It blows my mind that virtually every major city in the developed world is facing this same problem, yet nobody is doing anything about it.<p>It's a pretty simple problem with a pretty simple solution. The problem is that local city councils have restricted the freedom to build through excessive zoning laws and regulations in order to increase housing prices for their own private investment benefit.<p>The solution is to relinquish them of this self-interested tyrant-like overbearing power and set these policies on the national level - basically how Japan does it. The more localized the power, the more self-interest is going to favor a minority of private individuals at the expense of society.
From my European point of view, I find the whole hangup about the parking space regulations very interesting.<p>Here in Zurich, there are the same sort of complaints about parking for new buildings going up, however there is now a different trend: Because rent for the parking space is typically charged separately from the apartment's rent, some parking space simply can't be rented out because residents don't have cars.<p>In case you speak German and are interested in this sort of stuff, the regulations are available at <a href="https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/content/dam/stzh/portal/Deutsch/AmtlicheSammlung/Erlasse/741/500/741.500_Parkplatzverordnung_16_V4.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/content/dam/stzh/portal/Deutsch...</a> .<p>It also shows a table on page 3 that explains how you actually are allowed and required to build less and less parking spaces the closer you get to the city center, so much so that if you look at the maps on pages 6 to 7, you can see that that grey area allows <= 10% of the parking of the white area.
My dad is in construction and I thought I'd chime in with another practical reason.<p>Once you're building at larger scales, the cost of materials between a luxury condo and a subluxury condo are different, but not astronomically so.<p>Developers will go to China, Mexico, etc. and source some really nice stuff very cheaply. Sure, there are exceptions, i.e., materials that are expensive no matter what, but once you figure out a way to use cheap labor, the actual building materials are cheap.<p>It's similar to luxury cars - the "luxury" part doesn't necessarily cost a lot more (but yes does cost a bit more) but it can be marked up a lot, lot more.
This is an interesting point about college education:<p><i>Traditionally, contracting was the best paying "blue collar" job out there, and to a certain extent it still is. If you were smart, hardworking, but didn't go to college, you started hauling bricks on a construction site and then worked your way up to general contractor over the course of years. Lots of the best GCs out there did this. But, as less and less of super capable kids DON'T go to college, there are less super capable 18 yearolds hauling bricks and 10 years later, less super capable GCs.</i><p>As more and more kids are going to college, who will do these high-skill blue-collar jobs?
LA, and most US cities, need to be more like Tokyo -- which has much better zoning/building regulations (as in, less onerous).<p>> Here is a startling fact: in 2014 there were 142,417 housing starts in the city of Tokyo (population 13.3m, no empty land), more than the 83,657 housing permits issued in the state of California (population 38.7m), or the 137,010 houses started in the entire country of England (population 54.3m).<p><a href="http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/laissez-faire-in-tokyo.html" rel="nofollow">http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/lai...</a><p><a href="http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/the-japanese-zoning-system.html" rel="nofollow">http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/the...</a>
The parking minimums are destroying our cities. Nevertheless, even luxury developments lead to more affordable housing do to filtering: <a href="https://www.vox.com/cards/affordable-housing-explained/filtering-vs-gentrification-a-key-housing-concept" rel="nofollow">https://www.vox.com/cards/affordable-housing-explained/filte...</a>
Short version: affordable housing is illegal to build.<p>A bunch of people sit around thinking "Wouldn't rooftop gardens be nice? Hey, let's make it a law that you have to build them on all new towers!". And then they are surprised that the housing costs more and excludes lower-middle class.
Here's the relevant regulation: <a href="http://netinfo.ladbs.org/ladbsec.nsf/d3450fd072c7344c882564e5005d0db4/72f24c5fab8bd39788256a160067e2e2/$FILE/Summary%20of%20Parking%20Regulations%20final.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://netinfo.ladbs.org/ladbsec.nsf/d3450fd072c7344c882564e...</a><p>Note that historic buildings converted into residential are exempt from any parking requirement. Downtown LA is teeming with historic buildings that are, if not actually then practically, vacant. Many of the commercial building conversions I'm aware of in downtown are becoming luxury lofts; a minority have been or will be converted into SRO or otherwise "non-luxury" housing.<p>But that's all anecdotes. If anyone has data on historic building conversions since, say, 2000, in downtown LA, or knows how I could get data like that, it would scratch an itch I've had for a while now.
they only build luxury developments in dallas too.. it's not exactly rocket science as too why.. the land is expensive and they need a ROI.<p>they take care of parking with prefabricated 5 story garages.