Has it worked anywhere

mariaalice

Are there any booming cities in a well of western countries or even any country with almost full employment, very embedded high tec economies that does not have high housing costs and high rents.

Watched a documentary on the cage homes of Hongkong.

jam_mac_jam

I keep hear the Vienna model being mentioned. As there are a lot of Co ops there for housing which provide housing at a reasonable rate. There is a lot of rent controlled accommodation in Berlin but they don't have much money as the rest of Germany.

Singapore, where you imagine is the most capitalist place on earth the land is owned by the government so when there is a shortage they build more housing. So I would guess has better conditions then Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is not Dublin though so to compare it is a bit silly. We are also not Manhattan or Sydney. Our prices should be more along the lines of a mid size UK city then the top of the world. I know we don't like to think that but its true.

Yurt2

Tokyo is actually a pretty affordable place considering the size of the city and its importance to the Asian and global economy. They have a 'build baby build' regulatory attitude, but, very little immigration, an ageing population and the economy flitters from stagnant to slugglish.

jimwallace197

mariaalice wrote: »

Are there any booming cities in a well of western countries or even any country with almost full employment, very embedded high tec economies that does not have high housing costs and high rents.

Watched a documentary on the cage homes of Hongkong.

There is always a demand for housing especially for housing in preferred locations so high housing costs and issues around housing will always be there.

Take our own country for example, how much of a housing crisis would there be if the government took a harder stance on this and insisted on people who are availing of rent allowance/Hap or social housing to not have a choice in the county where they avail of this free housing.

Yes, you will have the argument that some people who are not in well paying jobs need to live in the capital also but would it be impossible for them to find a job of this type in another location where housing costs are not so high. Also,no one has the divine right to a property or a house.

We as a country are far too soft on this. I see it every week where people who are incredibly entitled expect to live close to their family and friends without contributing anything towards the cost

Yurt2

Yes. kicking out the povs to Carlow will solve housing unaffordability. Yes.

Can we have at least one thread without this sort of stuff? Pretty please?

It's an interesting thread where there is space to talk about international best practice and someone is straight in with the entitled pov bashing guff.

jam_mac_jam

There are also false shortages such as land hoarding and wasted land (a of of it government owned). So the idea that there is not enough land to go around is also falsely accepted. There will always higher demand in popular areas but there can be policies to address this. Better land use and higher building would also help address the issues.

Idbatterim

Hong Kong is not Dublin though so to compare it is a bit silly. We are also not Manhattan or Sydney. Our prices should be more along the lines of a mid size UK city then the top of the world. I know we don't like to think that but its true.

a mid sized uk city? LOL! a european capital with the who's who of every massive tech firm here, massive tourism, tax haven etc?

take a read of the below, very interesting, this issue cant be solved, with the current planning set up, the densitites are still far too low. 21,000 homes were built here last year, any one fancy a guess, how many of them were in central dublin?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/economy/housing-crisis-conor-dougherty-golden-gates.html

jam_mac_jam

Yurt! wrote: »

Tokyo is actually a pretty affordable place considering the size of the city and its importance to the Asian and global economy. They have a 'build baby build' regulatory attitude, but, very little immigration, an ageing population and the economy flitters from stagnant to slugglish.

That's very interesting, I would have thought it was still very high.

Yurt2

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

That's very interesting, I would have thought it was still very high.

It is. You'd think housing unaffordability would be on the scale of London or San Francisco, but not so. Of particular interest in this article is the population growth to house price growth graph.

https://medium.com/land-buildings-identity-and-values/what-is-the-secret-to-tokyos-affordable-housing-266283531012

agoodusername

Spot on about Tokyo, but you won't find many places that get anywhere near its public transport. The city itself sprawls like crazy which I'm guessing helps with the cost of housing. It also has a bit more of a pro-apartment and smaller garden approach than in Ireland.

