Let them move -- another contrarian view.

A lot of well-meaning people are wringing their hands about the lack of affordable housing in the hot cities like Seattle, San Francisco etc etc. Of course the dramatic increases you see (at least judging from Seattle) are pretty localized to an amazingly few neighborhoods. Other areas in the region get carried along by reference to the "100% corners" but it is my observation that if you get out of Seattle the house values drop dramatically. If you go across the Cascades to small towns in Eastern Washington, many of which with full urban infrastructure, houses look "free," at least in relation to what you can buy in Seattle.

So why not stop trying to play King Canute? Don't spend public money trying to subsidize housing in major metro areas so that people can live in them. Let people move and be part of the process of revitalizing small (and even large) towns. If business has to pay higher wages in order to allow blue-collar service workers to live in the hot areas, so what? That is the market reacting. The creation of affordable housing in major cities is a hopeless task, and impossible, so don't bother. Let demand for housing help to revitalize towns and cities now oeverlooked.

Just take it to an extreme. Suppose there was a movement afoot in NYC to provide affordable housing on Sutton Place...the theory running that we need "income balanced neighborhoods" and so upper middle-class people in Queens should have some of their tax money go to subsidize lower middle-class people so they could live on Sutton Place. Idiotic idea, of course. But take it out to the regional level. Why should upper middle-class Seattleites pay to subsidize lower middle-class people? Why not let them move to Bremerton or Tacoma etc etc?

Ok. Only one tomato per reader.

Comments

[clew]

Not a thrown tomato, a tomato added to the sauce -

let many small cities bloom, and spend public money instead on fast transit between them, and evening out disparities in policing and health services.

[Kent]

I think the real trend is for people to move to cheaper urban areas out of state rather than poor rural areas within Washingon.

That's why Dallas, Las Vegas, Boise, Phoenix, and other urban areas with lower costs of living are booming, in part due to migrants from Puget Sound.

Don't underestimate the mobility of America's middle class. Here in my middle class Texas neighborhood my closest neighbors are from Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, California, and Iowa. And my wife and I are from Seattle by way of Alaska. Not a single one of us is a Texas native.

[Brian Miller]

I sorta agree, David. It would only take a few years of severe drought, and we will be rationing showers and wc flushes. Why do we have to accept the myth opf perpetual population growth, anyway?

If you want the big suburban house on a half acre lot, maybe you can't get it in California?

Of course, the converse is also true: california (and Wahsington) may not be as affluent or influential anymore. So be it?

[Matt Fox]

This is exactly what is already occurring in the Puget Sound area. Pierce and Snohomish Counties are in fact accomodating lots of former Seattleites who can't afford to live in the city anymore.

OTOH - Kitsap County was a better candidate for this phenomena before Tim Eyman's initiative(s) led to massive increases in ferry fares, and the new tolls on Hwy 16 probably won't help either. Pity, as I've always thought Bremerton in particular did have a lot of potential to serve in exactly the way you describe.

Of course, if you point out to the Stranger that their cheerleading for unfettered new upscale high density growth is helping cause this diaspora, they'll call you a red state Republican and accuse you of encouraging sprawl (even though, for example, the cities of Everett and Tacoma have been around for nearly as long as Seattle)

[reuben]

Cut Canute some slack. Any fool know that he didn't try to stop the waves; he showed his followers what a folly it was to attempt to do so.

[Glen Raphael]

Of course, another possibility is to simply make it legally allowed to build low-income houses. Get rid of some of the building codes and zoning laws that make ultra-cheap apartments illegal, and then leave it up to the market to decide whether and where they get built. Imagine Tokyo-style sleeping capsules, or a bunch of storage units just big enough for a small mattress, with a separate communal shower/bathroom facility.

[David Sucher]

Yup, I got it wrong:

Canute the Great - Wikipedia:

He is perhaps best remembered for the legend of how he commanded the waves to go back. According to the legend, he grew tired of flattery from his courtiers. When one such flatterer gushed that the king could even command the obedience of the sea, Canute proved him wrong by practical demonstration at Southampton, his point being that even a king's powers have limits. Unfortunately, this legend is sometimes misunderstood to mean that he believed himself so powerful that the natural elements would obey him, and that his failure to command the tides only made him look foolish. It is quite possible that the legend is simply pro-Canute propaganda.

[Michael Pereckas]

Isn't it common in California to get a job in an expensive city and a home 80 miles away where it's cheaper and then put 160 miles on the car every day commuting? I don't think that's what you are looking for. It does depend on what sort of job you have. You could be a waitress or convenience store clerk anywhere, and higher on the pay and prestige scale, people like nurses can probably find work just about everywhere. There are lots of other examples, I'm sure. If, however, like me, your expertise is more along the lines of mass spectrometry, you may find fewer opportunities, though a smallish, rural city dominated by a big university can be a cheap and reasonably interesting place to live. Maybe eventually both the jobs and the people will move out of San Francisco to someplace cheaper, but you can't move one without the other.