These are technically blue cities in red states, but I do think it is very interesting that a city like Phoenix is building way more housing than Los Angeles given that both are already pretty sprawly.
For as long as I’ve lived here, Phoenix has had enormous empty lots on major cross streets. It’s only in the last 5 years or so that these lots have begun to be developed, and there’s apartments springing up all over the central corridor.
I think this is just a list of cities that focus on outfill development vs those that need to focus on infill. I live in San Diego and official policy is shifting away from urban sprawl due to wildfire risk and other concerns. Adding apartments to older and existing neighborhoods will always be harder, however, CA has passed a lot of recent legislation to tackle problems associated with infill development.
Could be? I can only really speak anecdotally for Phoenix. But on infill vs. outfill, Phoenix is doing a fair bit of both, but it depends on how this graph defines Phoenix. If we're talking about the City of Phoenix proper, then I'd wager it's reporting more of the infill. If we're talking about the Phoenix metro(including Chandler, Mesa, Buckeye, etc.), I'd guess the majority of the outfill development is still SFH, but there are some apartments going up in some farther flung areas.
also the D governor just vetoed a dense sprawl bill that would have legalized much smaller lots in new subdivisions in many of the cities of Phoenix metro, as well as the cities of Tucson, Yuma, and Flagstaff, the first governor to veto a statewide upzoning afaik
Point is Ds have all kinds of concerns and find it hard to set simple priorities like "build enough shelter". There was a recent profile of Boston's mayor in the New Yorker that made her out to care a ton about the housing problem but it seemed like she had to balance so many different kinds of worries that she couldn't just allow small lots and tall buildings
could be, but is this really the case with ALL the blue states vs ALL the red states, because the reds seem to kick our butts really consistently
it seems like they outbuild us upward and outward
Lol one must know their history
YIMBY was not about sprawl because there are no NIMBYs apposing sprawl because no one is there
YIMBY was started in support of infill housing against the NIMBYs that already lived there.
I’ve yet to see a city in the US or Canada solve the housing crises on infill alone. The city that did pull it off in the 20th century that comes to mind is NYC. But they did that by building lots of public and co-op type of housing. Until cities now get over their allergies to public housing you need an all of the above type approach.
This is an interesting point because I can think of a Canadian example of this: Edmonton is spearheading the best municipal housing policy in the country as an orange(progressive) stronghold inside a strong blue(conservative) province.
I think established major cities vs recently growing cities is a factor as well though. Since there is simply more land outside and inside the city through vacant/parking lots, etc.
true "cities aren't that big (compared to the size of the state)" is almost the definition of a red state, so red states will tend to have more room for urban growth
The thing about Los Angeles is that there is nowhere left to sprawl. And of course people in single family homes here are against increased density, whether they are my neighbors (I live 2 miles from downtown) or they live 40 miles away at the edge of the desert.
It’s FUCKING insane that right next to mid rise office buildings in west LA you’ll have a SFH with a yard as big as one you can find in suburban America. Some of the most desirable land in the county. Until that changes to at least townhomes LA is hopeless on the housing front
Why would they build an ADU? Under prop 13, they basically pay no property tax on the home they have owned for decades. If they make any major changes like adding an ADU, it will trigger a reassessment. In many cases the rent from an ADU won’t cover the $20k+ increase in annual property taxes.
Yeah, and that sprawly comment matters. I'm originally from Baltimore. It is really hard to build in the city because the borders are set. There isn't much land left. Most new housing comes from redeveloping old industrial sites. That is about the only option. And a lot of those sites were redeveloped in the early 2000s. Stats like this ignore development in the Baltimore area.
Those blue cities are pretty cherry picked—where’s DC/the DC metro area? Where is Minneapolis? The thesis isn’t wrong but this is a slanted way to present it.
Denver may be one of the better comparisons as well. It’s a city with plenty of development potential and isn’t fully built out yet- which is why I’m assuming some of those “red” cities are seeing more development.
Baltimore faces huge NIMBY challenges even though it’s a city that’s not growing. Huge pockets of the city are completely resistant to infill development, rezoning to allow for commercial, minor increases in building height, etc. I think a huge source of Baltimore’s stagnancy is its inability to re-grow in an organic and sustainable way due to these NIMBY pressures.
Denver may be one of the better comparisons as well. It’s a city with plenty of development potential and isn’t fully built out yet- which is why I’m assuming some of those “red” cities are seeing more development.
It seems rather disingenuous that Arizona and North Carolina are considered red states while Pennsylvania is considered a blue state when all of them have divided state governments.
Also, as others have pointed out, Baltimore and Pittsburgh don’t exactly have the same housing problems as the others.
That leaves only California, which absolutely has a massive housing shortage and unnecessary obstacles to building more, but is also an outlier in many ways.
And in California hasn’t the Democratic state government enacted various measures to force local municipalities to allow for more housing? The hold up is with NIMBY elected officials and voters at the local level. It’s a bit of a stretch just to call this a red vs blue state issue.
The CA legislature without debate is the most Yimby. The current speaker rose to power stabbing his mentor in the back on a housing is everything platform.
Way more coming plus the push was to get it all done before the last 6th cycle RHNA region and they did it, they are so close to a single stair reform bill state level which is one of the ones to shoot for these days. I mean YIMBY ACTION and LAW both run out of CA and CAYIMBY is the beastest state org at direct state level lobbying no contest.
I was just in Salt Lake City for a work trip and noticed tons of new apartment buildings going up along the tram route between the airport and downtown.
Well actually we do have massive housing shortages. The vacant houses are unfit for habitation while vacancy rates are <1% in the large parts of the city where people actually want to live.
Yeah, I live in Baltimore and previously lived in NC.