Anyway the Japanese are always a bit ahead of the curve with these things.

jam_mac_jam

Idbatterim wrote: »

a mid sized uk city? LOL! a european capital with the who's who of every massive tech firm here, massive tourism, tax haven etc?

take a read of the below, very interesting, this issue cant be solved, with the current planning set up, the densitites are still far too low. 21,000 homes were built here last year, any one fancy a guess, how many of them were in central dublin?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/economy/housing-crisis-conor-dougherty-golden-gates.html

Manchester would have a similar GDP to Dublin. So no we are not Hong Kong. We are doing ok but not a world leading city like London, New York or Paris.

I agree with you on building up though.

timmyntc

Idbatterim wrote: »

a mid sized uk city? LOL! a european capital with the who's who of every massive tech firm here, massive tourism, tax haven etc?

take a read of the below, very interesting, this issue cant be solved, with the current planning set up, the densitites are still far too low. 21,000 homes were built here last year, any one fancy a guess, how many of them were in central dublin?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/economy/housing-crisis-conor-dougherty-golden-gates.html

Housing demand isn't based on how many companies there are or whether it's a capital city or not - it all comes down to population and land availability.

Dublin is not a massive city in terms of population, and it has lots of land in most directions to build on, as it's only bordered on one side (east) by the sea.

Fann Linn

Lorcan Sirr's take is that there are serviced lands throughout the country to build 100k social homes. He further states that FG ideology prevents these builds plus the land holding by developers etc.

jam_mac_jam

Land holding by developers and houses which are falling down are two easy areas to tackle.

I can't really see why they aren't. I work in Grand Canal and there are derelict houses in the area which should be seized and built on. Nothing should be allowed to rot inside the canals, no wasteland, no unused houses or land at all or you pay 10% tax on it a year. The only other place I have seen this in the centre of a city in Europe is Italy. I can't really understand why it happens here or is allowed to. Its such a waste.

Also the land hoarding, if you don't build on it you loose your planning permission. You can't be sitting on it waiting for land to go up.

Ush1

Don't they have multi-generational mortgages in Tokyo?

Comparing Dublin to a mid sized UK city is ridiculous, compare the GDP.

Harika

I think a lot was underestimated as after the crash in 2012 I was trying to rent a room in Cork city out (same then 2014). Daft.ie showed 500 rooms, available, today 50. Couldn't find someone. Now as the economy is booming again, the market is overrun.

jam_mac_jam

Ush1 wrote: »

Don't they have multi-generational mortgages in Tokyo?

Comparing Dublin to a mid sized UK city is ridiculous, compare the GDP.

Its much less ridiculous then comparing ourselves to Hong Kong or New York. As I said earlier, the GDP of Manchester would be similar. We are not a world class city, we are a small city on the outskirts of Europe. we are not even Amsterdam never mind London.

We all need to get over ourselves thinking we should be paying London prices.

Idbatterim

timmyntc wrote: »

Housing demand isn't based on how many companies there are or whether it's a capital city or not - it all comes down to population and land availability.

Dublin is not a massive city in terms of population, and it has lots of land in most directions to build on, as it's only bordered on one side (east) by the sea.

not really true, you have the moutnains to the southwest and airport to the north. absolutely appalling planning policies are the prime reason for this housing farce!

dublins growth is massively stunted by idiotic planning, no proper transport system and an idiotic rate of marginal tax

timmyntc

Idbatterim wrote: »

not really true, you have the moutnains to the southwest and airport to the north. absolutely appalling planning policies are the prime reason for this housing farce!

dublins growth is massively stunted by idiotic planning, no proper transport system and an idiotic rate of marginal tax

True in that housing demand is based on population and land available - not the presence of MNCs and some notion of being a 'European capital'.

Dublins growth is massively stunted by low density developments and land hoarding. The crap public transport too, I agree.

Ush1

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

Its much less ridiculous then comparing ourselves to Hong Kong or New York. As I said earlier, the GDP of Manchester would be similar. We are not a world class city, we are a small city on the outskirts of Europe. we are not even Amsterdam never mind London.

We all need to get over ourselves thinking we should be paying London prices.

We aren't New York or Hong Kong(GDP has shrunk drastically), but we are different to Manchester.

Greater Manchester has a GDP of 62 billion, Greater Dublin is 103 billion euro.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_the_European_Union_by_GDP

Idbatterim

timmyntc wrote: »

True in that housing demand is based on population and land available - not the presence of MNCs and some notion of being a 'European capital'.

