Could Vienna’s approach to affordable housing work in California?

[trophy33]

Gosh, Austria must be a foreign country! Not American at all!

Of course. My point was rather that in Austria, it may be more difficult for somebody who does not speak the native language than in other similar countries.

 

[AlexB23]

And it is legal from the Bulgarian point of view?

Yes, as my parents got all the paperwork done.

 

[AlexB23]

Could it work? Probably. The problem is that we needed to start this 40 years ago. The deficit of housing in California will take a long time to address, but I welcome these and other measures to address the problem.

Laws have made it easier to construct 'granny flats' [accessory dwelling units - ADU] in your backyard, and several have already been built on my block.

With respect to the comment about parking, buildings newly constructed within some distance of the LA Metro have lessened parking requirements, allowing more space for apartments.

Yeah, we should have done this 40 years ago. Granny flats sounds like a cool idea, as that can allow people to live closer to each other. What are your thoughts on underground parking?

 

[AlexB23]

Gosh, Austria must be a foreign country! Not American at all!

On my only visit to Vienna I had very little trouble with the Viennese, who seemed happy and relaxed - and spoke English as often as not. I was in the company of a fluent German speaker so it was never problem.

Americans should be wary of subsidised housing. It smacks of that dreadful socialism and who knows where that can lead? Socialised medicine, the welfare state and other abominations. The end is obvious; Satanic communists will close all the churches, abolish the police and then eat your babies and worst of all, tax those billionaires.

I detect the sarcasm in your last paragraph. Yeah, there are some Americans who are against subsidized housing sadly. I am not one of them.

 

[essentialsaltes]

What are your thoughts on underground parking?

It's a fine idea, but it's roughly 10 times more expensive to construct.

If the goal is to make affordable housing, you have to watch costs.

 

[7thKeeper]

Wow, I thought EU citizens were required to take English courses.

Oh wait, this chart shows otherwise. English is optional in Austria.
View attachment 346925

Hmm, I'd question the validity of that map. In Finland, besides Finnish at school, both Swedish and English are mandatory languages, you will have all three languages during primary education. My daughter has also had half a year of French that she picked as an optional course, she's in 5th grade currently.

 

[AlexB23]

It's a fine idea, but it's roughly 10 times more expensive to construct.

If the goal is to make affordable housing, you have to watch costs.

View attachment 346937

No wonder why underground parking is rare in the US, as it is way more expensive to build. One underground parking space costs as much as a fancy car, from the graphic you have shown me, while the surface lot costs as much as a used motorcycle: https://www.jdpower.com/motorcycles/shopping-guides/how-much-does-a-used-motorcycle-cost

 

[AlexB23]

Hmm, I'd question the validity of that map. In Finland, besides Finnish at school, both Swedish and English are mandatory languages, you will have all three languages during primary education. My daughter has also had half a year of French that she picked as an optional course, she's in 5th grade currently.

I have no idea who made the map, but it says MapBox.

 

[Whyayeman]

Forgive me for that paragraph!

I had thought it would have been unnecessary to point out that Vienna's approach to affordable housing is similar to many European countries. I was wrong. The serious point is that social housing has been a successful way of providing decent homes for people of low incomes in many countries. I am glad that the idea has been raised on an American forum.

 

[Whyayeman]

It's a fine idea, but it's roughly 10 times more expensive to construct.

If the goal is to make affordable housing, you have to watch costs.

View attachment 346937

No doubt this is especially true in America where urban land prices are probably lower. virtually all European cities were built long before everybody had a car. Buildings are packed closely together in city centres. Underground parking has become a necessity

Multi-storey car parks are another common solution to the problem - and not only in large cities. Stratford-upon-Avon, which is much visited by American tourists is actually a little town but it has a car park on six levels. It is used almost exclusively by local people as most tourists come by other means.

And there is some social housing too.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

"Could" vs. "Would"

There's a lot of European nations that have models that "could" work if implemented here...the real question is "would" people here be willing to tolerate the adjustments required in order to make it happen?

I'd say the answer to that is "no".

And that's not just digging on one side here... The various provisions and guardrails that make a lot of these systems work in other places would involve various things that neither side would like in the US.


Case in point, tuition-free education that resembles what the Nordic countries do.

