be able to agree on is that it's awful when wealthy outsiders start buying property.
Cities need to be enacting high tax rates on non-primary residences, luxury residences, and investment properties. If I remember right, Italy does this well with little to no tax on your primary residence, then if you choose to purchase a vacation home or a luxury property like a villa your tax rate soars. Going into the climate crisis this will enable cities to take those high property taxes on unnecessary housing and apply it to affordable public housing.
>the fact that this may happen again is maybe causing them to pause
Filtering more so for those who could afford to remotely lose a future home there when it's not their primary residence, and they have nothing invested in the community other than money.
Not very much different than the well-heeled investing in second homes, displacing the traditional working population in the most hurricane-vulnerable South Florida locations over the decades when the transition from small quaint resort towns accelerated into more widely popular destinations.
After a different culture eventually takes over the government, then the previous culture can be further economically influenced to their disadvantage and regulated into obscurity.
>Almost none of the people that I know that were born there could live there today.
Is that bad? Should you have a right to live where you were born in perpetuity? What about everyone else that wants to live in Amsterdam? If housing is limited and we need to ration it, why should it go towards people who were born there? Doesn't that create a class of landed gentry that have the "right" to live in amsterdam and everyone else who doesn't?
It's bad to the people who feel that it is bad - that's the kind of topic it is. If I get priced out of my own neighborhood, it's going to be a traumatic experience that leaves me feeling disillusioned and bitter and sad. That's just how a lot of humans are - we can't ignore humanity. It's going to be great for those moving in! It may also be good economically, but lots of horrible things are economically positive. And no, of course it should not be a "right".
> Should you have a right to live where you were born in perpetuity?
An absolute right? No, of course not. But no one is arguing for that.
Various places say you have the right to live in your rented home for an indefinite period. Your landlord can't decide to kick you out directly, nor simple jack up the price as a way to force you out.
But you still need to pay rent, not use it to run a criminal activity, not allow vermin to infest the home, and so on.
> What about everyone else that wants to live in Amsterdam?
What about them?
> why should it go towards people who were born there?
Because for most people forced relocation is very stressful. It means breaking friendships, emotional ties to a place, and possibly finding a new job. Not considering human emotions sounds inhumane.
> Doesn't that create a class of landed gentry
What an odd analogy. Landed gentry make most or all of their money from rental income.
Lets ask the lynch mob assembling right outside our door.. voting to turn us into chandeliers..
Srsly, free market autism fully go and all that, but maybe a trace of survival instinct? Like not every place on the planet is SF. And not every place on the planet wants to be shanghai and Dhubai, were the rich do as they please? And money as a protective shield can rapidly devalue in a crisis?
Yes. A home is not an economic asset like any other. It is the biggest link to one's community and people. Healthy communities cannot form from transient populations.
"Residents with insurance or government aid may get funds to rebuild, but those payouts could take years and recipients may find it won't be enough to pay rent or buy an alternate property in the interim."
And there's the problem. There's no slack in the existing housing system so there's nowhere for people to be temporarily "displaced" even for people who did everything right and had insurance and savings. So people will absolutely take the quick-money offer made by people who have bought themselves that flexibility elsewhere (e.g. a buyer who lives on the mainland and who can live in their existing house while helping to turn Hawaii into a second-house state).
Because we are so wound up in what housing means to our finances and culture, there's no political will to fix this even as climate change worsens. So, like always, people with lesser means--even people with lesser means who did everything correctly--still get screwed.
> "I'm more concerned of big land developers coming in and seeing this charred land as an opportunity to rebuild,"
Of course, people like that will organize to block these big bad developers making housing even more expensive and the only people who will be able to afford to live there will be the rich.
Hawaii doesn’t want lots of development, don’t try and force it on them.
What America should do at large is block all non resident investment in non commercial real estate, period. Would do a hell of a lot more for housing than all the nonsense about building more.
"I've always wanted to move to a tropical paradise, but I'm giving up because I'd have to move to a single family instead of a 5-over-1 apartment complex."
Well, it's not even a matter of that. If they don't want new development then the price of what's already there will only skyrocket and that will end up excluding the residents.
In other words, by refusing to develop, the residents of Hawaii are displacing their own natives, unless they happen to own land. This alternative system where the only folks allowed to own property are those who are born there is something I hear a lot of anti-housing people advocate and it's disturbingly similar to the hukou[1] system, which we probably don't want to emulate.
Ok, fair enough, they don't want development and that is their right but they have to understand, as their population grows they're only pricing themselves out of their own land.
Ironic, isn't it? The same people that will sing "They paved paradise to put up a parking lot", are also against any effective measures to prevent that turn of events.
This is a basic economic problem that puts these folks in a Catch 22. Rebuilding in the aftermath of a natural disaster requires capital. The folks outside Hawaii are the ones with the capital. And being a US state, Hawaii has no ability to discriminate against or set terms on the outside capital.