Dublins growth is massively stunted by low density developments and land hoarding. The crap public transport too, I agree.

It is absolute idiocy, to strangle the golden goose (dublin) as financially it just hits the entire country. Absolute idiocy!

Niallof9

timmyntc wrote: »

Housing demand isn't based on how many companies there are or whether it's a capital city or not - it all comes down to population and land availability.

Dublin is not a massive city in terms of population, and it has lots of land in most directions to build on, as it's only bordered on one side (east) by the sea.

Of course it is a factor. It affects value, scarcity, where people want to live. And which people. These are regional cities in the UK, the value reflects that. Manchester, with the bbc now, is trying to challenge and is a bit of a Northern Powerhouse. But as we see with Brexit, London completely imbalances the UK. Like Dublin here. Now when you start going to other Irish cities (really only Cork counts as a comparison), yes the issue of value raises its head. This is the main issue.

Dublin is a mid level European capital city with a large Urban population. It has increased by 200k over about a 15 year period. It houses the European headquartes of many tech companies. Many of the workers of these companies come from outside Ireland. Rents in the Docklands reflect this. It has large numbers of tourists. Part of the reason the city works the way it is because of where the boundaries are drawn. traditionally, the other side of each canal is the end of the city. Which at this stage is just nonsense. So places like Rathmines and Ranalagh are considered suburbs when in reality they aren't really. These concepts are explored in a good book - http://www.books.ie/redrawing-dublin. Part of the reason places like Ranalagh (according to the author) aren't considered city is because of what they contain, culturally and services wise.

I know people love to pretend its some parochial village, but this just exacerbates the issue. Its not actually that low a density. For all intent and purposes Dublin stretches from Cherrywood (will be high density) in the South to Swords in the North side . The Metro will just accelerate this hopefully. In the 70s Cherrywood was fields and farmland.

And there isn't much more land to build on. Within the city boundaries there is maybe Poolbeg and O'Devaney. A few others.

jam_mac_jam

Niallof9 wrote: »

Of course it is a factor. It affects value, scarcity, where people want to live. And which people

Dublin is a mid level European capital city with a large Urban population. It has increased by 200k over about a 15 year period. It houses the European headquartes of many tech companies. Many of the workers of these companies come from outside Ireland. Rents in the Docklands reflect this. It has large numbers of tourists.

I know people love to pretend its some parochial village, but this just exacerbates the issue. Its not actually that low a density.

And there isn't much more land to build on. Within the city boundaries there is maybe Poolbeg and O'Devaney. A few others.

There is loads of land to build on. Knock down a few of those horrible **** heaps from the 70's and build some skyscrapers. There is loads of development land being sat on. Car parks, government land. loads of it that could be used more effectively.
Move the docks, build on Poolbeg, there is loads of land around there being half used. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/city-vacant-dublin-s-hundreds-of-multimillion-euro-empty-sites-and-properties-1.3635595?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fenvironment%2Fcity-vacant-dublin-s-hundreds-of-multimillion-euro-empty-sites-and-properties-1.3635595
http://abandoneddublin.ie/


There are solutions other then.. ho hum Google is here so we all must pay too much for property and rent.

Exactly what the question asked, what do other cities do that have it right? Like Vienna or Helsinki?

Mic 1972

Yurt! wrote: »

Tokyo is actually a pretty affordable place considering the size of the city and its importance to the Asian and global economy. They have a 'build baby build' regulatory attitude, but, very little immigration, an ageing population and the economy flitters from stagnant to slugglish.

As you perfectly stated, Tokyo isn't exactly a booming economy at the moment. Add shrinking population to that and you have a declining property market

Niallof9

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

There is loads of land to build on. Knock down a few of those horrible **** heaps from the 70's and build some skyscrapers. There is loads of development land being sat on. Car parks, government land. loads of it that could be used more effectively.
Move the docks, build on Poolbeg, there is loads of land around there being half used. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/city-vacant-dublin-s-hundreds-of-multimillion-euro-empty-sites-and-properties-1.3635595?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fenvironment%2Fcity-vacant-dublin-s-hundreds-of-multimillion-euro-empty-sites-and-properties-1.3635595


There are solutions other then.. ho hum Google is here so we all must pay too much for property and rent.