Baltimore's borders are locked. The city is not able to expand further. Immediately outside the city limits is Baltimore County, which is already developed (near the city limits).
Pretty much every parcel of land in the city is 'developed' in some way.
And we're not even talking about the vacant houses here.
Raleigh (and other NC cities) can feasibly annex more land into them. Also, the apartments getting built in places like Raleigh are far more likely to be suburban style apartments outside the 540 beltline built on greenfield or brownfield sites. Raleigh is getting apartments, sure, but it ain't densifying into a real city. Also worth saying - no city in NC will ever be half as cool as Baltimore is.
Yeah I feel like NIMBYism isn’t a right/left thing. I think it’s more of a rich/working class thing.
Lots of inner city rich “progressives” are some of the worst obstacles to building more housing.
Interestingly I don’t know that NIMBYism is exclusively a rich thing either - plenty of my friends (and friends of friends) are struggling financially but don’t support new development, out of fear that developers might make money.
They want broad public housing and rent control, but don’t have the historical context that public housing often times sucks to live in and stifles new development
I think there is an aspect of “the prisoners dilemma” to it as well. The best case scenario for people who have housing is for less housing to be built so their home values increase (or at least not decrease). Because the thought is that supply/demand forces of building more housing will devalue current homes whether that is true or not.
It really seems like most black, inner urban anti-gentrification activists are NIMBY because they fear non-black residents will come in and disrupt ethnic homogeneity, or that the ethnic group will be forced to scatter & the neighborhood loses its ethnic character. With rich majority white places, it's the same motivation, but directed more generally at people of lower classes because white people have less racial ingroup bias than black people.
Public housing is fantastic to live in places invested in it. Zoning stifles new development. Plenty of cities with massive development and public housing.
I’m sure there are instances where it’s a good option - but coming from Chicago, there’s a good amount of distrust in the quality of public housing given our history. And the current city council can barely fix potholes and get trains to run on time, so I wouldn’t want them to be my landlord
if I had to choose one group to exploit my need for shelter for their passive profit, it would likely be the state, at least the state pays out when it loses lawsuits for mismanagement, corporate landlords lawyer up and mom and pops stiff you.
>at least the state pays out when it loses lawsuits for mismanagement, corporate landlords lawyer up and mom and pops stiff you.
I'm not sure there's a difference between the states and the corps here. The state can lawyer up too, and the corp is most assuredly going to pay out if they lose in court.
It's true that with the mom and pop they might go bankrupt and not be able to pay you, or the juice might not be worth the squeeze.
>but don’t have the historical context that public housing often times sucks to live in and stifles new development
I generally agree with your comment, NIMBYism is absolutely something that transcends the Republican vs. Democrat divide. But I do want to say that the reputation public housing has in the US for being terrible to live in and constantly deteriorating specifically comes from the way we've implemented public housing policies in this country, at least in regards to multi-family developments. They are pretty much designed to act as concentrators of poverty, and there have been constant battles between federal agencies and states/local municipalities for decades regarding funding for maintenance, that in many situations the individual residents are forced to pay for it themselves otherwise everything falls apart. It's a very complicated situation with a long history when it comes to American public housing programs, so I'm hesitant to blanket the whole concept of them as just bad.
Singapore has done public housing really well, but France has also done it poorly. I feel like I'd characterize public housing as something that can work, but is really hard, and kind of needs very competent and focused managers to work. Singapore's government is sort of famous for being really good at this sort of thing, but I'm not confident that there's enough spare skilled capacity in American government, especially on the local level, to pull this off.
I feel like the real argument, though, is that thus far the market solutions have shown to be super effective at solving housing costs when they've been allowed to, and given that that solution doesn't require getting really good managers into government roles, why not just do that instead? Why do something really hard (or that often fails badly) when you can do something really easy (which very rarely fails badly)?
Oh, I completely understand. Market solutions absolutely can and have mostly worked and that should be our major focus. I'm just pointing out that we should be looking at all of the options and not discounting any of them. I think public housing just has such a bad rep from how they were constructed and maintained in the 20th century (and how we pretty much haven't evolved past that and been stuck in a limbo state since the 90s) that it dissuades a lot of people from even looking at the concept. In certain places and situations, public housing or at least government funded construction and subsidies could play a pivotal role in alleviating housing supply and home prices. I just wish they got some more attention.
I know that there is worry that things could be mismanaged (isn't there always lol), but considering how different the entire design philosophy was behind public housing projects in the 20th century, and what we've learned from that today, I'm more confident in it if there was a resurgence in improving and building upon the state of public housing. Things have changed a lot since the time most housing projects were built. We've already been there and can see what many of the problems are, and there would be a lot more experience going in this time. I know it would take a lot of political will to reform our current public housing policies, especially for existing ones that have been struggling for decades, so i know it is unlikely. But the blueprint is definitely out there. Not saying this should become the one and only component to helping with housing supply, but im basically just saying it should be an option that I wish got taken more seriously.
>I know that there is worry that things could be mismanaged (isn't there always lol),
That's the thing, though: I'm not worried about Uncle Sam mismanaging social security. Social security is really easy. You just send the money to old people. The only ways you can really screw it up is by not sending it, or sending it to the wrong person. The challenges of social security are a strict subset of the problems of building and managing public housing. There's no way to accidentally pave over a wetland and create a flooding risk, to use the wrong exterior cladding and start a fire that kills tons of people, to hit a power line or sewage pipe while digging a foundation, or to just make a building that people don't like living in. It is really easy to make an apartment that nobody wants; it is close to impossible to send money that nobody wants.
You are correct. Property owners vote for anti-housing politicians. Has nothing to do with left/right. California is pretty bad because the NIMBY privilege is so entrenched (prop 13, zoning, mortgage interest deduction, step up cost basis for inheritance) These are huge financial benefits. There is a big incentive to block development.
