Why Boston rents are so high.

TheRifleman said:
Its all politics.

It's all Supply & Demand.
Liberals SUCK----The blame the rich for everything mean while they are enriching themselves to their rich buddies as along as they keep getting elected. They are just FAKE people

Just look at all the politicians now that are Millionaires in Washington. Its disgusting.

Nothing is FREE in this world (NOTHING)
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So you blame the liberals, who are enriching themselves and are rich. So you're blaming the rich. So you're a liberal.
 
TheRifleman said:
Its all politics.

It's all Supply & Demand.
Liberals SUCK----The blame the rich for everything mean while they are enriching themselves to their rich buddies as along as they keep getting elected. They are just FAKE people
Just look at all the politicians now that are Millionaires in Washington. Its disgusting.
Nothing is FREE in this world (NOTHING)
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Hey "Fake Person", I guarantee I support a more free market for development than you do, and I also support single payer and expanded social security. Riddle that one out.
 
I guess we'd have to break down the information a little further.

I noticed that the writer (Derek Thompson) seems to address the affordability of a house by its $/sq foot. There's no doubt that if you buy $500,000 home in Jamaica Plain, it'll be considerably smaller than if you bought one in or around Indianapolis. But could the argument also be made that denser liberal cities aren't necessarily more expensive, they just force people to live in smaller homes (like much of the rest of the world), while offering discounts in other ways?

Using my example above, the family of four in JP might have a small three bedroom condo. There's a good chance they'll only need one or maybe no car because they'll have access to good public transportation. They might not have a yard, but they'll have plenty of parks, pools and other shared facilities at their disposable.

If they're in Indy, they'll need two cars so both parents can go to work. If they want to swim, they'll probably need their own pool. If they want their kids to play, they'll probably have to have a yard that they'll need to maintain at their own expense.

Doesn't that even it out a little bit?
 
To further illustrate my point, here is a comparison between a three bedroom in JP and one in Indianapolis:

JP
http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sal....10122,42.293644,-71.130531_rect/14_zm/0_mmm/

Indy:
http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sal...040287,39.796271,-86.274776_rect/11_zm/0_mmm/

I don't know Indy that well, so I tried to take a house that's roughly the same distance from downtown Indy as JP is from DT Boston.

Just looking at the density of the area, don't you kind of get more for your buck in Boston (even though you get less square footage?)
 
Boston and the surrounding areas are GONE.
You need to rich to move into the area.
Medford, Somerville, Charlestown, Cambridge a starter a house with a couple of kids would probably run you 850-1,000,000

My question is you see the high cost of living along with the major traffic problem.
Then why would this Liberal state give such generous tax breaks and incentives to the corporations to claim we need job creation?
Liberty Mutual
Fan Pier
GE

But then they give a private developer a problem knocking a garage down to add more housing supply on a rapid transit line.
The logic in this state does not make sense.

The city of Boston needs add supply in housing very desperately to bring the costs down.
The way I see it is Massachusetts there will be very Rich people living in the inner city of Boston and very upper class of society. There will be no more balance anymore.
All the poor people will get pushed out to Worcester or New Bedford areas.

Boston is a very Liberal city but the only people that can afford it millionaires. I thought liberals were about a society of balance.

I did say Trump was a better candidate than Hilary: He might be draining the swamp in Washington only to put his own swamp in place.

How hypocritical was the democratic party for the voting fraud that took place for Hilary Clinton elected over Bernie Sanders in the primaries only to lose to Trump. I saw that coming a mile away.

If I was a Democrat I would have requested an Investigation on the relationship of debbie wasserman Schultz who was the DNC Chairman and Donna Brazile who pretty much fixed the race again Bernie Sanders.
There should be people arrested on this.

No justice and this why Liberals suck. Oh sorry
 
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To add more (ignoring yet another rant by Rifleman)...

My problem isn't just with the big central cities that anchor these supposed "liberal" areas. Although I want to see more people and density in places like Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Everett and Chelsea. All of those cities have population densities of over 13000/people per square mile, so they can't be expected to take on the entire burden

But what are some of the transit connected suburbs doing to alleviate the problem? My hometown of Billerica has a perfectly good train station, but just look at the area around it:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/N...634b4ce25a26a4!8m2!3d42.5931793!4d-71.2811242

It's surrounded by single family homes with big yards. The lumber yard next door closed down a few years ago and it would make a perfect place for multi-unit housing. Will the town ever approve that? Of course not. I'm not suggesting exurbs like Billerica need to become cities, but some transit oriented development would certainly alleviate the ongoing problem of over priced housing.

Also, places like Boston and NY wouldn't be so expensive if they weren't so desirable. Maybe midwestern cities could take some of the burden off of dense, liberal cities and increase their own density and desirability.
 
Boleh- re initial post - no, the real adjusted cost of living is still much higher in places like Boston. It doesn't come close to evening out.
 
TheRifleman said:
Spoken like a true liberal.
"It doesn't matter what you say, It only matters what I say"
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This isn't a thread about politics. Please stop going into every thread and complaining about liberals. You can argue about policies that raise prices (NIMBY ass kissing) but it has little to do with national politics.
 
