Rave: Pacific NW

[MrSaigon]

Bad news guys, a Californian just bought the last available listing in Portland.

Actually gonna visit in mid July. Maybe I'll buy some real estate while in town!

Bring cash if you want your offer to be competitive at all.

[MrSaigon]

Make Oregon great again!

I have bitterness to spare on all sorts of things. But the attainability of some basic components of the life I've always planned on and wanted has taken quite a kick to the balls in the last few years. Californians are a solid 1/3 of the emigrant reason, at a rate of about 40k per year. They are literally decreasing the quality of life here. It sucks. If being bitter about that means I may as well put a ferret on my head and paint my face orange, I guess I'll just have to be Donald Trump.

Portland house prices are a hockey stick aimed right at my balls.

Once that VC bubble pops, I'm really expletived.

[Arthur Dent]

I'm being snarky. To me, the incredible increase of the cost of housing in many cities is right behind a weak job market in my list of most important immediate political problems, but I think getting angry at people who want to live in desirable cities is not a productive response. Similar forces are at work In Austin, where I think bad urban policy that is biased toward NIMBYism is one major source of the problem. The city is growing at an incredible rate, but we have managed to actually lose population in much of the urban core due to ill-conceived anti-development rules. Our urban schools are going underused because families can't afford to live in the city. When your city is growing rapidly, but you don't add housing to match, housing prices will also grow rapidly. All the rules to supposedly preserve neighborhood character by blocking apartment building and other density enhancements, destroy neighborhood character and quality of life by promoting sprawl, traffic, and pricing out the non-wealthy and the non-childless.

[MrSaigon]

Maybe anger (and it's more frustration, really) is a result of there being no productive response to an unwealthy guy who wants to own a house in his greater Portland home.

10 (probably 6) years ago, adjusted for whatever, I'm in a house at my present career/salary level.

[MrSaigon]

Anyway, derail complete, this is where I went fishing Monday:

[ghostrunner]

I'm being snarky. To me, the incredible increase of the cost of housing in many cities is right behind a weak job market in my list of most important immediate political problems, but I think getting angry at people who want to live in desirable cities is not a productive response. Similar forces are at work In Austin, where I think bad urban policy that is biased toward NIMBYism is one major source of the problem. The city is growing at an incredible rate, but we have managed to actually lose population in much of the urban core due to ill-conceived anti-development rules. Our urban schools are going underused because families can't afford to live in the city. When your city is growing rapidly, but you don't add housing to match, housing prices will also grow rapidly. All the rules to supposedly preserve neighborhood character by blocking apartment building and other density enhancements, destroy neighborhood character and quality of life by promoting sprawl, traffic, and pricing out the non-wealthy and the non-childless.

I may have told this story before but I'll never forget the Chronicle running two stories side by side. One lamenting a high rise apartment building ruining the S. Lamar area. Next to it an article lamenting the urban sprawl taking place on the far south side of town.

Also, I'm just realizing that Indy is well ahead of the curve on housing. I've been skeptical of the necessity at times but they seem to fill up. We're sort of making headway on public transit. High capacity express buses, essentially. About which I'm also skeptical.

[Arthur Dent]

Maybe anger (and it's more frustration, really) is a result of there being no productive response to an unwealthy guy who wants to own a house in his greater Portland home.

10 (probably 6) years ago, adjusted for whatever, I'm in a house at my present career/salary level.

Apparently greater Portland now includes Corvallis (85 miles away) where 15% of resident workers apparently commute to Portland. Growing up in Albany, I knew there were people who worked in Portland, which I always thought was nuts, but 15% of Corvallis is insane.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/004 ... y-portland

Also, this record sounds alot like Austin. Just totally inexcusable:

Approximately 98 percent of Portland's population growth between 2000 and 2011 occurred in the suburbs (Note). There was a small, but significant percentage growth around the central business district, but its addition of fewer than 7,000 residents paled by comparison to the more than 325,000 added to the suburbs and exurbs. The balance of the urban core, (the inner ring) grew by little more than 100, which is glacial for an urban sector with more than 200,000 residents (less than 0.1 percent).

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

AD, in Portland doesn't it seem like it would be tough to grow the inner ring populace significantly as (I presume) it's development is pretty maxed out?

Or is it that their policies don't allow transitioning buildings/land to multifamily use?

[heyzeus]

I'm being snarky. To me, the incredible increase of the cost of housing in many cities is right behind a weak job market in my list of most important immediate political problems, but I think getting angry at people who want to live in desirable cities is not a productive response. Similar forces are at work In Austin, where I think bad urban policy that is biased toward NIMBYism is one major source of the problem. The city is growing at an incredible rate, but we have managed to actually lose population in much of the urban core due to ill-conceived anti-development rules. Our urban schools are going underused because families can't afford to live in the city. When your city is growing rapidly, but you don't add housing to match, housing prices will also grow rapidly. All the rules to supposedly preserve neighborhood character by blocking apartment building and other density enhancements, destroy neighborhood character and quality of life by promoting sprawl, traffic, and pricing out the non-wealthy and the non-childless.

It's infuriating. Austin is well on its way to becoming a little San Francisco - a great place to live if you have no kids and a household income in the $200k+ range. The City Council caters to the neighborhood associations, and the neighborhood associations are dominated by people who have owned their homes since the 70s or 80s and have no reason to care whether the next generation can afford housing in this city.

There's no excuse at all for a city that is adding 110 people PER DAY to have a declining school enrollment, or declining population in central city neighborhoods. There's also no excuse for failure, on a policy level, to ignore the very simple dictates of supply and demand. As long as population growth remains in effect -- and seeing as how Austin's population has doubled every 20 years IN ITS ENTIRE HISTORY, it will remain in effect -- the only hope of making Austin remotely affordable to anyone but the super wealthy lies in increasing housing supply.

[go birds]

I'm being snarky. To me, the incredible increase of the cost of housing in many cities is right behind a weak job market in my list of most important immediate political problems, but I think getting angry at people who want to live in desirable cities is not a productive response. Similar forces are at work In Austin, where I think bad urban policy that is biased toward NIMBYism is one major source of the problem. The city is growing at an incredible rate, but we have managed to actually lose population in much of the urban core due to ill-conceived anti-development rules. Our urban schools are going underused because families can't afford to live in the city. When your city is growing rapidly, but you don't add housing to match, housing prices will also grow rapidly. All the rules to supposedly preserve neighborhood character by blocking apartment building and other density enhancements, destroy neighborhood character and quality of life by promoting sprawl, traffic, and pricing out the non-wealthy and the non-childless.

It's infuriating. Austin is well on its way to becoming a little San Francisco - a great place to live if you have no kids and a household income in the $200k+ range. The City Council caters to the neighborhood associations, and the neighborhood associations are dominated by people who have owned their homes since the 70s or 80s and have no reason to care whether the next generation can afford housing in this city.

There's no excuse at all for a city that is adding 110 people PER DAY to have a declining school enrollment, or declining population in central city neighborhoods. There's also no excuse for failure, on a policy level, to ignore the very simple dictates of supply and demand. As long as population growth remains in effect -- and seeing as how Austin's population has doubled every 20 years IN ITS ENTIRE HISTORY, it will remain in effect -- the only hope of making Austin remotely affordable to anyone but the super wealthy lies in increasing housing supply.

Sounds like nashville