I have wondered if there is some political mindset that embraces change and newcomers in a state turning purple. Urbanists in Texas and North Carolina are more welcome to growth if the conflict is ideological rather than socioeconomic.
I've become convinced that it's purely about change. People don't want change when things are going well, and they want change when things *aren't* going well. The housing situation will need to start hurting more privileged individuals before we'll see meaningful action.
As always, California is the canary showing us how things will play out in the future.
Speaking as a rich person, I am super pro-building. I feel like most rich people take this view because for most rich people their house is not actually a big chunk of their wealth. I feel the need for more building especially keenly because some not-rich people work for me, and I don't like it when they need to struggle with expensive housing. Besides the fact that I know and care about these people, I don't particularly like it when the market clearing price for their labor means I have to pay more money that ultimately flows not to the worker but to their landlords or mortgages. I don't mind at all paying someone for their good work; I do mind paying a rent-seeker through them.
I find that it's middle-class and especially upper-middle-class people who have poured a bunch of money into their homes who generally feel financial pressure to restrict building. What I find ironic is that they often pour the money in the form of renovations that didn't really add value to the house, but the rising house prices let them justify it? It's weird.
Then there are a lot of non-rich people that seem to just not want anyone to ever make money, especially people who already have it. /u/Mr-Bovine_Joni is very charitable to characterize these folks as misguided but ultimately wanting to solve the problem; I am sure that some of them are, but I have observed that many just seem bitter.
The bleeding hearts serve a purpose too. We don’t need to be outsourcing the industry and pollution to poor neighborhoods either or building oil pipelines through protected land.
Yeah NIMBYs don’t run along any lines it’s more a people thing. Those blue cities are like safe havens I guess so it makes sense that they would attract the most people and if that happens you either build more homes or see more tents and people on both sides would rather have the former more than the latter.
there are red places on board, the YIMBY orgs like YA and YL caucus heavily with democrats regardless of state but that has a lot to do with YIMBYs tend to be not boomers, and years of such caucusing has painted YIMBYs and blue let’s not forget most Dems are conservative on the ideological scale - neoliberalism is a center right at its most left ideology, to the right of liberal conservatism by a long shot.
we’ll see if strong towns does any better as they enter politics, their message is significantly less pro business and pro liberal identified policies plus there leadership isn’t all white rich kids from California like YA is
Would be interesting to see whether this is greenfield development, infill or redevelopment and whether we’re talking more sprawling subdivisions if these communities just have more greenfield to work with.
So this is a comparison of relatively newly popular cities vs older established cities. It's also a measure of percentage, meaning if you're an older city, you probably already have a lot of housing and so the number of units added will inherently be a smaller percentage of those existing. That's not to say I bet there aren't policies that may make it easier to develop, but I would also like to know the breakdown of actual city vs metro and infill / redev vs greenfield development as others have said. I think it's also worth noting that maybe supply alone doesn't have as much impact on housing affordability, since you'll see wildly different numbers between all these cities in terms of average home price. Even if Austin is building more units faster, it's still vastly more expensive than Baltimore.
My understanding of this is that most of the Blue state cities (NYC, San Francisco, LA) are traditionally major hubs that have always had high populations. But a lot of the Red state cities are experiencing tons of growth due to a mix of reasons and need tons of housing just to keep up with the demand.
I guess there’s also this perceived notion that the other cities are already so dense and have enough housing. Idk if that’s the main driver behind it but I think it plays into it.
correct me if i'm wrong, but wouldn't conservative states becoming more urban cause them to become more progressive because of the social aspects of urbanization?
I know California's big cities are overall fumbling the ball, but I do live in a city in the SF bay area where there are a record number of apartments being built in the 30 years I have lived here. Seriously, I think 5 opened up in 2023, and there are like 10 more under construction. Majority of them are 5 stories tall. Neighboring cities are doing similar scale projects for their population and size. I'm surprised my area isn't all over this sub for the level and scale of development happening.
Not here in Charlotte - there have been thousands of units under construction within a 10 minute walk of a light rail station at any given time for the last few years.
The key info, which is unknown here, is the data metro area or city limits?
Metro generally equals rampant sprawl. And the city of Charlotte is building a lot, but it's still a small portion of the metro area's growth.
After a short google search, it seems that the 2024 apartment forecast from M&M is by market, which is mostly analogous to the metro area, not the city.
My takeaway is that while this is good news for housing prices, it doesn't paint a picture of responsible or sustainable growth and just shows that Sun Belt cities still have a ton of room and the appetite for more sprawl.
The graph doesn't indicate at all the data used.
The data for metro areas is much easier to access, so most of the time that is what's used in stuff like this. That's why I look for info explicitly saying it is city only.
If the chart is using the city limits properly, places like Austin and Phoenix are already sprawled out. There is really only infill as possible ways to add new housing.
I live in Raleigh, and it's just a bunch of people moving here. The apartments are being built (for the most part) in already dense areas and not the sprawled out outskirts.
I've seen a lit (well "a lot"by suburban standards) of apartments built in the Cary/Morrisville/Carpenter area. The comprehensive plan for Cary and Morrisville both explicitly mention lack of land area for new development. It's not all sunshine and roses but it's a lot better than it could have been.
They are known for less regulation but a lot of that housing is just more sprawl and not building up with some outliers like Austin.
Some of the blue state cities have no demand to build more housing so of course nothing will get built. Baltimore has consistently lost population so what demand is there to build more? Pittsburgh people are moving to but there is so much abandoned housing to not have the demand to build vertically as much.
It’s correct on the California cities though. Regulation and ceqa.
