matthestMar 19

Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents

https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2026/03/18/austins-surge-of-new-housing-construction-drove-down-rents

Austin’s Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents

After decades of explosive growth, Austin, Texas, in the 2010s was a victim of its own success. Lured by high-tech jobs and the city’s hip reputation, too many people were competing for too few homes. From 2010 to 2019, rents in Austin increased nearly 93%—more than in any other major American city. And home sale prices increased 82%, more than in any other metro area in Texas.

Show threadpclowesMar 19

Its wild how the solution to housing costs is really just:

Build more housing. Keep law and order.

No it doesn’t need to be “affordable”. Yes rent control is a terrible idea.

Just build more housing.

Note: that the US already has plenty of housing and housing costs basically go up in areas of low crime relative to economic opportunity. If you build housing, but allow crime to rise, you have wasted everybody’s time.

Show threadslgMar 19
This comment is phrased as if the article is confirming these points when it either doesn't mention them or even directly refutes them. First there is no mention of either crime or rent control in the article. But more importantly, it states that "A key piece of Austin’s strategy has been to encourage the construction of affordable housing." So why are you concluding that affordable housing isn't needed?
Show threadterminalshortMar 19
Affordable housing is the only type of housing that will ever be built. Builders aren't so stupid as to build products that their customers can't buy. Government intervention is not needed.
Show threadslgMar 19
I'm not sure if you're intentionally changing the definition of "affordable housing" in an attempt to make the desire for it seem silly or if you genuinely don't know how the term is typically used. But what you're describing is generally referred to as "market-rate housing" and not "affordable housing".
Show threadcuuupidMar 19

Affordable housing = housing that regular people can afford

The only silly thing here is that "low income housing" got rebranded as "affordable housing" and absolutely everything else got rebranded as "luxury homes" for political reasons.

"Market-rate housing" is even sillier given that it is literally the opposite of what "affordable housing" policies dictate

Show threadslg
I'm not going to debate what the definitions should be, I'll just say I don't think it is productive to join an existing conversation using terms with different definitions than everyone else uses. Defining all housing as inherently "affordable" makes the term meaningless and even if you disagree with the motivations behind the desire for "affordable housing", at least the term has meaning in the way it's typically used.
Mar 19 at 3:00amWeb
Show threadcuuupidMar 19

You are quite literally debating what the definition should be, because this is _not_ the existing definition of affordable housing, it is legally what OP is saying. "Affordable housing" is just when the household spends <= 30% of gross income on housing related costs. This is the definition used by the HUD and the same definition applied in policymaking.

What >you< are referring to and what it is conflated with by progressive policymakers is "low income housing" which imposes an AMI based restriction on the resident's income. This in turn means that 30% of their income is much lower and restricts the sticker price of the home.

In recent years, most 'affordable housing' policy has been advanced by progressives, who use that term for marketing purposes, whereas the actual policy primarily relates to 'low income housing' or even 'very low income housing.' This does not mean 'affordable housing' = 'low income housing', it just means the term 'affordable housing' is used in the title and the actual measures advanced are related to AMI and 'low income housing.'

Show threadslgMar 19
Those definitions aren't in conflict. The "progressive" definition is just the applied version of the "HUD" definition scaled to local income levels.
Show threadcuuupidMar 19

There is no "progressive" definition, income level is not at all part of the definition. Per the universal legal definition of 'affordable housing,' if a home costs $1B but is occupied by Elon Musk, it would still be affordable because it is less than 30% of his gross income.

When you are dealing with income levels it is universally called 'low income housing,' and the HUD definition is already scaled to local income levels, the 'A' in AMI stands for 'Area.'

You are conflating marketing ('we need more affordable housing!') with policy ('low income housing')

Show threadslgMar 19

> There is no "progressive" definition

You seemed to disagree with that in your prior post, but I’m glad we can now agree that there is no point debating this then.

Show threadcuuupidMar 19
It's amazing how much of leftist discourse is just them pretending not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible