McMansions into Multi-Family Housing

[c1ue]

Re: McMansions into Multi-Family Housing

As this contraction continues, you do not want to be living anywhere NEAR a downtown city plagued with government-subsidized recipients. Those(condo owners) that are proclaiming otherwise are in denial. It's only a matter of time before many of these types of people become desperate and resort to crime to prolong their existence.

You are at risk of becoming a victim anytime that you are in walking distance of these individuals.

Well, on the one hand condos in SF are falling in price (big surprise!):

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...ype=realestate

-- The company behind Millennium Tower, the 60-story luxury project in SoMa set to open in April, will soon announce it is slicing all prices by 15 percent to entice buyers. In a surprising move, it's also extending that bargain to those who have already submitted deposits to purchase units.

-- The owners of the Radiance, the 99-unit waterfront mid-rise in Mission Bay, expect to say next week that they will lower prices by an average of 10 percent on selected units.

-- One Rincon Hill, the 64-story building that rises above the western approach to the Bay Bridge, isn't promoting any across-the-board cuts, but prices are down between 10 percent and 15 percent from a year ago, while spending on various incentives is up between 3 percent and 5 percent, said Paul Zeger, chief executive officer of Pacific Marketing Associates Inc., which markets that building.

-- Condo projects including the Artani at 818 Van Ness Ave., the Argenta at 1 Polk St. and the Highpoint at 1888 Geneva Ave. are being marketed as for rent or a combination of for sale and for rent, according to the Mark Co., a San Francisco real estate marketing and research firm.

-- The Cubix Yerba Buena, the eight-story building at Harrison and Fourth streets divided into tiny units ranging from 250 to 350 square feet, is holding an "Economic Stimulus Sale" that began on Inauguration Day and will last until Presidents Day. During that time, it is lopping nearly 30 percent off the price of some units.

In fact, just about all condo developments with available units in San Francisco have lowered prices in the last few months.

On the other hand, with properties getting so cheap in the 'burbs, more and more low income welfare types are moving/getting moved there:

http://patdollard.com/2008/12/leftis...nt-blacks-out/

Across the country, similar tensions have simmered when federally subsidized renters escaped run-down housing projects and violent neighborhoods by moving to nicer communities in suburban Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles.

But the friction in Antioch is “hotter than elsewhere,” said U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development spokesman Larry Bush.
An increasing number of poor families receiving federal rental assistance have been moving here in recent years, partly because of the housing crisis.

A growing number of landlords were seeking a guaranteed source of revenue in a city hard-hit by foreclosures. They began offering their Antioch homes to low-income tenants in the HUD Section 8 housing program, which pays about two-thirds of every tenant’s rent.
Between 2000 and 2007, Antioch’s black population nearly doubled from 8,824 to 16,316. And the number of Antioch renters receiving federal subsidies climbed almost 50 percent between 2003 and 2007 to 1,582, the majority of them black.

Longtime homeowners complained that the new arrivals brought crime and other troubles. In 2006, violent crime in Antioch shot up about 19 percent from the year before, while property crime went down slightly.

So we'll see how things turn out...

A bit early to sound the death knell for either side!

[FRED]

Re: McMansions into Multi-Family Housing

Well, on the one hand condos in SF are falling in price (big surprise!):

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...ype=realestate

On the other hand, with properties getting so cheap in the 'burbs, more and more low income welfare types are moving/getting moved there:

http://patdollard.com/2008/12/leftis...nt-blacks-out/

So we'll see how things turn out...

A bit early to sound the death knell for either side!

On man's doomed dinosaur of the post fossil fuel age is another man's castle.

[we_are_toast]

Re: McMansions into Multi-Family Housing

On man's doomed dinosaur of the post fossil fuel age is another man's castle.

Guess we're back to our old habit of moving the poor and underprivileged into castles again. Old habits are hard to break.

[Wild Style]

Re: Kunstler's sources wanted this in the 70s and 80s

He's not part of our community, so he's fair game. Have you ever seen the way we write about Alan Greenspan?

Simple: more efficient cars. The Utopian animal is easily identified by his or her inability to see how adaptation to change occurs in a society and economy. You don't throw away 100 years of energy and transportation infrastructure just because the fuel the infrastructure conveyances run on got expensive. It is always cheaper to fix a broken infrastructure system than build a new one; the missing ingredient in Kunstler's fantasy destruction of the suburbs and buildout of cities is: money. Also, visit countries where gasoline is already two to four times the US price. Did the suburbs die there? Nope.

Our recommendation to Kunstler: visit Economics for Dummies regularly.
Not so. We will leverage every part of the existing infrastructure that is already in place as much as possible. Plus, by solving the problem with more efficient cars someone gets to sell a bunch of new cars. Yeah!

Contempt is a key element of Kunstler's act. It's entertaining. If he can dish it out, he can take it, right?

Wont fuel efficient cars take money, money no one seems to have anymore to purchase such things? Or do you see fuel efficient cars coming into play when things start to stabilize and wages and cost of living come back in line to a point where people have more discretionary spending?

[we_are_toast]

Re: Kunstler's sources wanted this in the 70s and 80s

Wont fuel efficient cars take money, money no one seems to have anymore to purchase such things? Or do you see fuel efficient cars coming into play when things start to stabilize and wages and cost of living come back in line to a point where people have more discretionary spending?

Efficiency is no more a solution to the problem of a rapidly declining nonrenewable resource than telling a person who just fell off a tall building to flap their arms. The end result will be the same. Efficiency, in this case, serves only as a transitional mechanism. What will be the transition that will save the burbs?

[Wild Style]

Re: Kunstler's sources wanted this in the 70s and 80s

Efficiency is no more a solution to the problem of a rapidly declining nonrenewable resource than telling a person who just fell off a tall building to flap their arms. The end result will be the same. Efficiency, in this case, serves only as a transitional mechanism. What will be the transition that will save the burbs?

Mass Transit maybe? Umm I don't know. what are your thoughts?

[we_are_toast]

Re: Kunstler's sources wanted this in the 70s and 80s

Mass Transit maybe? Umm I don't know. what are your thoughts?

IMO. I'm not sure the burbs can be saved, but if the attempt is made, Mass Transit would have to be part of the solution. Mass transit is a concentrated transportation system which would be trying to serve, by design, a very disperse population. In a well planned city, access to Mass Transit terminals is either by foot, or smaller mass transit systems (bus, light rail). But the burbs are so disperse, that access would almost certainly have to be by personal vehicle. Bicycles and small commuter vehicles powered by electricity or non-food bio fuels leading to electric train systems might be doable. But resources currently directed at new construction and repair of highway systems designed to move large quantities of large personal vehicles over large distances from burbs to city would have to be immediately diverted to building infrastructure to support large quantities of small personal vehicles moving small distances to Mass Transit terminals and the infrastructure for the Mass Transit systems to get to inner city transit systems.

Currently, we simply can't grow enough liquid fuel, nor store enough electricity for long distance burb to city commutes. We can either gamble for a technological breakthrough that would make the commute possible, or start building for the technology that is becoming available now, but to continue to wait for Peak Cheap Oil followed by Peak Production oil, is a death sentence for the burbs.

$.02

[nitroglycol]

Re: McMansions into Multi-Family Housing

Yuppies love city life....until the first time they get their front teeth knocked out for the $76 in their wallet. (unlike in woody allen movies, they don't ask you for it first) Or when they have a baby and it gets woken up and cries all night from the barflies pouring out of the nearby taverns screaming at the top of their voices. Or they have to go to the grocery store 4x/week because they have to park 200 yds away and then drag them up a few flights of stairs, so you're limited to what you can carry or put in a collapsable cart. Then there's just the mundane crime. My city loving cousin's been broken into 3 times in the last year or so. Meanwhile I don't even have to close my garage door or lock my vehicles if left in the driveway.

There's more to life than dollars and cents.

All very well, but this isn't the whole picture. Most jobs are still in the city, which means commuting. And even in the highest crime areas, you're much more likely to die in a car accident than by homicide -- so moving out to the suburbs or exurbs might actually lead to a net increase to your risk of death.

As far as going to the grocery store, I don't take my car at all most of the time. I've got two good stores just over a kilometre away; if you can't walk that far there's something wrong with you. Granted, if I was shopping for a whole family instead of myself it might be a different story, but people raise families here too. And noise isn't a big deal here either (mind you, some people are more sensitive than others).