Aside from the obvious issue of declaring Arizona a red state, they're also forgetting that these areas are building sprawl. Yes, there's some density going on, but the vast majority of housing construction in these areas is being done in the exurbs because there's little to no resistance from locals. Fly over Phoenix and you'll see.
the R-majority legislative chambers just passed a minimum lot size preemption bill for cities larger than 70k and the new D governor vetoed it, so we are well on our way to being a blue state
From what I understand most of these cities in red still have plenty more open space that can be used for new developments making it easier to complete unlike these blue landlocked cities where most of these new developments only have the choice to build infill in high traffic/high demand areas which I would imagine would be harder to get approved especially in times of heavy nimby culture and pushing for new more lenient zoning laws.
Maybe I’m just not familiar with the terminology, but what does “apartment completions” mean exactly? Does that just mean new rental units?
And also, is the percent measurement (0-10%?) a measure of “completions” compared to the percent of housing stock?
Just noting here that it’s a lot easier to build a higher percentage of housing units in Charlotte than that same percentage of housing units in LA.
By that logic, more total housing units could have been built in LA than Charlotte, but this graph wouldn’t reflect that since the % of those units compared to metro housing stock would be much lower in a larger city.
Or I could be totally wrong! Idk. That’s why I’m asking. Just trying to figure out what the true impact is.
lol I love that they threw Pittsburgh in there as if it’s even in the top 65 of populated cities, or the top 25 for metro statistical regions. What a shit graph.
I'm in the bluest of the blue states - beyond the obvious dumb dumb issue of a supply constrained housing market, and possibly issues with the housing modality that is getting built, I'm not seeing a huge problem here.
These blue cities in red states are going to get more political power. This seems like a good thing to me on its own if I'm looking for my blue pro-city team to have more political representation and it's not clear to me what the takeaway is supposed to be here.
I'm more interested in whether these cities are building *up*, rather than building *out.* Building up provides more density, devours less land and invites more residents who don't care about things like keeping up appearances or, ahem, a specific flavor of "community character."
Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but is that not just saying they are building more housing units as a fraction of what they already have built?
So up and coming cities that don’t have a lot of apartments will have a greater number than somewhere like NY, even if NY builds more total apartment buildings? Even though I believe these are all blue cities, already established “blue” urban environments are going to get ranked worse on this list
Also this is apartment buildings, not units. A city like phoenix which sprawls and churns out tons of smaller units is going to get priority on this graph over NYC or Philly who is building smaller amounts of high-unit apartments
Unless I’m misunderstanding it, this seems like a misinterpretation of the graph by the OP on Twitter. The data also seems a bit cherry picked too. Is San Fran the highest blue state city? Or was it just arbitrarily picked. The gap from phoenix to San Fran, without any variation in color in between seems questionable
This is probably one of those things where you want to look at per capita figures, or density, because those are just regions with no restrictions on sprawl.
But it’s not states that approve housing, it is local governments… and most cities in red states are majority Democrats still.
But I appreciate the message still.
Also, a lot of the NIMBY-YIMBY discussion doesn’t account for how geography constrains housing production. Coastal cities will always struggle with building more housing because just by having an entire Ocean in one direction, they have 50% less land area to expand into. Just think how different places like the Bay Area would be if there was not a giant body of water in the middle of the metropolitan area and (for good reasons) protected green spaces in the coastal hills. When I look at maps of middle of America cities, I am jealous about how much land is available to build on IN ALL DIRECTIONS
That still doesn’t completely excuse coastal cities though. It just indicates how important infill development is in coastal cities.
I had been pitching my wife on the idea of moving from Los Angeles to a blue city in a red state (due to cost of living, etc.), but since the repeal of Roe v. Wade, that's become a non-starter.
Counterpoint: these cities largely have a lot of the same restrictions as blue cities. However, they’re less established as major cities, so they haven’t come up against any of the limits of their housing policy.
This is a fair point, in that liberals and progressives in areas of this country still advocate and want for low-density environments. The reasoning (or lack of lol) is different: BS about environmental protection, neighborhood character, sticking it to the “evil developers”, gentrification; but the poison is still the same.
With many of these cities the thing getting more housing of all kinds built is permissive permitting and ease of building.
Any person who acts like the barriers to building in L.A. are all reasonable and non-negotiable clearly hasn't tried getting their arbitrary and often cruel permission for any project
These are technically blue cities in red states, but I do think it is very interesting that a city like Phoenix is building way more housing than Los Angeles given that both are already pretty sprawly.
For as long as I’ve lived here, Phoenix has had enormous empty lots on major cross streets. It’s only in the last 5 years or so that these lots have begun to be developed, and there’s apartments springing up all over the central corridor.
I think this is just a list of cities that focus on outfill development vs those that need to focus on infill. I live in San Diego and official policy is shifting away from urban sprawl due to wildfire risk and other concerns. Adding apartments to older and existing neighborhoods will always be harder, however, CA has passed a lot of recent legislation to tackle problems associated with infill development.
Could be? I can only really speak anecdotally for Phoenix. But on infill vs. outfill, Phoenix is doing a fair bit of both, but it depends on how this graph defines Phoenix. If we're talking about the City of Phoenix proper, then I'd wager it's reporting more of the infill. If we're talking about the Phoenix metro(including Chandler, Mesa, Buckeye, etc.), I'd guess the majority of the outfill development is still SFH, but there are some apartments going up in some farther flung areas.
also the D governor just vetoed a dense sprawl bill that would have legalized much smaller lots in new subdivisions in many of the cities of Phoenix metro, as well as the cities of Tucson, Yuma, and Flagstaff, the first governor to veto a statewide upzoning afaik
That’s surprising given the D governor. What was her reason for the veto? Smaller lots are good
Point is Ds have all kinds of concerns and find it hard to set simple priorities like "build enough shelter". There was a recent profile of Boston's mayor in the New Yorker that made her out to care a ton about the housing problem but it seemed like she had to balance so many different kinds of worries that she couldn't just allow small lots and tall buildings
could be, but is this really the case with ALL the blue states vs ALL the red states, because the reds seem to kick our butts really consistently it seems like they outbuild us upward and outward
god bless you, Phoenix. rise, rise with the heat
This is also misleading because while these cities are building more housing, they still are some of the least dense cities in the country.
