Good lord. If you don't want people commuting in by car, build public housing. Build more housing. De-financialize housing. Build commuter rail. Make property-ownership based on occupancy and use. Hold all city land in trust and only allow people to lease it 100 years at a time (this is what many Native nations already do to address housing insecurity on reservations).
One you've done all that, by all means, charge people to drive in the city. Actually, eliminate driving in the city. Build carpool parking at the ends of your metro line. Remove street parking. Make all the streets open to pedestrians. Create subsidies for cargo-bikes. Turn arterials and highways into green belts.
But please, please don't start with a congestion tax.
these cities build building after building of STEM techbro grad catnip $2800/month apartments and $700k condos and then it never lowers
The problem with the trickle down housing theory is that just because people can pay insane luxury rent doesn't mean that they want to. It's plainly obvious that most of these new builds are cheap as shit despite the luxury label, they're often built on marginal, flood project land, and lots of high earners are very, very stingy. They definitely aren't "catnip" for STEMbros, rather I see it as another example of "forced demand" - i.e. only overpriced garbage is all that is offered.
I'd argue the reason it never lowers is more that these luxury units set a floor, not a ceiling for all other apartments. Any amenities they offer aren't valued by most people all that much, so effectively a bunch of overpriced new builds means exisiting landlords can jack up rent.
The problem with yimbys is that they’re always super for building more housing.
No they aren't. YIMBYs become NIMBYs overnight as soon as you get anywhere near their property.
Doesn't that mean they were never YIMBYs then? That's just "Yes in Someone Else's Backyard."
The other problem is that building new housing makes the problem worse if you eliminate older housing which may be perfectly functional, but it's not profitable (like cash for clunkers)
The theory behind CfC was to lower total emissions and raise mean MPG range of vehicles, while also bailing out the Auto Industry by clearing their excess inventory.
That's not a terrible plan on its face if you're hopelessly wedded to car culture... :agony-shivering:
With housing, even old units functional still have the problem of being land hogs. Replacing ranch homes with new dense vertical and MUDs consolidates people over territory and that's generally good... except when you're wedded to car culture and everyone still needs parking space. :agony-deep:
Everything really does just come back to cars being terrible.
YIMBYs live in attached units (either apartments or condos) and want to increase density at all (usually human) costs and do whatever possible to knock down any building that’s not a mixed use highrise.
Firstly, plenty of YIMBYs live in ranch style homes in the suburbs. They complain about zoning and blame car culture on unions and donate monthly to Andrew Yang. But they scream like stuck pigs when anything threatens their property values or encroaches on their school districts.
Secondly, YIMBYs don't demolish shit. That's developers. And developers don't care if you're knocking down a single family unit to build five townhomes or an old eight unit apartment to build a big new McMansion so long as they're always building.
they treat the real estate market the way libertarians treat the economy as a whole.
Right. The term is camouflage. It doesn't get you dense urban housing with good public transit. It just gets privatization and subsidy for whomever is paying the local YIMBY Org's media budget.
Hold all city land in trust and only allow people to lease it 100 years at a time (this is what many Native nations already do to address housing insecurity on reservations).
The one good thing Nonce Island does except sink into the seas.
Hold all city land in trust and only allow people to lease it 100 years
this is how Chinese cities work and it's their main source of revenue besides funding from the central government. Except I think it's only 70 years. Seems like a good idea.
I don't know what apartment they got but Atlanta still isn't that expensive. Even at Georgia Tech the nicest dorms are like $1300 a month and most are below $1000, including furnishings and utilities. OP is getting super scammed
I don't think it's a dorm, based on the design. It looks like a loft apartment in a highrise. Maybe not 2200 but 1800? 1900? I think that's possible
The picture OP posted isn't a dorm but the universities generally aren't trying to profit off them and the rent is lower. I wouldn't consider going to school in Atlanta otherwise. Almost went to Georgia State for grad school until they offered me a living stipend of $500. Like, at least give enough for rent.
landlords like to pray on unassuming students, especially transfers who don't know the city well. They advertise their overpriced units on campus and such
I believe it. You still need to be fairly well off to live in them though (unless you took out ungodly amounts of student loans) which means at that age that your parents are probably paying your rent. My verdict is petit bougie child of petit bougie family
My local YIMBYs want to double the price of parking. Doesn't really matter that half the people parked on street in town are restaurant staff.
What the fuck are these people though? Like WFH tech bros who jerk off to luxury condos being built? How is the YIMBY made?
Exurbs, like stroads, are the product of leaded brains and coal-blackened hearts. Minds of rusty metal and grinding wheels. :grillman:
Building a giant wall around the incorporated City of Atlanta & posting cops outside of it so that you can stop & charge random passers-by (including every guy in a Semi) 20% of whatever they have in their wallet at that moment; like how dudes ran D&D in the 70's.
Obviously, Barcelona should have implemented congestion surcharges. Maybe then they could have been as successful as Atlanta.
What planet do these fools live on? Office workers don't commute from the suburbs to the city - service workers do! Rich office workers can afford to live downtown if they work downtown, and the ones who live in the suburbs usually work in suburban office parks!!
Never attribute to malice etc. etc.
They obviously picked this up from NYC and London where car ownership in the cities is comparably low but you get loads of people from the suburbs car-commuting in and expecting the city to accomodate this shit and that's pretty bad. Having been to London after the congestion charge I dare not imagine what the fuck that moloch looks like with 30% more cars about.
The difference is you can argue driving in NYC or London is a luxury, people have alternatives. Not as much the case in Atlanta, especially when you're talking about poor service workers coming in from suburbs they've been pushed out to.
Rich office workers can afford to live downtown if they work downtown, and the ones who live in the suburbs usually work in suburban office parks!!
This is not my experience. Most rich office workers move to the suburbs when they have kids and still commute downtown.
Interesting, my personal experience is the vast majority of white collar work is nowhere near a downtown area, usually it's in suburban office parks.
Imagine your Uni place of residence not being a hot couch goblin cave covered in unframed movie posters smh my head
My unpopular opinion: Congestion charges are good.
Making driving less desirable increases the political will for alternatives. And congestion charges reduce traffic very effectively, reducing the political will for freeway expansion.
It also creates an easy funding source for transit projects.
That being said, the poster is incorrect. NYC has not yet implemented their congestion charge. They're being stonewalled by the feds.
To talk specifically about Atlanta, though: the area they're proposing for a congestion charge (excepting Buckhead) is well-served by MARTA and most of MARTA's suburban stations are (perhaps to their detriment) surrounded by parking. There is nothing stopping most folks from taking the train downtown today other than the correct incentives to do so.
NYC has not yet implemented their congestion charge.
What do you call the toll on the George Washington Bridge then?
a bridge toll
the congestion proposal would charge cars entering midtown and below from any direction, not just crossing the rivers
I was suggesting that folks use park and rides. Instead of driving into Midtown, drive to the park and ride and take MARTA from there.
My hot take is that congestion charges are good, but only if they are used to massively fund transit.
