Disqus - Latest Comments for zamfi

Re: Housing can’t both be a good investment and be affordable

zamfi — Sun, 06 Jan 2019 16:02:23 -0000

I'm sorry, but I don't think construction costs are the real issue -- the real issue is political.

Yes, increasing density is more expensive when all the existing housing stock is already 5+ stories.

But that doesn't describe any American city, and almost no international ones. I'll grant you that this argument doesn't apply to the densest parts of Manhattan island. Fortunately, NYC has transit and many neighborhoods near subway stops full of detached single-family homes that could quite profitably be developed to greater density.

SF, the city cited in this piece, is one of the densest cities in the US -- and the majority of its land area is still single-family homes, not high-density apartment blocks that need type I high-rise construction to increase density further.

Re: Housing can’t both be a good investment and be affordable

zamfi — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 11:08:00 -0000

Huh? This is only a contradiction if the type of housing remains constant, which it does in zero-development, extreme-construction-cost markets like San Francisco where public policy forbids the modification of (almost) any housing to increase density.

Here’s how it would work otherwise: family buys single family home in year A for $100k. Lives there for a while, then sells in year B for $200k. The buyer is a developer, who then constructs a larger building on that same lot consisting of 4 apartments that now each sell for $100k again. Original family gains in wealth, developer makes tidy profit, new families can still buy a place to live for $100k. All numbers inflation-adjusted, you pick A and B to make whatever return you think is reasonable.

This is how densification happened almost everywhere until zoning laws went crazy mid-century.
Note what you don’t get out of this arrangement: a neighborhood that doesn’t change for 40 years; the ability to live in the same type of house your parents did, in the same neighborhood, for the same price. But you could have the same amount of (indoor) space they did, and outdoor space through public parks and the like.

What’s not sustainable is everyone having a suburban style detached single family home without increasing density in perpetuity. That is what leads to this contradiction.

The non-density alternative is sprawl, where prices rise in long-established neighborhoods, and outlying new developments are where you can buy new houses for less — which is what you observe all over California.

Re: EtherPad Blog: AppJet: The Platform behind EtherPad

zamfi — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:11:17 -0000

We use our own custom comet implementation running on a Jetty container.

Re: Testing

zamfi — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:56:26 -0000

Love it.