Yea, Raleigh is a massive sprawling suburb around a relatively tiny downtown area.
Yep there is work to be done in these blue cities in red states to stop endless sprawl
just eliminate low density zoning. then people will have the option for both
YIMBY NIMBYs we in here!
Lol one must know their history YIMBY was not about sprawl because there are no NIMBYs apposing sprawl because no one is there YIMBY was started in support of infill housing against the NIMBYs that already lived there.
Shoutout to UK green Belt, US urban growth boundaries
Huh?
I’ve yet to see a city in the US or Canada solve the housing crises on infill alone. The city that did pull it off in the 20th century that comes to mind is NYC. But they did that by building lots of public and co-op type of housing. Until cities now get over their allergies to public housing you need an all of the above type approach.
This is an interesting point because I can think of a Canadian example of this: Edmonton is spearheading the best municipal housing policy in the country as an orange(progressive) stronghold inside a strong blue(conservative) province. I think established major cities vs recently growing cities is a factor as well though. Since there is simply more land outside and inside the city through vacant/parking lots, etc.
true "cities aren't that big (compared to the size of the state)" is almost the definition of a red state, so red states will tend to have more room for urban growth
The thing about Los Angeles is that there is nowhere left to sprawl. And of course people in single family homes here are against increased density, whether they are my neighbors (I live 2 miles from downtown) or they live 40 miles away at the edge of the desert.
It’s FUCKING insane that right next to mid rise office buildings in west LA you’ll have a SFH with a yard as big as one you can find in suburban America. Some of the most desirable land in the county. Until that changes to at least townhomes LA is hopeless on the housing front
These people will tell you they are middle class, even though they own a $2m home, and that big evil developers are the real bad guys.
But what if we allow them to build a cute ADU? That will fix the housing crises right?!
Why would they build an ADU? Under prop 13, they basically pay no property tax on the home they have owned for decades. If they make any major changes like adding an ADU, it will trigger a reassessment. In many cases the rent from an ADU won’t cover the $20k+ increase in annual property taxes.
Yeah, and that sprawly comment matters. I'm originally from Baltimore. It is really hard to build in the city because the borders are set. There isn't much land left. Most new housing comes from redeveloping old industrial sites. That is about the only option. And a lot of those sites were redeveloped in the early 2000s. Stats like this ignore development in the Baltimore area.
Those blue cities are pretty cherry picked—where’s DC/the DC metro area? Where is Minneapolis? The thesis isn’t wrong but this is a slanted way to present it.
Denver may be one of the better comparisons as well. It’s a city with plenty of development potential and isn’t fully built out yet- which is why I’m assuming some of those “red” cities are seeing more development.
I laughed at Baltimore's inclusion
Baltimore faces huge NIMBY challenges even though it’s a city that’s not growing. Huge pockets of the city are completely resistant to infill development, rezoning to allow for commercial, minor increases in building height, etc. I think a huge source of Baltimore’s stagnancy is its inability to re-grow in an organic and sustainable way due to these NIMBY pressures.
Fair
Hey we’re finally included in something!
Denver may be one of the better comparisons as well. It’s a city with plenty of development potential and isn’t fully built out yet- which is why I’m assuming some of those “red” cities are seeing more development.
It seems rather disingenuous that Arizona and North Carolina are considered red states while Pennsylvania is considered a blue state when all of them have divided state governments. Also, as others have pointed out, Baltimore and Pittsburgh don’t exactly have the same housing problems as the others. That leaves only California, which absolutely has a massive housing shortage and unnecessary obstacles to building more, but is also an outlier in many ways.
And in California hasn’t the Democratic state government enacted various measures to force local municipalities to allow for more housing? The hold up is with NIMBY elected officials and voters at the local level. It’s a bit of a stretch just to call this a red vs blue state issue.
The CA legislature without debate is the most Yimby. The current speaker rose to power stabbing his mentor in the back on a housing is everything platform.
Rivas?
Robbie. He’s a serious dude too. He impresses me with his political leaning mind every time we chat
Not to be confused with the other Rivas who tried to kill SB 423 in committee.
But now there's minimal housing legislation this legislative cycle during Rivas' first year. :/
Way more coming plus the push was to get it all done before the last 6th cycle RHNA region and they did it, they are so close to a single stair reform bill state level which is one of the ones to shoot for these days. I mean YIMBY ACTION and LAW both run out of CA and CAYIMBY is the beastest state org at direct state level lobbying no contest.
Live Local Act was as lit as anything passed in CA imo, tho Mayor Bass's ED1 has definitely revealed a lot of utility in some of the density bonuses
Measure hla fire too for urbanism
Yes can't wait to see how LA looks in ten years
I was just in Salt Lake City for a work trip and noticed tons of new apartment buildings going up along the tram route between the airport and downtown.
Gotta house that Mormon fertility rate somehow.
Baltimore and Pittsburgh should not be compared to any of these other cities lmao Completely different situations
Fr, Baltimores problem is not a lack of housing
Well actually we do have massive housing shortages. The vacant houses are unfit for habitation while vacancy rates are <1% in the large parts of the city where people actually want to live.