That idea wouldn't get off the ground here for multiple reasons.
A) Conservatives would never agree to pay the additional taxes required to fund it
...but also
B) Progressives wouldn't like the stipulations in place that keep it sustainable (like the 50% rejection rate, and hard caps on arts and humanities studies with regards to how many people get to study those things)

So it would quickly devolve into "Whaddya mean I have to pay more taxes?!?!" vs. "Whaddya mean I can't opt to study music theory because there's only 800 seats allotted for that I'm don't meet the cut?!?!"


The same is true for this situation with Vienna's subsidized housing...if they tried a carbon copy of that here, neither side would like it.
Conservatives would bristle at the additional taxes
Progressives would bristle at the stipulations

The hidden failures of social housing in 'Red Vienna'

A new report details how the city's famed social housing system is suffering from diminishing affordability, deteriorating quality, and funding shortfalls.

reason.com

When looking at the European models for "free stuff", people here tend to focus exclusively on "the stuff that people are getting", and almost never consider the "social buy-in" that the Euro nations require to participate in those systems.

Healthcare would be another example... live in a country that offers it, sure, your doctor visits are free. The other side of that coin, they're going to heavily restrict and tax things considered to be unhealthy. Pick your poison.


To put in the plainest terms: There's no sustainable system in which you have all of your basic needs met and get a nice place to live, that doesn't involve some sort of meaningful contribution to society and social buy-in/sacrifice.

IE: No sustainable system in existence is going to put you up in a nice apartment and make sure you're well-fed for your "art, philosophy, and activism services".

 

[FireDragon76]

"Could" vs. "Would"

There's a lot of European nations that have models that "could" work if implemented here...the real question is "would" people here be willing to tolerate the adjustments required in order to make it happen?

I'd say the answer to that is "no".

And that's not just digging on one side here... The various provisions and guardrails that make a lot of these systems work in other places would involve various things that neither side would like in the US.


Case in point, tuition-free education that resembles what the Nordic countries do.

That idea wouldn't get off the ground here for multiple reasons.
A) Conservatives would never agree to pay the additional taxes required to fund it
...but also
B) Progressives wouldn't like the stipulations in place that keep it sustainable (like the 50% rejection rate, and hard caps on arts and humanities studies with regards to how many people get to study those things)

So it would quickly devolve into "Whaddya mean I have to pay more taxes?!?!" vs. "Whaddya mean I can't opt to study music theory because there's only 800 seats allotted for that I'm don't meet the cut?!?!"


The same is true for this situation with Vienna's subsidized housing...if they tried a carbon copy of that here, neither side would like it.
Conservatives would bristle at the additional taxes
Progressives would bristle at the stipulations

The hidden failures of social housing in 'Red Vienna'

A new report details how the city's famed social housing system is suffering from diminishing affordability, deteriorating quality, and funding shortfalls.

reason.com

When looking at the European models for "free stuff", people here tend to focus exclusively on "the stuff that people are getting", and almost never consider the "social buy-in" that the Euro nations require to participate in those systems.

Healthcare would be another example... live in a country that offers it, sure, your doctor visits are free. The other side of that coin, they're going to heavily restrict and tax things considered to be unhealthy. Pick your poison.


To put in the plainest terms: There's no sustainable system in which you have all of your basic needs met and get a nice place to live, that doesn't involve some sort of meaningful contribution to society and social buy-in/sacrifice.

IE: No sustainable system in existence is going to put you up in a nice apartment and make sure you're well-fed for your "art, philosophy, and activism services".

America is changing. Younger people may be more open to thinking about systemic problems, regardless of traditional expectations. Especially because not having affordable housing is such a shock to other expectations.

 

[trophy33]

Yes, as my parents got all the paperwork done.

Interesting, I did not know that international adoptions are allowed in Europe.

 

[trophy33]

"Could" vs. "Would"

There's a lot of European nations that have models that "could" work if implemented here...the real question is "would" people here be willing to tolerate the adjustments required in order to make it happen?

I'd say the answer to that is "no".

And that's not just digging on one side here... The various provisions and guardrails that make a lot of these systems work in other places would involve various things that neither side would like in the US.


Case in point, tuition-free education that resembles what the Nordic countries do.

