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vasco | on: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
You think the government knows better how to identify land that is profitable than private builders? Why? Or is this one of those opinions based on "is OK for the state to pay for it because there's infinite money for my pet project"?
nsnzjznzbx | parent | next
Because I grew up in the UK and there is a fuckton of government housing from 60s and 70s. It is ugly but it is housing people.

Government doesn't need to make a profit due to taxation.

vasco | root | parent | next
Hello https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/abstract.asp?index=1...

UK public housing is widely known for being shit. Unsafe, puts all the poor people together in a block. There's bunch of crime, and your kids will be likely to stay stuck there or go to jail due to bad influences.

Social housing should be sprinkled around it has been found. So nice example of what I was saying.

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ghufran_syed | root | parent
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locknitpicker | root | parent
> like the fine example of Grenfell tower

The Grenfell tower fire was caused by a renovation intended to improve thermal insulation.

The renovation project used an external thermal insulation system that failed to meet both the manufacturer's recommendation and building regulation requirements. The particular system was actually banned in the UK while it was installed.

Tell me why you believe this has anything to do with public housing.

Spivak | parent
Because government has a unique pricing advantage, they get additional value from the houses they build in the form of all the positive externalities and property tax revenue. So projects that wouldn't be profitable for private builders might still be worth it to the government. So it should be both.

They're just gonna pay builders a sum anyway so it's not like they need to shoulder the full upfront cost anyway.

vasco | root | parent
Do you have example of another area the government has higher profit margins than private industry? I can't. And if I was going to think a government would build housing, it would be in places that are cheap and I could mass house a bunch of people, not in hip expensive cities which is what people want when they talk about this.

But surely soviet style huge blocks of tiny t0 apartments all stuck together is a dream...

wongarsu | root | parent | next
> Do you have example of another area the government has higher profit margins than private industry?

Public transit. Capturing enough money from fares is difficult, maybe impossible, but it's quite profitable if you can capture the value generated by the enabled economic activity and raised property values.

The same really goes for most infrastructure. There's a reason the government operates nearly all the roads. Also the fire departments and police stations

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hnaccount_rng | root | parent | next
Isn't the US example: Medicare/Medicaid? It has far less costs (i.e. more of the money spend ends up with patient care) and has a reasonably good reputation?