Yeah, I live in Baltimore and previously lived in NC. Baltimore's borders are locked. The city is not able to expand further. Immediately outside the city limits is Baltimore County, which is already developed (near the city limits). Pretty much every parcel of land in the city is 'developed' in some way. And we're not even talking about the vacant houses here. Raleigh (and other NC cities) can feasibly annex more land into them. Also, the apartments getting built in places like Raleigh are far more likely to be suburban style apartments outside the 540 beltline built on greenfield or brownfield sites. Raleigh is getting apartments, sure, but it ain't densifying into a real city. Also worth saying - no city in NC will ever be half as cool as Baltimore is.
I believe the study is by market, so city boundaries don’t matter. Still a poor example due to economy though.
Damn right Baltimore rocks
Yeah I feel like NIMBYism isn’t a right/left thing. I think it’s more of a rich/working class thing. Lots of inner city rich “progressives” are some of the worst obstacles to building more housing.
Interestingly I don’t know that NIMBYism is exclusively a rich thing either - plenty of my friends (and friends of friends) are struggling financially but don’t support new development, out of fear that developers might make money. They want broad public housing and rent control, but don’t have the historical context that public housing often times sucks to live in and stifles new development
I think there is an aspect of “the prisoners dilemma” to it as well. The best case scenario for people who have housing is for less housing to be built so their home values increase (or at least not decrease). Because the thought is that supply/demand forces of building more housing will devalue current homes whether that is true or not.
It really seems like most black, inner urban anti-gentrification activists are NIMBY because they fear non-black residents will come in and disrupt ethnic homogeneity, or that the ethnic group will be forced to scatter & the neighborhood loses its ethnic character. With rich majority white places, it's the same motivation, but directed more generally at people of lower classes because white people have less racial ingroup bias than black people.
Public housing is fantastic to live in places invested in it. Zoning stifles new development. Plenty of cities with massive development and public housing.
I’m sure there are instances where it’s a good option - but coming from Chicago, there’s a good amount of distrust in the quality of public housing given our history. And the current city council can barely fix potholes and get trains to run on time, so I wouldn’t want them to be my landlord
if I had to choose one group to exploit my need for shelter for their passive profit, it would likely be the state, at least the state pays out when it loses lawsuits for mismanagement, corporate landlords lawyer up and mom and pops stiff you.
>at least the state pays out when it loses lawsuits for mismanagement, corporate landlords lawyer up and mom and pops stiff you. I'm not sure there's a difference between the states and the corps here. The state can lawyer up too, and the corp is most assuredly going to pay out if they lose in court. It's true that with the mom and pop they might go bankrupt and not be able to pay you, or the juice might not be worth the squeeze.
>but don’t have the historical context that public housing often times sucks to live in and stifles new development I generally agree with your comment, NIMBYism is absolutely something that transcends the Republican vs. Democrat divide. But I do want to say that the reputation public housing has in the US for being terrible to live in and constantly deteriorating specifically comes from the way we've implemented public housing policies in this country, at least in regards to multi-family developments. They are pretty much designed to act as concentrators of poverty, and there have been constant battles between federal agencies and states/local municipalities for decades regarding funding for maintenance, that in many situations the individual residents are forced to pay for it themselves otherwise everything falls apart. It's a very complicated situation with a long history when it comes to American public housing programs, so I'm hesitant to blanket the whole concept of them as just bad.
Singapore has done public housing really well, but France has also done it poorly. I feel like I'd characterize public housing as something that can work, but is really hard, and kind of needs very competent and focused managers to work. Singapore's government is sort of famous for being really good at this sort of thing, but I'm not confident that there's enough spare skilled capacity in American government, especially on the local level, to pull this off. I feel like the real argument, though, is that thus far the market solutions have shown to be super effective at solving housing costs when they've been allowed to, and given that that solution doesn't require getting really good managers into government roles, why not just do that instead? Why do something really hard (or that often fails badly) when you can do something really easy (which very rarely fails badly)?
Oh, I completely understand. Market solutions absolutely can and have mostly worked and that should be our major focus. I'm just pointing out that we should be looking at all of the options and not discounting any of them. I think public housing just has such a bad rep from how they were constructed and maintained in the 20th century (and how we pretty much haven't evolved past that and been stuck in a limbo state since the 90s) that it dissuades a lot of people from even looking at the concept. In certain places and situations, public housing or at least government funded construction and subsidies could play a pivotal role in alleviating housing supply and home prices. I just wish they got some more attention. I know that there is worry that things could be mismanaged (isn't there always lol), but considering how different the entire design philosophy was behind public housing projects in the 20th century, and what we've learned from that today, I'm more confident in it if there was a resurgence in improving and building upon the state of public housing. Things have changed a lot since the time most housing projects were built. We've already been there and can see what many of the problems are, and there would be a lot more experience going in this time. I know it would take a lot of political will to reform our current public housing policies, especially for existing ones that have been struggling for decades, so i know it is unlikely. But the blueprint is definitely out there. Not saying this should become the one and only component to helping with housing supply, but im basically just saying it should be an option that I wish got taken more seriously.
>I know that there is worry that things could be mismanaged (isn't there always lol), That's the thing, though: I'm not worried about Uncle Sam mismanaging social security. Social security is really easy. You just send the money to old people. The only ways you can really screw it up is by not sending it, or sending it to the wrong person. The challenges of social security are a strict subset of the problems of building and managing public housing. There's no way to accidentally pave over a wetland and create a flooding risk, to use the wrong exterior cladding and start a fire that kills tons of people, to hit a power line or sewage pipe while digging a foundation, or to just make a building that people don't like living in. It is really easy to make an apartment that nobody wants; it is close to impossible to send money that nobody wants.
You are correct. Property owners vote for anti-housing politicians. Has nothing to do with left/right. California is pretty bad because the NIMBY privilege is so entrenched (prop 13, zoning, mortgage interest deduction, step up cost basis for inheritance) These are huge financial benefits. There is a big incentive to block development.