Exactly what the question asked, what do other cities do that have it right? Like Vienna or Helsinki?

Oh yeah agreed, of course i'm up for knocking stuff down. Building high. The whole Docklands will need to be rebuilt in about 10 years i reckon. A complete **** up.

There is people who think it can be done without all this. Without metros, without gentrification, without change, new transport, tall buildings and so on. It can't. Thats more where i'm coming from. And pretending Dublin is just a glorified village is part of the reason we are wehre we are. Councils and government led by country people with massive chips. People like Colm McCarthy saying Dart, luas and now metro were/are white elephants. Its absolute nonsense.

Oh and i'm not saying we have to just accept it. I work in a google project where literally only 3 people out of 400 are Irish (not a bash, they are language jobs). And its a never ending churn. Most of the people leave to go to another tech company. All complain about rents/prices. Its all connected.

Build the metro. Build high rise. Accelerate the social change/fabric. Cork by all accounts has trouble convincing Norries to move south and vice versa. Dublin has largely gotten over this.

timmyntc

Niallof9 wrote: »

Of course it is a factor. It affects value, scarcity, where people want to live. And which people. These are regional cities in the UK, the value reflects that. Manchester, with the bbc now, is trying to challenge and is a bit of a Northern Powerhouse. But as we see with Brexit, London completely imbalances the UK. Like Dublin here. Now when you start going to other Irish cities (really only Cork counts as a comparison), yes the issue of value raises its head. This is the main issue.

Dublin is a mid level European capital city with a large Urban population. It has increased by 200k over about a 15 year period. It houses the European headquartes of many tech companies. Many of the workers of these companies come from outside Ireland. Rents in the Docklands reflect this. It has large numbers of tourists. Part of the reason the city works the way it is because of where the boundaries are drawn. traditionally, the other side of each canal is the end of the city. Which at this stage is just nonsense. So places like Rathmines and Ranalagh are considered suburbs when in reality they aren't really. These concepts are explored in a good book - http://www.books.ie/redrawing-dublin. Part of the reason places like Ranalagh (according to the author) aren't considered city is because of what they contain, culturally and services wise.

I know people love to pretend its some parochial village, but this just exacerbates the issue. Its not actually that low a density. For all intent and purposes Dublin stretches from Cherrywood (will be high density) in the South to Swords in the North side . The Metro will just accelerate this hopefully. In the 70s Cherrywood was fields and farmland.

And there isn't much more land to build on. Within the city boundaries there is maybe Poolbeg and O'Devaney. A few others.

There is plenty of land to build on - but we shouldnt build on it as we've been building before. No more ribbon developments, no more endless suburbia and housing estates as far as the eye can see. We need density, and we need mass transit.
But the land is there to cater for the demand, and then some.

The crux of the issues with prices is twofold - construction costs and land prices.
Construction costs have risen greatly due to labor shortages, better wages in construction, and the biggest factor is building regulations. Minimum BER etc.

The land issue then is a strange one - land is not in short supply. But people are still hoarding it - land in Ireland, especially in or near the cities, is seen as a good investment. The value will only go up, so people and investment funds will buy land and sit on it for years. Effective and punitive land taxes for undeveloped sites would help massively, and land prices would drop massively, but up to now it hasn't been in any governments interest.

jmayo

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

I keep hear the Vienna model being mentioned. As there are a lot of Co ops there for housing which provide housing at a reasonable rate. There is a lot of rent controlled accommodation in Berlin but they don't have much money as the rest of Germany.

I have said this already around here a few days ago in answer to very prominent sinn fein poster (who conveniently didn't spell out the results of the Vienna model), Vienna does have affordable housing, but it is apartments in often high rise developments.
It is not a 3/4 bed semi with garden or anything like our old corpo terraced houses in say Marino.
Also some of their developments have absolutely no parking, instead giving space to common areas.