TheRifleman said:
"It doesn't matter what you say, It only matters what I say"
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Generally that's how you've approached every argument here for the last three months. You're right though, it really doesn't matter what you say.
 
So lets throw out the hard data on why housing is so expensive?
Especially with the Supply & Demand problem we have in and around the city.

For some reason builders are skeptical in building or is it just that much red tape concerning building in the city .
 
Dude, stop. We all know how this is going to go. Someone will post data then another person will explain it and finally you'll be back to crying about the fucking liberals and how lifer loser Bostonians can't afford to live there anymore. As if they'd be missed.
 
Dude, do you know any local Bostonians buying million dollar condos at the millennium tower? I know they are giving them Bostonian Tax breaks.

Answer this question DUDE.
Why are we giving tax breaks when demand is so high on housing? DUDE
Where is the risk that the developers are facing when housing is so expensive and demand is much more than the supply?
 
TheRifleman said:
For some reason builders are skeptical in building or is it just that much red tape concerning building in the city .
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It's the neighbors of all political stripes who all agree that "new people" scare "our people" so we want to keep them out:

1) New people tend to be richer, smarter, younger, and better paid, which is exactly why they want to buy a residence and exactly how they can afford it (and exactly how "we" were able to buy into a neighborhood x many years ago...and just like "we" forget what it is like to immigrate to America, we forget what it was like to be new in a neighborhood...and we treat the new people as badly as we were treated)

2) New people are new. We aren't friends with them and they aren't friends with us, so we are unfriendly towards them.

3) New people bid up prices that make it hard for "our kids" to stay, and "our seniors" to afford the taxes. So we resent them.

And then "we" mobilize to:
1) Pass zoning to keep things as they are
2) Testify against new developments at hearings
3) Act like people are bad, like only other people are "traffic" (not us) and spoiling "our" commute and taking "our" parking, instead of viewing people as productive, and serving them with stores and amenities can be exciting

Everybody is a "conservative" but also a "state control freak" when they want to keep their neighborhood exactly as it is, including people who vote for E.Warren and consider themselves environmentalists and community preservationists--who instead drive people to greenfield developments in Boston's exurbs or to cities like Houston which think nothing of greenfield development (but turn out to be "progressive" in their ability to provide affordable housing).

Anybody working to keep the city from growing and accommodating new
is part of the problem of housing affordability.
 
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Arlington said:
It's the neighbors of all political stripes who all agree that "new people" scare "our people" so we want to keep them out:

1) New people tend to be richer, smarter, younger, and better paid, which is exactly why they want to buy a residence and exactly how they can afford it (and exactly how "we" were able to buy into a neighborhood x many years ago)

2) New people are new. We aren't friends with them and they are friends with us, so we are unfriendly towards them.

3) New people bid up prices that make it hard for "our kids" to say, and "our seniors" to afford the taxes.

And then "we" mobilize to:
1) Pass zoning to keep things as they are
2) Testify against new developments at hearings
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Instead of giving Tax breaks to the corporations and Developments:
Why not invest in better Transit lines which can commute groups faster and more efficient Into Boston and the surrounding areas all the way out from New Bedford to Lowell and beyond.

Build a mono-rail in the middle of main highways to shuttle people right into the city.

Wouldn't that solve and help housing prices?
 
TheRifleman said:
Instead of giving Tax breaks to the corporations and Developments:
Why not invest in better Transit lines which can commute groups faster and more efficient Into Boston and the surrounding areas all the way out from New Bedford to Lowell and beyond.

Build a mono-rail in the middle of main highways to shuttle people right into the city.

Wouldn't that solve and help housing prices?
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No. The solution is not longer commutes, it is letting people live closer to where they work and not letting residential neighborhoods keep out office buildings.

Upgrading transit is pointless without land use changes. This was the mistake of building the Red line through Cambridge, but not requiring Cambridge to Upzone at Porter Sq or Somerville to go taller than 2 stories at Davis. If the market were allowed to work, or if Somerville/Cambridge were really as progressive at they say, development would have happened on the transit we already have. Porter Sq ought to be 10 to 15 stories tall. The scruffy parking lots behind Central should look like the Seaport. Mass@MVP should look like VOX on 2. East Arlington should be zero-lot-line townhomes or garden apartments by now (or would be getting the same stuff as Cambridge is seeing on Concord Ave)

On the GLX extension, it was absurd that "neighborhood groups" got to say "give me a $2b rail line, but don't ask me to change my land use".

Boston Provincialism plays a big role. Everyone acts like (or wants to act like) they're as rooted as the Mayflower descendants, or at least the famine Irish. Southern & Western US cities have no such problem: down there & out there everyone knows that most-everyone migrated from someplace else, so there's much less of a bias against accommodating new people from "elsewhere". At Courthouse Metro in Arlington VA, when the subway came in the 1980s, neighbors literally banded together to make a developable big footprint, all sold out, and moved on as a ~20 story apartment got dropped on their lot(s). That's unimaginable in Boston and part of our problem.