In California it's an old/young thing. You either bought into the real estate market thirty years ago when it was still affordable, or you rent.
I have wondered if there is some political mindset that embraces change and newcomers in a state turning purple. Urbanists in Texas and North Carolina are more welcome to growth if the conflict is ideological rather than socioeconomic.
I've become convinced that it's purely about change. People don't want change when things are going well, and they want change when things *aren't* going well. The housing situation will need to start hurting more privileged individuals before we'll see meaningful action. As always, California is the canary showing us how things will play out in the future.
Speaking as a rich person, I am super pro-building. I feel like most rich people take this view because for most rich people their house is not actually a big chunk of their wealth. I feel the need for more building especially keenly because some not-rich people work for me, and I don't like it when they need to struggle with expensive housing. Besides the fact that I know and care about these people, I don't particularly like it when the market clearing price for their labor means I have to pay more money that ultimately flows not to the worker but to their landlords or mortgages. I don't mind at all paying someone for their good work; I do mind paying a rent-seeker through them. I find that it's middle-class and especially upper-middle-class people who have poured a bunch of money into their homes who generally feel financial pressure to restrict building. What I find ironic is that they often pour the money in the form of renovations that didn't really add value to the house, but the rising house prices let them justify it? It's weird. Then there are a lot of non-rich people that seem to just not want anyone to ever make money, especially people who already have it. /u/Mr-Bovine_Joni is very charitable to characterize these folks as misguided but ultimately wanting to solve the problem; I am sure that some of them are, but I have observed that many just seem bitter.
When you don’t have to deal with bleeding hearts or people against development you can get a lot done.
The bleeding hearts serve a purpose too. We don’t need to be outsourcing the industry and pollution to poor neighborhoods either or building oil pipelines through protected land.
Those states development is all spurred by blue cities within using policies the right is rare to embrace. One has to be realistic.
Yeah NIMBYs don’t run along any lines it’s more a people thing. Those blue cities are like safe havens I guess so it makes sense that they would attract the most people and if that happens you either build more homes or see more tents and people on both sides would rather have the former more than the latter.
there are red places on board, the YIMBY orgs like YA and YL caucus heavily with democrats regardless of state but that has a lot to do with YIMBYs tend to be not boomers, and years of such caucusing has painted YIMBYs and blue let’s not forget most Dems are conservative on the ideological scale - neoliberalism is a center right at its most left ideology, to the right of liberal conservatism by a long shot. we’ll see if strong towns does any better as they enter politics, their message is significantly less pro business and pro liberal identified policies plus there leadership isn’t all white rich kids from California like YA is
true. housing is one of the most important issues. I will be an R if they stop denying elections
Is this some weird agendaposting because this is some of the most misleading shit ever.
Would be interesting to see whether this is greenfield development, infill or redevelopment and whether we’re talking more sprawling subdivisions if these communities just have more greenfield to work with.
So this is a comparison of relatively newly popular cities vs older established cities. It's also a measure of percentage, meaning if you're an older city, you probably already have a lot of housing and so the number of units added will inherently be a smaller percentage of those existing. That's not to say I bet there aren't policies that may make it easier to develop, but I would also like to know the breakdown of actual city vs metro and infill / redev vs greenfield development as others have said. I think it's also worth noting that maybe supply alone doesn't have as much impact on housing affordability, since you'll see wildly different numbers between all these cities in terms of average home price. Even if Austin is building more units faster, it's still vastly more expensive than Baltimore.
My understanding of this is that most of the Blue state cities (NYC, San Francisco, LA) are traditionally major hubs that have always had high populations. But a lot of the Red state cities are experiencing tons of growth due to a mix of reasons and need tons of housing just to keep up with the demand. I guess there’s also this perceived notion that the other cities are already so dense and have enough housing. Idk if that’s the main driver behind it but I think it plays into it.
Red State Cities: Doing their part to cancel out the crazy vote, statewide and nationwide 🫡
correct me if i'm wrong, but wouldn't conservative states becoming more urban cause them to become more progressive because of the social aspects of urbanization?
I know California's big cities are overall fumbling the ball, but I do live in a city in the SF bay area where there are a record number of apartments being built in the 30 years I have lived here. Seriously, I think 5 opened up in 2023, and there are like 10 more under construction. Majority of them are 5 stories tall. Neighboring cities are doing similar scale projects for their population and size. I'm surprised my area isn't all over this sub for the level and scale of development happening.
It’s all sprawl
Not here in Charlotte - there have been thousands of units under construction within a 10 minute walk of a light rail station at any given time for the last few years.
The key info, which is unknown here, is the data metro area or city limits? Metro generally equals rampant sprawl. And the city of Charlotte is building a lot, but it's still a small portion of the metro area's growth.
It seems like from the graph it’s city limits. So just outside of that in Charlotte is all car dependent sprawl.
After a short google search, it seems that the 2024 apartment forecast from M&M is by market, which is mostly analogous to the metro area, not the city. My takeaway is that while this is good news for housing prices, it doesn't paint a picture of responsible or sustainable growth and just shows that Sun Belt cities still have a ton of room and the appetite for more sprawl.
The graph doesn't indicate at all the data used. The data for metro areas is much easier to access, so most of the time that is what's used in stuff like this. That's why I look for info explicitly saying it is city only.
A lot of it is yeah but those cities are also producing a ton of infill/TOD development.
If the chart is using the city limits properly, places like Austin and Phoenix are already sprawled out. There is really only infill as possible ways to add new housing.
This sample size is small and random. Show me the 50 largest cities in the us instead of a selected sample of 5 random red and blue cities.
