I like that this points to a healthy, friendly synthesis between our two viewpoints:
Regardless of what the underlying demand is for any given development style, increasing mortgage access can spur production and affordability in basically all market segments. AND, densification in the markets *I* prefer will enable healthy greendfield growth in the places where it’d be appropriate.
LA, for instance, is completely out of greenfield space. That’s why people moved to the Inland Empire. Ever-undaunted by the traffic congestion that horrifies and offends my every sensibility, they sprawled up against the literal mountains and hills, and cannot easily build new greenfield anywhere except on the other side of them.
But undoing the mortgage crackdown means more condos and missing middle get built in LA.
STL by contrast, and likely Cleveland from all I can tell, has mostly sprawled out to the mythical “1 hour commute” limit. The mortgage crackdown killed off most exurban development in STL (which I don’t personally mind), and rising prices forced an apartment boom in STL’s relatively permissive regulatory environment. That boom has run up to its regulatory limits, and housing is now going vertical. Thus, undoing the mortgage crackdown will enable a whole bunch of remaining densification that STL has left to do — and there’s a LOT of it left — which will in turn gently expand the practical 1-hour commute boundary, since there will be more dense and profitable uses of land further out from the city center.
NYC is an example of what happens when this process is allowed to go on long enough: the sheer density in the city forced its 1-hour radius to be incredibly dense as well, which means that its sprawl goes out WELL past a mere hour from Times Square. In fact, the sprawl limit is basically extended out to “an hour from any commuter rail station”, since those stations are built wherever there’s enough density to be profitable.
Either way, a lot of housing gets built because BOTH theories are correct: the mortgage crackdown is inhibiting a lot of demand in the middle and bottom of the market, and most suburbs (anywhere) are not currently dense enough to enable expansion beyond the current sprawl limits.
I like that this points to a healthy, friendly synthesis between our two viewpoints:
Regardless of what the underlying demand is for any given development style, increasing mortgage access can spur production and affordability in basically all market segments. AND, densification in the markets *I* prefer will enable healthy greendfield growth in the places where it’d be appropriate.
LA, for instance, is completely out of greenfield space. That’s why people moved to the Inland Empire. Ever-undaunted by the traffic congestion that horrifies and offends my every sensibility, they sprawled up against the literal mountains and hills, and cannot easily build new greenfield anywhere except on the other side of them.
But undoing the mortgage crackdown means more condos and missing middle get built in LA.
STL by contrast, and likely Cleveland from all I can tell, has mostly sprawled out to the mythical “1 hour commute” limit. The mortgage crackdown killed off most exurban development in STL (which I don’t personally mind), and rising prices forced an apartment boom in STL’s relatively permissive regulatory environment. That boom has run up to its regulatory limits, and housing is now going vertical. Thus, undoing the mortgage crackdown will enable a whole bunch of remaining densification that STL has left to do — and there’s a LOT of it left — which will in turn gently expand the practical 1-hour commute boundary, since there will be more dense and profitable uses of land further out from the city center.
NYC is an example of what happens when this process is allowed to go on long enough: the sheer density in the city forced its 1-hour radius to be incredibly dense as well, which means that its sprawl goes out WELL past a mere hour from Times Square. In fact, the sprawl limit is basically extended out to “an hour from any commuter rail station”, since those stations are built wherever there’s enough density to be profitable.
Either way, a lot of housing gets built because BOTH theories are correct: the mortgage crackdown is inhibiting a lot of demand in the middle and bottom of the market, and most suburbs (anywhere) are not currently dense enough to enable expansion beyond the current sprawl limits.
Great points!