That idea wouldn't get off the ground here for multiple reasons.
A) Conservatives would never agree to pay the additional taxes required to fund it
...but also
B) Progressives wouldn't like the stipulations in place that keep it sustainable (like the 50% rejection rate, and hard caps on arts and humanities studies with regards to how many people get to study those things)

So it would quickly devolve into "Whaddya mean I have to pay more taxes?!?!" vs. "Whaddya mean I can't opt to study music theory because there's only 800 seats allotted for that I'm don't meet the cut?!?!"


The same is true for this situation with Vienna's subsidized housing...if they tried a carbon copy of that here, neither side would like it.
Conservatives would bristle at the additional taxes
Progressives would bristle at the stipulations

The hidden failures of social housing in 'Red Vienna'

A new report details how the city's famed social housing system is suffering from diminishing affordability, deteriorating quality, and funding shortfalls.

reason.com

When looking at the European models for "free stuff", people here tend to focus exclusively on "the stuff that people are getting", and almost never consider the "social buy-in" that the Euro nations require to participate in those systems.

Healthcare would be another example... live in a country that offers it, sure, your doctor visits are free. The other side of that coin, they're going to heavily restrict and tax things considered to be unhealthy. Pick your poison.


To put in the plainest terms: There's no sustainable system in which you have all of your basic needs met and get a nice place to live, that doesn't involve some sort of meaningful contribution to society and social buy-in/sacrifice.

IE: No sustainable system in existence is going to put you up in a nice apartment and make sure you're well-fed for your "art, philosophy, and activism services".

Generally said, the EU countries chose the way "everybody should have a chance to be in the middle class" - few people are really poor (mostly alcoholics, gamblers, drug addicts and similar cases) and few are really rich (mostly very successful entrepreneurs). Most people are "average".

It costs high taxes/insurance, but gives high social security and kind of equality - somebody lives in an rented flat, somebody in an owned house, somebody has a common car, somebody have a more expensive car, somebody has no car, but all have kind of similar life style, education, healthcare and most places look socially similar. You can hardly recognize who is poorer or richer just by looking at them.

Also the education is more or less the same for everybody - sure, there are few elite schools, but the rest is all "average" with normative state graduation exams and nobody cares about what is the name or place of the school you studied. Similarly with healthcare - except of few highly specialized healthcare places, there is basically no difference between different places.

The US chose another way, at least in the past and there are sharp social differences even when crossing from one street to another.

 

[AlexB23]

Interesting, I did not know that international adoptions are allowed in Europe.

Yeah, they are allowed, well, at least in Bulgaria back in 2001.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

America is changing. Younger people may be more open to thinking about systemic problems, regardless of traditional expectations. Especially because not having affordable housing is such a shock to other expectations.

Young people may like the the over-arching concepts... what I was getting at is that the two factions would dislike different parts of the models.

The example I talked about before with regards to the Scandinavian model for tuition-free college.
It goes without saying that the conservative side wouldn't like the higher taxation aspect (they've already made that abundantly clear)

However, younger progressives certainly wouldn't like some of the strings that come attached with the Finnish model for tuition-free education.

https://www.oecd.org/education/education-at-a-glance/EAG2019_CN_FIN.pdf

Their admissions system into the free college program is very selective and meritocratic. (They reject 2/3 of applicants)

And the fields that younger progressives tend to want to study at disproportionately higher rates, are strictly capped/rationed over there, and those caps are based on what the market will bear.

Point of reference, here's the number degrees conferred for Finland (year 2019):

And no, you're not reading those numbers wrong, the numbers of students accepted to study things like Arts and Journalism/Philosophy/Social Sciences are really that low.

University of the Arts Helsinki - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The University of the Arts Helsinki (Finnish: Taideyliopisto, Swedish: Konstuniversitetet), also known as Uniarts Helsinki, is a Finnish arts university that was launched in the beginning of 2013. Apart from a few exceptions, it is the only university in Finland that provides education in the fields it represents.

Fewer than 2,000 undergrads and just over 200 post-grads were accepted into their various programs.

