I regularly hear about how we need to change zoning laws to allow for more apartments to be built in single family homes zoning areas. I understand what zoning in but I’m confused what the case is for the change to the zoning.
I absolutely agree that housing prices are absurd but wouldn’t building more apartments just put more money/control in landlords/investment companies? I hear all the time that buying property is the best way to generate wealth for your family and that’s not to mention you can’t get evicted from stupid reasons if it’s your own home. The same people who seem to push for changing zoning laws seem to be very vocal about how so many people are trapped in cycles that makes it difficult to escape poverty (I do agree with that)
So can anyone explain how building more apartments wouldn’t be a Faustian bargain in the long run?
Edit: Thanks for all the responses, replying here as there’s too many helpful comments. I felt like I was just not getting it but most answers seem to confirm what I suspected. I know in my city apartment=renting while Condo=owning (usually) a part of a shared wall home that has a smaller size than most SFHs.
I wonder if the zoning could be adjusted to encourage more ownership rather than incentivizing more rentals. Perhaps having SFH zoning be redefined as owner-occupied zoning so you could have more density but it couldn’t be used as a rental scheme. You could also make allowances for “smallish” businesses near the various major crossroads.
I would think this would be something that nimby’s would be more ok with since in my own experience I feel more invested in taking care of my house/neighborhood than I ever did in all the years I spent renting
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It is true that owning a house is a really good way to secure long-term wealth for a family, but that doesn’t mean that just allowing more houses to be built will make people more wealthy. As we saw in the 2008 mortgage crisis, if you overbuild on single-family homes that are outside of many people’s price ranges, then the only way to actually sell them is to sell them to people who can’t really afford them, and the only way to do that is for banks to engage in risky lending, creating a bubble situation where a collapse becomes inevitable and many of those people will just get foreclosed on rather than building wealth.
The case for denser urban design is that apartments are more affordable, and a block of ‘gentle-density’ mixed use is far more economically productive than a block of suburbs. If there are any businesses at all in the suburbs, the reliance on cars makes large parking lots and setbacks a necessity, limiting the space for businesses. By contrast a block of 3-4 story mixed use buildings has space for many stores on the ground floors and space above that can be flexibly used as housing or office space as demand changes.
In theory, yes, this could give more power to landlords and corporate landlords, but there are ways around that. In many countries, people own individual apartments, not just landlords owning whole buildings.
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