In the 1980 - 2000 when the Orange/Blue line subways went out to Arlington Virginia, something like 40,000 new housing units (and by now 100k?) were placed within 3 blocks of the new stations--that's both a free-market victory and progressive housing policy. Similar new Red/Orange stations in Boston/Cambridge in that same period netted something more like 400 units.
 
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Arlington said:
No. The solution is not longer commutes, it is letting people live closer to where they work and not letting residential neighborhoods keep out office buildings.

Upgrading transit is pointless without land use changes. This was the mistake of building the Red line through Cambridge, but not requiring Cambridge to Upzone at Porter Sq or Somerville to go taller than 2 stories at Davis. If the market were allowed to work, or if Somerville/Cambridge were really as progressive at they say, development would have happened on the transit we already have. Porter Sq ought to be 10 to 15 stories tall. The scruffy parking lots behind Central should look like the Seaport. Mass@MVP should look like VOX on 2. East Arlington should be zero-lot-line townhomes or garden apartments by now (or would be getting the same stuff as Cambridge is seeing on Concord Ave)

On the GLX extension, it was absurd that "neighborhood groups" got to say "give me a $2b rail line, but don't ask me to change my land use".

Boston Provincialism plays a big role. Everyone acts like (or wants to act like) they're as rooted as the Mayflower descendants, or at least the famine Irish. Southern & Western US cities have no such problem: down there & out there everyone knows that most-everyone migrated from someplace else, so there's much less of a bias against accommodating new people from "elsewhere". At Courthouse Metro in Arlington VA, when the subway came in the 1980s, neighbors literally banded together to make a developable big footprint, all sold out, and moved on as a ~20 story apartment got dropped on their lot(s). That's unimaginable in Boston and part of our problem.

In the 1980 - 2000 when the Orange/Blue line subways went out to Arlington Virginia, something like 40,000 new housing units (and by now 100k?) were placed within 3 blocks of the new stations--that's both a free-market victory and progressive housing policy. Similar new Red/Orange stations in Boston/Cambridge in that same period netted something more like 400 units.
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Arlington, you nailed it!
 
TheRifleman said:
Dude, do you know any local Bostonians buying million dollar condos at the millennium tower?
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I am sure some did. All the real 'Bostonians' I know (myself included) have bought in the neighborhoods though - Dot, Rozzie, JP, Hyde Park, etc. You know - the real place in Boston? Sorry, but, the Backbay and Beacon Hill have historically been the enclaves and playgrounds of the rich and Brahmins.

I do like how you said Boston is so crazy unaffordable for Bostonians earlier, too, and then listed Medford, Somerville, Charlestown, Cambridge - only one of those places is actually Boston if you want to be a 'Bostonian'. Why not include Eastie in there then? Or Chelsea or Malden? Oh, thats right, just cherry pick the most expensive neighborhoods and towns. Why not be a real Bostonian then and live in actual Boston? Hyde Park, Dot, Mattapan, and Roxbury, and an entire half of Rozzie still aren't that bad. Hell, even JP around Egleston is still kind of reasonable.

TheRifleman said:
Answer this question DUDE.
Why are we giving tax breaks when demand is so high on housing? DUDE
Where is the risk that the developers are facing when housing is so expensive and demand is much more than the supply?
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Simple, Millennium Partners were given incentives to develop the Millennium Tower after Vornado screwed (oh, so publicly) and tried to extort the city. The hole in Downtown Crossing needed to be filled with something - it was literally a hole in the middle of DTX doing absolutely nothing for anyone. The Millennium Tower was crazy ambitious (for Boston) and turned out pretty well, especially considering how much needed to be spent to completely rehab the Burnham Building.
 
bakgwailo said:
Simple, Millennium Partners were given incentives to develop the Millennium Tower after Vornado screwed (oh, so publicly) and tried to extort the city. The hole in Downtown Crossing needed to be filled with something - it was literally a hole in the middle of DTX doing absolutely nothing for anyone. The Millennium Tower was crazy ambitious (for Boston) and turned out pretty well, especially considering how much needed to be spent to completely rehab the Burnham Building.
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Then why doesn't our leaders make a deal like this. If you reach your ROI then you will need to give back the tax incentive. If you don't reach your ROI the taxpayers will max out until the 10Million.

Why does the taxpayer have to eat the incentive if the developer hits a grandslam?
 
Risk sharing is very hard to implement in practice. Because the incentive is for one or both sides to game things (legally, but also sometimes not). For example, a developer like millennium could shift a bunch of 'indirect' costs onto the project budget to keep it right at the threshold for a full incentive payout....pay a supplier a little more for materials for this project, in exchange for paying a little less on another project....etc etc)

And also that means a lot of extra costs are layered on top by both sides to manage the risk sharing deal.

When and if it works it can be helpful. But it's hard and costly to implement.

By the way I do also agree that tax incentives have been given away much too generously (though this is far from the worst example...and maybe not even a bad one)...just saying that risk sharing alone won't fix the problem.



(See also: GLX)
 
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