Of course, arguably the alternative to this is probably that many areas take much longer to rebuild, or never get rebuilt at all. But that doesn’t take the sting away from becoming renters to foreign capital on your own soil.
The solution might be to tax second-home owners heavily, and use those funds to fund affordable housing.
I visited Maui recently and was surprised to see the number of resorts over there, and the large single-family homes.
TBH, after visiting and enjoying the beaches, I was thinking that it would be nice to have a vacation home there. The wife didn't like the idea, so I dropped it.
But now I agree with the concerns being expressed by the displaced residents.
I think it would be better to rebuild with more dense housing, and more affordable housing. Use this opportunity to put down 5-6 story high buildings with 2-3BR apartments that are affordable. Use eminent domain if you must to get the land. And tax vacation homes heavily: if you don't live in your house at least 240 days a year (roughly, 8 months), then your property taxes will be 10% of the house's appraised value. Use that money for the upkeep of the affordable housing and to build more affordable housing.
Maybe you should think about the people who are there suffering before you come up with ideas for THEIR property. Their homes are still smoldering and you just CANNOT WAIT to dream up miserable solutions they don't want and never asked for.
House burned down? Be a shame if we stole your land to put up shitty little apartments that cost more than your mortgage and charge you to live there in perpetuity.
I visited Maui last year and did the Road to Hana drive using an app that somebody recommended. Gypsy Tour Guide or something along those lines.
Anyway, it uses GPS combined with recorded narratives to guide you on the trip. It was pretty cool. Gets into the history of Hawaii and everything.
Apparently there is a significant feeling among natives about their island being taken over. If a disaster like this leads to more of it, it's only going to get worse. There's already tons of speculation about the cause and area of this one.
> Use this opportunity to put down 5-6 story high buildings with 2-3BR apartments that are affordable. Use eminent domain if you must to get the land.
So you essentially want to transform a place that is attractive into another slum so that crime can go up and attractiveness sinks, while trampling the rights of homeowners that may have lived there for generations?
> And tax vacation homes heavily: if you don't live in your house at least 240 days a year (roughly, 8 months), then your property taxes will be 10% of the house's appraised value.
This has been tried. The problem is, the people who can afford to drop $2M+ on house and land for a home they barely visit are not going to be phased by a 10% value tax.
10% isn't the only valid number. If that's not enough to disincentivize bad behavior, then change the number. It's "just" a matter political will.
Get creative: Maybe the tax rate should be proportional to the number of days per year the property is unoccupied. If they live in it year-round, their property tax is the minimum. For every day of the year the property is vacant, tax rate goes up by 0.1% or something.
Or, maybe their tax rate should be proportional to the number of properties they own. Own one property, and they get the minimum rate. Double the tax rate for every additional property they own and let exponents do their job.
For some reason, discussions about solving these problems often boil down to "We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas!"
> The problem is, the people who can afford to drop $2M+ on house and land for a home they barely visit are not going to be phased by a 10% value tax.
So, why is that a problem? That's a lot of extra tax money for the city to work with to solve the overall problem from the other end. If that is the only issue, they should do this yesterday.
How about Hawaii [1] find a way to rebuild all the homes lost so that none of those residents have to lose out? That would be the ideal. That would be fair.
[1] The Hawaiian people, government, insurance, etc.
Cynical reaction: Why the h*ll are the "rich" so attracted to real estate which is at extreme risk of burning to the ground / sliding down the hillside / being devoured by the sea / etc. on ~zero notice? There's something d*mned fishy going on here...
Affordable housing is a serious problem across the whole country. Lahaina and similar areas have the additional problem of the land being converted from housing to vacation resorts. Lots of money to be made from rich tourists wanting a tropical beach vacation :(
Readit News
I suspect that climate change and the resulting rash of natural disasters (though, technically they are man made it is hard to identify what would have happened normally and what not) will make whole swaths of the planet unfit for human habitation. The refugee crisis that could cause is one that will upset all kinds of apple carts. None of that diminishes this tragedy, and it also doesn't reduce my loathing of the people that would try to profit from a thing like this.
In New York we built like 100k new units in the 2010s but we grew by 500k people and still, the default position of people who theoretically advocate for cheaper housing is to block new development.
In the case of New York, it will never have "enough" housing - what will instead happen is, eventually, it will become so overgrown that it will be unattractive for new arrivals.
One of the few things both sides should be able to agree on is that it's awful when wealthy outsiders start buying property.
Filtering more so for those who could afford to remotely lose a future home there when it's not their primary residence, and they have nothing invested in the community other than money.
Not very much different than the well-heeled investing in second homes, displacing the traditional working population in the most hurricane-vulnerable South Florida locations over the decades when the transition from small quaint resort towns accelerated into more widely popular destinations.
After a different culture eventually takes over the government, then the previous culture can be further economically influenced to their disadvantage and regulated into obscurity.
