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This article is atrocious. https://slate.com/business/2020/12/cities-luxury-apartments-condos-pandemic.html
It contains a lot of broad statements with no actual support. There's no evidence that people are leaving cities en masse. Vacancy rates are spiking because people didn't move within the U.S. very much this year (for obvious reasons).
This is the entire argument for building lots of housing! If you accidentally build too much, the prices fall. That means lower rents for everyone.
The U.S. is not, in fact, in the middle of a building boom. We're building far less than we used to, especially in the cities with the fastest job growth. It's simply not the case that markets are flooded with housing, luxury or otherwise.
It's weird to describe walkability as some sort of fad. Most human beings like living close to their jobs and grocery stores n stuff.
I agree with this part, but it's weird to include it in this article. Relaxing zoning codes will, in fact, result in more 'luxury housing' being built because new construction is by definition expensive. Most of today's affordable apartments were 'luxury' when they were built.
This stuff is just weird. I feel like if someone is going to "raise neighborhoods from scratch" they should be as dense as possible.
Overall this piece just seems confused. We obviously need to build more affordable and public and homeless housing. But the things stopping us don't have a lot to do with from-scratch urban renewal projects out in the sticks.
Yeah this is what I was getting at. Everyone hates these big mega-developments but if they're replacing parking lots I have trouble getting worked up about them. https://twitter.com/kristoncapps/status/1338556789437190150