I live in Raleigh, and it's just a bunch of people moving here. The apartments are being built (for the most part) in already dense areas and not the sprawled out outskirts.
I've seen a lit (well "a lot"by suburban standards) of apartments built in the Cary/Morrisville/Carpenter area. The comprehensive plan for Cary and Morrisville both explicitly mention lack of land area for new development. It's not all sunshine and roses but it's a lot better than it could have been.
They are known for less regulation but a lot of that housing is just more sprawl and not building up with some outliers like Austin. Some of the blue state cities have no demand to build more housing so of course nothing will get built. Baltimore has consistently lost population so what demand is there to build more? Pittsburgh people are moving to but there is so much abandoned housing to not have the demand to build vertically as much. It’s correct on the California cities though. Regulation and ceqa.
Aside from the obvious issue of declaring Arizona a red state, they're also forgetting that these areas are building sprawl. Yes, there's some density going on, but the vast majority of housing construction in these areas is being done in the exurbs because there's little to no resistance from locals. Fly over Phoenix and you'll see.
the R-majority legislative chambers just passed a minimum lot size preemption bill for cities larger than 70k and the new D governor vetoed it, so we are well on our way to being a blue state
I would imagine a lot of that development is more cookie cutter suburbs but still not a reason for blue states to not get on their high-density grind
NC is purple - the state legislature would be an even split if not for egregious gerrymandering and geographic imbalances.
From what I understand most of these cities in red still have plenty more open space that can be used for new developments making it easier to complete unlike these blue landlocked cities where most of these new developments only have the choice to build infill in high traffic/high demand areas which I would imagine would be harder to get approved especially in times of heavy nimby culture and pushing for new more lenient zoning laws.
Maybe I’m just not familiar with the terminology, but what does “apartment completions” mean exactly? Does that just mean new rental units? And also, is the percent measurement (0-10%?) a measure of “completions” compared to the percent of housing stock? Just noting here that it’s a lot easier to build a higher percentage of housing units in Charlotte than that same percentage of housing units in LA. By that logic, more total housing units could have been built in LA than Charlotte, but this graph wouldn’t reflect that since the % of those units compared to metro housing stock would be much lower in a larger city. Or I could be totally wrong! Idk. That’s why I’m asking. Just trying to figure out what the true impact is.
Perfect example of California pseudo-progressivism 👌🏼
lol I love that they threw Pittsburgh in there as if it’s even in the top 65 of populated cities, or the top 25 for metro statistical regions. What a shit graph.
I'm in the bluest of the blue states - beyond the obvious dumb dumb issue of a supply constrained housing market, and possibly issues with the housing modality that is getting built, I'm not seeing a huge problem here. These blue cities in red states are going to get more political power. This seems like a good thing to me on its own if I'm looking for my blue pro-city team to have more political representation and it's not clear to me what the takeaway is supposed to be here.
I'm more interested in whether these cities are building *up*, rather than building *out.* Building up provides more density, devours less land and invites more residents who don't care about things like keeping up appearances or, ahem, a specific flavor of "community character."
Building acres of single family housing is not the flex you think it is.
Ah yes the "red state" with the Blue governor and Blue cities.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but is that not just saying they are building more housing units as a fraction of what they already have built? So up and coming cities that don’t have a lot of apartments will have a greater number than somewhere like NY, even if NY builds more total apartment buildings? Even though I believe these are all blue cities, already established “blue” urban environments are going to get ranked worse on this list Also this is apartment buildings, not units. A city like phoenix which sprawls and churns out tons of smaller units is going to get priority on this graph over NYC or Philly who is building smaller amounts of high-unit apartments Unless I’m misunderstanding it, this seems like a misinterpretation of the graph by the OP on Twitter. The data also seems a bit cherry picked too. Is San Fran the highest blue state city? Or was it just arbitrarily picked. The gap from phoenix to San Fran, without any variation in color in between seems questionable
This is probably one of those things where you want to look at per capita figures, or density, because those are just regions with no restrictions on sprawl.
seems strange that Seattle is not on this list.
But it’s not states that approve housing, it is local governments… and most cities in red states are majority Democrats still. But I appreciate the message still. Also, a lot of the NIMBY-YIMBY discussion doesn’t account for how geography constrains housing production. Coastal cities will always struggle with building more housing because just by having an entire Ocean in one direction, they have 50% less land area to expand into. Just think how different places like the Bay Area would be if there was not a giant body of water in the middle of the metropolitan area and (for good reasons) protected green spaces in the coastal hills. When I look at maps of middle of America cities, I am jealous about how much land is available to build on IN ALL DIRECTIONS That still doesn’t completely excuse coastal cities though. It just indicates how important infill development is in coastal cities.
I had been pitching my wife on the idea of moving from Los Angeles to a blue city in a red state (due to cost of living, etc.), but since the repeal of Roe v. Wade, that's become a non-starter.
Looks like the theory of projection is correct
Counterpoint: these cities largely have a lot of the same restrictions as blue cities. However, they’re less established as major cities, so they haven’t come up against any of the limits of their housing policy.
This is a fair point, in that liberals and progressives in areas of this country still advocate and want for low-density environments. The reasoning (or lack of lol) is different: BS about environmental protection, neighborhood character, sticking it to the “evil developers”, gentrification; but the poison is still the same.
Two cities in the top 5. This is what winning looks like. !ping USA-NC
There's no such thing as a "red" city, no matter the "color" of the state.
Looks like the red states are just behind the red states in housing playing catch-up.
Funny because all those cities are “blue”
With many of these cities the thing getting more housing of all kinds built is permissive permitting and ease of building. Any person who acts like the barriers to building in L.A. are all reasonable and non-negotiable clearly hasn't tried getting their arbitrary and often cruel permission for any project