The Hub on Causeway (née TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

TallIsGood said:
US society lives much better today than they did 20, 50 or 100 years ago. Retarding a market will reduce progress.
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For whom is it better for? Maybe if you're only referring to the baby boomer but the millennials and younger are saddled with student loans in a job market that requires at least an advance degree while competing for jobs that pays less than those 20 years ago when adjusted for inflation, trying to buy homes that are at least 2x higher than it was 20 years ago.
 
Job growth continues unabated and encouraged by government. Housing growth is highly abated and restricted by government. That's why housing is so expensive. It really is that simple.

Obviously, this is specific to prosperous, highly-educated cities, including Metro Boston.
 
JumboBuc said:
Job growth continues unabated and encouraged by government. Housing growth is highly abated and restricted by government. That's why housing is so expensive. It really is that simple.
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Is it? Job growth continues unabated and encouraged by government is what was happening up until the Great Recession. Job growth regulated with encouragement by the government is what resulted the longest growth period in the U.S. If you want no limitation on housing then you're going to get all luxury housing and no affordable housing in the city.

JumboBuc said:
Obviously, this is specific to prosperous, highly-educated cities, including Metro Boston.
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And what happens to those that live in Boston that doesn't fall under as highly-educated or prosperous? Where will they live? Further out from the city where public transit, a necessity for them, is sorely lacking?

Btw, mods feel free to break this conversation off from this thread.
 
KentXie said:
Is it? Job growth continues unabated and encouraged by government is what was happening up until the Great Recession. Job growth regulated with encouragement by the government is what resulted the longest growth period in the U.S. If you want no limitation on housing then you're going to get all luxury housing and no affordable housing in the city.
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Yes, it is. Metro Boston added 185k jobs from the pre-recession peak in 2008 through to this January [source]. In the same window, Metro Boston has permitted less than 95k units of new housing [source]. When employment growth doubles housing growth, of course housing prices will go up.

Other periods of job growth have corresponded with much higher levels of construction, comparatively. In these situations, housing cost appreciation was lower. This is true across time and across geography.

It really is as simple as that.

KentXie said:
And what happens to those that live in Boston that doesn't fall under as highly-educated or prosperous? Where will they live? Further out from the city where public transit, a necessity for them, is sorely lacking?
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The best way to get more places for these people to live is to build more effing housing. When housing growth is restricted, we have fewer places for everyone to live. And the less ability one has to pay the less ability one has to find a place to live. The rich certainly aren't the ones who suffer when housing growth is limited...
 
Good points Jumbo, especially like sources. You forgot how much local college enrollment has gone up vs college dorms. Plays a big factor in Boston
 
Great work Jumbo.

Lemme go up and inform the 'housing bust' nutters in da Globe.
 
Suffolk 83 said:
Good points Jumbo, especially like sources. You forgot how much local college enrollment has gone up vs college dorms. Plays a big factor in Boston
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Definitely true as well. I couldn't believe that people were bitching while Im at Umass Boston about them adding 1,000 bed dorms to the campus. Thats 1,000 less individual people taken out of the apartment stock surrounding JFK and Savin Hill and in turn placed on campus. Call me crazy, but thats a huge positive for the neighborhood. Think of how many triple deckers it takes to house 1,000 people. Mine is filled to the brim to the point where we don't even have a living room and its only 4 people per floor. 12 People in a maxed out bag of ass triple decker lol. Most aren't like that. Thats a shit ton of triple deckers and thats a significant amount of rooms that will be freed up. They need even more dorms too, and so do many other schools around the city. These schools really should be pushing for the most height they can get tbh like BU to free up these neighborhoods that they eat alive and they're all very far from logan anyways besides Umass so the FAA isnt a problem.
 
Look at how dead Huntington Ave is between Mass Ave and Belvidere.... New towers going up in the area should help.... well, maybe if the space at the Midtown Hotel was properly activated.... better yet, it should get a huge hostel, maybe 3 14~18 story mid-rises w/ international student housing, and outdoor restaurant seating in the warm months.
 
KentXie said:
For whom is it better for? Maybe if you're only referring to the baby boomer but the millennials and younger are saddled with student loans in a job market that requires at least an advance degree while competing for jobs that pays less than those 20 years ago when adjusted for inflation, trying to buy homes that are at least 2x higher than it was 20 years ago.
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Everyone. You forget about things such as mobile phones (now LTE vs. 1G), internet, air bags standard, uber, better medical technologies, wikipedia, Google, search, etc. Salaries were lower then too! I graduated from Northeastern in 1993.
 
KentXie said:
For whom is it better for? Maybe if you're only referring to the baby boomer but the millennials and younger are saddled with student loans in a job market that requires at least an advance degree while competing for jobs that pays less than those 20 years ago when adjusted for inflation, trying to buy homes that are at least 2x higher than it was 20 years ago.
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Interest rates were insane though back in the day. My parents bought their house for 250k in the early 90s and paid 11% interest. If housing prices have doubled today and rates are now at 4-5%, they still paid WAY MORE per month 25 years ago.
$2,057/month (250k at 11%) [$3,609/month after inflation]
$1,973/month (500k at 4.27%) [if bought today]
(courtesy of zillow)

The difficulty today is debt and affording a down payment. Actual monthly costs for a mortgage appear to be much less.
 
KentXie said:
For whom is it better for? Maybe if you're only referring to the baby boomer but the millennials and younger are saddled with student loans in a job market that requires at least an advance degree while competing for jobs that pays less than those 20 years ago when adjusted for inflation, trying to buy homes that are at least 2x higher than it was 20 years ago.
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I used to say the same thing about my parents generation buying $25,000 homes in Newton in the 1960s.

Got news for ya - - EVERY younger generation says the same thing about how easy the previous ones had it. And every older generation says the same thing about how lazy the younger generation is.

It's cliched and tired.

The one truth is that there are always opportunities/hardships in every generation - - they just shift around.
 
Can we please keep this to Hub on Causeway discussion only and move this conversation elsewhere?
 
Sure. The new design for building on the I-93 side still sucks, even after the macro-economic discussion. The old one with the spire was no better, IMO.
On a mild upside, the apartment building looks ok, except for the bottle opener / handle on the roof.

cjbski said:
Can we please keep this to Hub on Causeway discussion only and move this conversation elsewhere?
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I liked the other design much better. But the higher occupied height is also good. The developer has done well to get close to securing a tenant. The developer's ability to fine tune the space, and deliver it fast is good. Now they need to make the walls sleek such that, (if it could be possible), make the fat-slug massing to be less egregious.
 
Did anyone go to the hearing tonight? I truly think the redesign is unacceptable for where this is strategically located. Entrance to Boston from the North is this black and red box? How does developers live with themselves?
 
Is it too late to add a few floors to the residential while they are at it? I'd be happy with 550'. We're going to have 4 fat, flat-roof buildings right around the exact same height creating another table-top wall in the city.
 
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