[GRG55]

Re: Kunstler's sources wanted this in the 70s and 80s

Yes, I'm familiar with the "they'll think of something", or "we've been through worse", or "technology will find a way" arguments. But I prefer to base an argument on data, and the data says that discovery of oil and strategic minerals is not keeping up with current consumption much less future rates with higher populations and far more demand from the 3rd world.

To believe the "hoary arguments about resource restraints" are now, have been, and will continue to be false, is to believe there is an infinite supply of everything in the world that can support an infinite population. A truly giant step outside the realm of reality, akin to believing we can expand the use of credit ad infinitum.

There is no data that shows there is any aggregate resource constraint.

There is absolutely no "we'll think of something" or "technology will find a way" in the examples I gave. They have all been done before, and are being done now [e.g. aluminum for copper, NGLs for gasoline...].

In due course we'll see what the future holds. But to assume there will be no adaptation to "Peak Cheap Oil" and then later "Peak Production Oil" flies in the face of historical evidence and experience.

[santafe2]

Re: Kunstler's sources wanted this in the 70s and 80s

We have been consistently over-optimistic in our rate of change forecasts.

This raises three questions:

1) Does this mean we get to a "bottom" faster?
2) Does it mean the bottom is deeper than we imagined?
3) Does it mean a recovery may be as swift?

Hard to say.

I'll take door #1, but then I'm no fan of deeper and no friend of swift recovery.

[Shakespear]

Re: McMansions into Multi-Family Housing

Typical homes in Milwaukee 1975

http://collections.lib.uwm.edu/cdm4/...SOBOX=1&REC=11

As I recall all was well living in them. Garage was in the back with a small yard in between.

Milwaukee also HAD an excellent bus system. NO LONGER though.

[we_are_toast]

Re: Kunstler's sources wanted this in the 70s and 80s

In due course we'll see what the future holds. But to assume there will be no adaptation to "Peak Cheap Oil" and then later "Peak Production Oil" flies in the face of historical evidence and experience.

I would never make the claim that there will be no adaptation. We most certainly will adapt. The only question is, will we ignore the problems and have the adaptation forced upon us with a resulting severe degradation of our standard of livings, or will we realistically plan for a transition that will preserve a reasonable standard of living?

Actually, there are plenty of historic examples of where people suffered severely due to a loss of key resources. The Anasazi and Easter Island cultures are pretty classic extreme examples of where the cultures collapsed due to a loss of vital resources. One could also argue that the German attempt to adapt to alcohol fuels during WWII, when they lost access to oil, was not successful enough. Then there are numerous species that were driven to or near extinction where similar quality substitutes were never found, but the usage was so frivolous that adaptation wasn't necessary. Or how about the collapse of the Irish potato crop? That's off the top of my head, but there are plenty more.

[Wild Style]

Re: McMansions into Multi-Family Housing

Typical homes in Milwaukee 1975

http://collections.lib.uwm.edu/cdm4/...SOBOX=1&REC=11

As I recall all was well living in them. Garage was in the back with a small yard in between.

Milwaukee also HAD an excellent bus system. NO LONGER though.

man I love those urban style homes!!! Would take those over mcsprawl any day of the week.

Not directed at you but I was speaking to a friend recently about suburbia versus urban living. Mentioned some of the things that I have read here in this thread and he said California, specifically Compton would be a prime example of middle and upper middle class leaving a more suburban area to move into the urban interior. Inversely, the poor took their place in the suburban area (Compton we are speaking of here). So it is not historically unprecedented, given certain socio-economic conditions I guess.

Also, speaking of adapting to peak oil (be that "cheap" or production) doesn't exclusively mean adapting to living in the suburbs. Adapting could also mean people trading in areas that are far flung for places closer in. Adaption can take on a number of shapes and sizes, none of which are easily predictable given there are so many variables; many of which are hidden to us today.

[GRG55]

Re: Kunstler's sources wanted this in the 70s and 80s

I would never make the claim that there will be no adaptation. We most certainly will adapt. The only question is, will we ignore the problems and have the adaptation forced upon us with a resulting severe degradation of our standard of livings, or will we realistically plan for a transition that will preserve a reasonable standard of living?