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

Singapore, where you imagine is the most capitalist place on earth the land is owned by the government so when there is a shortage they build more housing. So I would guess has better conditions then Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is not Dublin though so to compare it is a bit silly. We are also not Manhattan or Sydney. Our prices should be more along the lines of a mid size UK city then the top of the world. I know we don't like to think that but its true.

Singapore has no more in common with Dublin than Hong Kong.
You have 300,000 more people than the Rep of Ireland in an area smaller than County Dublin.
It is full of high rises and I aint talking about the mickie mouse stuff like the docklands.
And they have enforced quota systems in order to prevent enthni enclaves of any one religion or one ethnic group.
It is their solution to our dream of multiculturalism which they copped on long ago breeds discontent and civil strife.

Yurt2

Mic 1972 wrote: »

As you perfectly stated, Tokyo isn't exactly a booming economy at the moment. Add shrinking population to that and you have a declining property market

Tokyo has still grown in population and wealth terms, and in a global context, it's still an extremely wealthy city home to major world companies.

Take a look at the graph in the article I linked that displays population growth of various cities relative to housing price growth and try to tell me something hasn't gone badly badly wrong in places like London and San Francisco.

Niallof9

timmyntc wrote: »

There is plenty of land to build on - but we shouldnt build on it as we've been building before. No more ribbon developments, no more endless suburbia and housing estates as far as the eye can see. We need density, and we need mass transit.
But the land is there to cater for the demand, and then some.

The crux of the issues with prices is twofold - construction costs and land prices.
Construction costs have risen greatly due to labor shortages, better wages in construction, and the biggest factor is building regulations. Minimum BER etc.

The land issue then is a strange one - land is not in short supply. But people are still hoarding it - land in Ireland, especially in or near the cities, is seen as a good investment. The value will only go up, so people and investment funds will buy land and sit on it for years. Effective and punitive land taxes for undeveloped sites would help massively, and land prices would drop massively, but up to now it hasn't been in any governments interest.

Oh yeah the land outside the city of Dublin is there. Sorry i meant more the city. Again its about boundaries and what counts.

Metro is a must now. It opens up the whole of North Dublin. Mainly its a multi faceted problem. the recession was a huge factor and now nimbyism is huge issue. Nimbyism to metro, to building, to gentrification, to what type of building gets built. Its not as simple as an evil Fine Gael plot as many people would have us believe. Obviously they are entrusting the market a little too much and there is hoarding among other things. But its not simple. I'm just against the narrative that Dublin is small, so everything must be A or B. Its not true anymore.

Yurt2

Predictibly, we are not allowed to compare Dublin to anywhere else. We are, apparently, sui generis.

Manchester - not valid
Singapore - not valid
Vienna - speak German, not valid.

We'll add more to the list as the thread progresses I'm sure. When we don't want to discuss something, everything is not valid.

jam_mac_jam

jmayo wrote: »

I have said this already around here a few days ago in answer to very prominent sinn fein poster (who conveniently didn't spell out the results of the Vienna model), Vienna does have affordable housing, but it is apartments in often high rise developments.
It is not a 3/4 bed semi with garden or anything like our old corpo terraced houses in say Marino.
Also some of their developments have absolutely no parking, instead giving space to common areas.



Singapore has no more in common with Dublin than Hong Kong.
You have 300,000 more people than the Rep of Ireland in an area smaller than County Dublin.
It is full of high rises and I aint talking about the mickie mouse stuff like the docklands.
And they have enforced quota systems in order to prevent enthni enclaves of any one religion or one ethnic group.
It is their solution to our dream of multiculturalism which they copped on long ago breeds discontent and civil strife.

Oh i agree on Singapore. We would have to nationalise the land to follow them. Just one i thought of. As different as could be. But could we take their policy of releasing land when prices go up?

Maybe we could adapt the Vienna model. Doesn't have to be exactly the same. If we have to have cars then build underground car parks. Not everyone has to live with a back garden.maybe some people would be happy if the apartment was cheaper and better located. Not for everyone but could free up some demand.

Taking the ideas from other cities doesn't mean you do it exactly the same. You adapt parts of it for the city applicable.

We need to try something.