>that in turn should worry the residents as well.
Deleted Comment
Is that bad? Should you have a right to live where you were born in perpetuity? What about everyone else that wants to live in Amsterdam? If housing is limited and we need to ration it, why should it go towards people who were born there? Doesn't that create a class of landed gentry that have the "right" to live in amsterdam and everyone else who doesn't?
An absolute right? No, of course not. But no one is arguing for that.
Various places say you have the right to live in your rented home for an indefinite period. Your landlord can't decide to kick you out directly, nor simple jack up the price as a way to force you out.
But you still need to pay rent, not use it to run a criminal activity, not allow vermin to infest the home, and so on.
> What about everyone else that wants to live in Amsterdam?
What about them?
> why should it go towards people who were born there?
Because for most people forced relocation is very stressful. It means breaking friendships, emotional ties to a place, and possibly finding a new job. Not considering human emotions sounds inhumane.
> Doesn't that create a class of landed gentry
What an odd analogy. Landed gentry make most or all of their money from rental income.
No. Nor does it make them serfs tied to the land.
It makes them residents.
Srsly, free market autism fully go and all that, but maybe a trace of survival instinct? Like not every place on the planet is SF. And not every place on the planet wants to be shanghai and Dhubai, were the rich do as they please? And money as a protective shield can rapidly devalue in a crisis?
What about them?
Yes. A home is not an economic asset like any other. It is the biggest link to one's community and people. Healthy communities cannot form from transient populations.
And there's the problem. There's no slack in the existing housing system so there's nowhere for people to be temporarily "displaced" even for people who did everything right and had insurance and savings. So people will absolutely take the quick-money offer made by people who have bought themselves that flexibility elsewhere (e.g. a buyer who lives on the mainland and who can live in their existing house while helping to turn Hawaii into a second-house state).
Because we are so wound up in what housing means to our finances and culture, there's no political will to fix this even as climate change worsens. So, like always, people with lesser means--even people with lesser means who did everything correctly--still get screwed.
Of course, people like that will organize to block these big bad developers making housing even more expensive and the only people who will be able to afford to live there will be the rich.
What America should do at large is block all non resident investment in non commercial real estate, period. Would do a hell of a lot more for housing than all the nonsense about building more.
Said no one ever.
In other words, by refusing to develop, the residents of Hawaii are displacing their own natives, unless they happen to own land. This alternative system where the only folks allowed to own property are those who are born there is something I hear a lot of anti-housing people advocate and it's disturbingly similar to the hukou[1] system, which we probably don't want to emulate.
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou
I agree wholeheartedly with the second paragraph.
Of course, arguably the alternative to this is probably that many areas take much longer to rebuild, or never get rebuilt at all. But that doesn’t take the sting away from becoming renters to foreign capital on your own soil.
I visited Maui recently and was surprised to see the number of resorts over there, and the large single-family homes.
TBH, after visiting and enjoying the beaches, I was thinking that it would be nice to have a vacation home there. The wife didn't like the idea, so I dropped it.
But now I agree with the concerns being expressed by the displaced residents.
I think it would be better to rebuild with more dense housing, and more affordable housing. Use this opportunity to put down 5-6 story high buildings with 2-3BR apartments that are affordable. Use eminent domain if you must to get the land. And tax vacation homes heavily: if you don't live in your house at least 240 days a year (roughly, 8 months), then your property taxes will be 10% of the house's appraised value. Use that money for the upkeep of the affordable housing and to build more affordable housing.
House burned down? Be a shame if we stole your land to put up shitty little apartments that cost more than your mortgage and charge you to live there in perpetuity.
Anyway, it uses GPS combined with recorded narratives to guide you on the trip. It was pretty cool. Gets into the history of Hawaii and everything.
Apparently there is a significant feeling among natives about their island being taken over. If a disaster like this leads to more of it, it's only going to get worse. There's already tons of speculation about the cause and area of this one.
So you essentially want to transform a place that is attractive into another slum so that crime can go up and attractiveness sinks, while trampling the rights of homeowners that may have lived there for generations?
Sounds like a great idea.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This has been tried. The problem is, the people who can afford to drop $2M+ on house and land for a home they barely visit are not going to be phased by a 10% value tax.
Get creative: Maybe the tax rate should be proportional to the number of days per year the property is unoccupied. If they live in it year-round, their property tax is the minimum. For every day of the year the property is vacant, tax rate goes up by 0.1% or something.
Or, maybe their tax rate should be proportional to the number of properties they own. Own one property, and they get the minimum rate. Double the tax rate for every additional property they own and let exponents do their job.
For some reason, discussions about solving these problems often boil down to "We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas!"
So, why is that a problem? That's a lot of extra tax money for the city to work with to solve the overall problem from the other end. If that is the only issue, they should do this yesterday.
[1] The Hawaiian people, government, insurance, etc.
Deleted Comment