Actually, there are plenty of historic examples of where people suffered severely due to a loss of key resources. The Anasazi and Easter Island cultures are pretty classic extreme examples of where the cultures collapsed due to a loss of vital resources. One could also argue that the German attempt to adapt to alcohol fuels during WWII, when they lost access to oil, was not successful enough. Then there are numerous species that were driven to or near extinction where similar quality substitutes were never found, but the usage was so frivolous that adaptation wasn't necessary. Or how about the collapse of the Irish potato crop? That's off the top of my head, but there are plenty more.

You illustrate, with better clarity, precisely one of the points I was trying to make [evidently not very well ] . The world is not about to run out of oil. We will not see access to that vital resource decline at the same pace as the Germans experienced in the late stages of WWII, nor will the availability of global oil decline at a rate analogous to the destruction of the Irish potato food crop. That's a critically important difference.

There will be supply & price shocks along the way - we just had one last summer [and we are now setting ourselves up for another one]. There may be sudden supply disruptions due to geopolitical events, as we witnessed in 1973 and again in 1979. And when these happen they create much ado, media frenzy, calls for government to "do something", an excuse for Congress to hold another hearing, and allow the doomers like Kunstler to say "See, I told you so".

But these are mere sideshows to the main event which is, as you pointed out earlier, we have not been replacing the crude oil reserves that we've consumed for many, many years. And, in this decade, despite record prices and producer netbacks, for the first time in 100 years we did not see the expected net production response from the increased investment.

It's impossible to tell if the current contango in crude has any significant fear of future inflation built into it. If so, then this is the time to consider buying oil to supplement gold bullion holdings. However, as I have posted elsewhere, I still think the present situation is precarious, and the potential for speculators to close profitable long-dated oil positions en masse in the face of a still-contracting global economy is high.

We humans being what we are, it'll probably take several more supply/price shock crises [real or invented] to achieve the level of behaviour change that is needed to rebuild the US economy on a more sound energy footing. But I don't see that we need be overly concerned about a lack of sufficient time to make the needed changes. The world is not running out of oil and global crude oil production is not about to fall off a cliff. The "main event" has been, and will continue to be, a very long, slow process.

I would be much more concerned about a global epidemic for which there is no known vaccine or antidote, than Peak Oil. That is the sort of event that does not allow sufficient time for successful solutions/substitution or adequate adaptation.

[flintlock]

Re: McMansions into Multi-Family Housing

I think some people confuse the city/suburbs issue. First of all, a lot of people living in the suburbs with the 3 car garage, do so because they CAN afford to. Its not just because they are greedy capitalist pigs. Its a rational choice. I'll also agree quite a few more do it to keep up with the Joneses.
Secondly, it may be a myth that most people living in the burbs work in the city. Around here( Atlanta) they are more likely to work in another suburban area perhaps, but not as many work actually in the City proper. So they are still commuting, but not so far as some would think. Atlanta has huge corporate suburbs, crawling with yuppies, that never venture near Atlanta unless its to go to a Braves game. Quite a few live minutes away from work. In other words, the suburbs now have suburbs. Its sprawl, but its only natural.
Face it, the country has grown. You can't fit everyone inside the city limits of most major cities. Suburbs are popular for a reason. You can buy a lot more home for the money, has less crime, and better schools. People are less civil today, and hence the desire for a little breathing room. People in cities drive too. Its not like they walk everywhere. :rolleyes:

Most American cities of today are not the city of your parents or grandparents, regardless of the urban utopian fantasy some want it to be. There's more crime, higher taxes, and its relatively more expensive to live there than it used to be. It would be a different matter if you could live cheaper there. But you can't. City life makes a lot of sense for some, just as it does not make sense for a lot more. Some anti suburbans act as if moving away from the city was some sort of irrational move on the suburbanites.

As a side note, another anecdotal tidbit. A former employee of mine who is out of work, has been "indoor camping", with no heat because he can't pay his gas bill. I mentioned he should consider taking in a boarder to help pay the utilities. Seems he felt that would be too much trouble, so he sits, shivering in 20 temps every night. Just goes to show you how hard it is for some to take a step down from the heydays of the FIRE economy.