Vienna's Radical Idea? Affordable Housing For All

Government can build if private industry will not. If you argue "we can only fix this with the private sector and private investment", welp, we tried that and we're plain ol' fucked at the moment. Vienna is a great example. ▶ this video (Youtube: Vienna's Radical Idea? Affordable Housing For All) link (Youtube: Does Vienna Have the World's Best Council Housing?)

Vienna is a great example. ▶ this video (Youtube: Vienna's Radical Idea? Affordable Housing For All) link (Youtube: Does Vienna Have the World's Best Council Housing?)

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 ▶ this video About Here: The Non-capitalist Solution to the Housing Crisis (indy urban planning-types out of Vancouver, BC) link

Which of these "affordable" options are you too good for: link Also recommend checking out this video about Vienna ▶ this video

You're so close to realizing the point but the difference is between a dystopian future and a future worth living. Corporate housing, and worker housing in general, is what we're bouldering towards. The only way to extract further wealth from most of the population is for them not to own anything. It's the Western equivalent of South Asian brick kilns. What we need instead is social housing like Vienna [1]. Americans in particular always associate such thing with ghettoes and Section 8. And here's another problem: US corporations already keep employees and pay them less with the fear of losing health insurance. That's why the system exists. How much worse would it be if it's also your housing you'll lose? [1]: ▶ this video

So there are two basic versions of UBI: 1. The right-wing UBI is a tool to dismantle the social safety net. The idea of the likes of Milton Friedman is to replace all social safety programs with UBI. This doesn't make sense because, for example, being disabled in today's society makes everything more expensive; and 2. Left-wing UBI would seek to have everyone share in the wealth they create by supplementing social safety programs with UBI. UBI becomes a form of super-progressive taxation because it can be viewed as negative taxation. As for your inflation comment, you have a point, to which I'll say: UBI alone isn't sufficient. You need economic reform and planning on top of that. A good example is the US military. If you live off-base you get a housing allowance (ie BAH). Now around military bases, in the US and overseas, all the landlords know this so you'll find that weirdly all the houses to rent cost pretty much what BAH is. So a more equitable economic system, including UBI, needs social housing . That is, the government needs to be a significant supplier of quality, affordable housing so landlords (private and insitutional) can't artificially drive up prices, as is the case now. A prime example is Vienna [1]. Housing simply can't be a speculative asset in a healthy economy. If you wnat to see what an equitable planned economy looks like, look at China. [1]: ▶ this video

There's no reason for houses to be as expensive as they are. They are expensive because we've created incentives to make them more expensive. This is because we treat houses as investments, allow people to hoard housing, build the wrong tyhpe of housing (because it's more profitable), allow non-residents to use housing to park wealth, etc. So voters vote in politicians who put up barriers to build more housing and to defeat any kind of public transit infrastructure even though it would absolutely benefit people who still want to drive (by removing people from the roads who don't). Why? Because taxes. Housing should be for residents of that city to provide a utility: shelter. Not as an investment vehicle. It simply doesn't have to be this way. The poster child for this is Vienna [1][2]. Increasing house prices are an illusion of wealth creation. Let's say you buy a house for $200k but over the years it goes up to $800k. But every house costs $800k so you still have only 1 housing unit's worth of wealth. You've simply increased the barrier for younger people to buy houses. Put another way: increasing house prices are simply stealing from the next generation and that money is really going to the already-wealthy and, to a lesser extent, the old. Just look at the median age of homebuyers in the US, currently 59 [3]. [1]: ▶ this video [2]: link [3]: link

There is always going to be an adversarial relationship between landlords and renters. Make no mistake: that we allow this to happen is state violence. Why? Because we are allowing individuals and corporations to deny housing to people by raising prices to make it unaffordable. We even allow them to collude [1]. The only solution to this that demonstrably works is for the state to provide a significant amount of housing to keep the private secotr honest [2]. Everything else is just propping a system that steals from the poor to give to the already rich. [1]: link [2]: ▶ this video

Yes there are restrictions on supply but you need to look at why for the things you mention. Zoning doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's implemented by politicians. Why? What forces are pushing for that? Is it the NIMBYs? Maybe. But money talks in politics. So what political interests are pushing for restrictive zoning? Why? The real problem here is that housing became financialized (like every aspect of our lives). People see their $300k house go up in value to $600k and think they've made money. But have they? You still need a place to live. If every house that cost $300k now costs $600k, you still only have one house unit of wealth. So what have you really gained? One extension of this is you decide you need to own multiple properties. You need to become a landlord. For many, this is their retirement. But what is being a landlord? It's withholding a basic human need (ie shelter) for profit. it's choosing to let people die on the streets if it makes you money. So this system only really benefits the truly wealthy to accumulate wealth by extracting wealth through rent at the threat of violence. Eviction is violence. Witholding shelter is violence. Now this might be fine if the government provided a baseline for shelter through what is most commonly referred to as "social housing". Americans, in particular, who hear this think "projects" or "ghettoes" (ie Section 8 Housing) but look at a city like Vienna where ~60% (IIRC) of the housing is owned by the government [1]. But we don'

> To lower house prices would require heavy deregulation of the housing market There's no actual requirement for deregulation. Austrians made prices affordable and improved housing quality with public intervention, and it worked well[0]. I yet have to see an housing deregulation experiment that worked. .0: ▶ this video

Vienna is doing a nice job, building new "old town" areas with 75% affordable units. [Bloomberg] Vienna's Radical Idea? Affordable Housing For All ▶ this video