You compare that to "degrees conferred" data from the US, and it's wildly different. We have huge number who choose to pursue Humanities, Visual & Performing Arts, and Journalism (way more than there will be jobs for)


So it's not exactly what some people here think it is. You talk to some younger people here, and they have it in their minds that "If we just did things the way Finland did, I'd be able to spend 6 years pursuing and cultivating my passion, and exit the experience debt-free"

When in reality, "The Finnish Way" is:
"Are you in the top 1/3 academically? No?, well in that case you'll have to use your public education benefits for the vocational/trade school down the street, sorry"

And if you happen to be in that top 1/3:
"Oh, you want to pursue arts and/or journalism? Well, we have only have 200 seats available for that and they're reserved for the top people who show the most promise in that field, since you're not in the top 200, you'll need to apply to enroll in either the business or engineering programs which are less selective"

Are the young people here going to go for that kind of selective/meritocratic type of model? Or will they have some "equity-based" objections to those stipulations?


Same goes with this Vienna model for housing...it's not exactly what people think it is. It would seem as if people are under the impression that it's getting the same kind of nice apartment you'd get here, with all of the freedoms, but for a fraction of the price due to subsidization. That's not exactly what's happening.

Just a couple of bullet points:
- Renters are responsible for most maintenance and upkeep (and can be fined if they let something fall into disrepair (meaning if you neglect to get some pipes fixed and it leaks into the unit below, you're financially responsible for it...Fridge breaks and you need a new one, you pay for a new fridge)
- Move-in costs can be up to $30k
- You must compensate the prior tenant for upgrades/updates they made to the apartment.
- The ability to "hand down" your units (at grandfathered rates) has created some challenges.
- Things like asking your GF/BF to move in with you comes with more hoops to jump through & challenges than it would under traditional apartment arrangements. (in fact, you can get in some trouble just for having "unregistered" overnight guests in some instances -- though I don't know how enforceable that part is, I would imagine most people probably aren't picking up the phone to say "Hey, I saw Joe bring a girl home from the bar and she stayed the night" to rat out their neighbors)
- There is a 2-year waiting list, and the government assigns your unit to you, which means there's no browsing around to see which layout/floorplan you like the best or which one would be in easiest walking distance to the places you like to frequent...so you could be lucky enough to get into the one the newer buildings that happens to be next to the library or your favorite shops, or you could get stuck being assigned to the Karl Marx HOF building (no joke, that's the name of one of their social housing complexes) that was built almost 100 years ago and is in need of repairs and that the prior tenant may have made no upgrades to in the last 30 years.

In many regards, it's less like having an apartment, and more like having a Condo in an HOA (except you don't get to select your own unit)

The NY times articles (and other publications touting the model) conveniently only showed the interiors of some of the newer units with flattering lighting like this one

Hint: they don't all look like that lol. You could just as easily get assigned to the one that has an interior that looks like a throw back to the 1970's.

One could just as easily get assigned to one that looks like this:

(and if they want to make it look nicer, it's on them to do the work and cover the expenses for modernizing)

 

[Whyayeman]

"Could" vs. "Would"

There's a lot of European nations that have models that "could" work if implemented here...the real question is "would" people here be willing to tolerate the adjustments required in order to make it happen?

I'd say the answer to that is "no".

And that's not just digging on one side here... The various provisions and guardrails that make a lot of these systems work in other places would involve various things that neither side would like in the US.


Case in point, tuition-free education that resembles what the Nordic countries do.

That idea wouldn't get off the ground here for multiple reasons.
A) Conservatives would never agree to pay the additional taxes required to fund it
...but also
B) Progressives wouldn't like the stipulations in place that keep it sustainable (like the 50% rejection rate, and hard caps on arts and humanities studies with regards to how many people get to study those things)

So it would quickly devolve into "Whaddya mean I have to pay more taxes?!?!" vs. "Whaddya mean I can't opt to study music theory because there's only 800 seats allotted for that I'm don't meet the cut?!?!"


The same is true for this situation with Vienna's subsidized housing...if they tried a carbon copy of that here, neither side would like it.
Conservatives would bristle at the additional taxes
Progressives would bristle at the stipulations

The hidden failures of social housing in 'Red Vienna'

A new report details how the city's famed social housing system is suffering from diminishing affordability, deteriorating quality, and funding shortfalls.

reason.com

When looking at the European models for "free stuff", people here tend to focus exclusively on "the stuff that people are getting", and almost never consider the "social buy-in" that the Euro nations require to participate in those systems.

Healthcare would be another example... live in a country that offers it, sure, your doctor visits are free. The other side of that coin, they're going to heavily restrict and tax things considered to be unhealthy. Pick your poison.


To put in the plainest terms: There's no sustainable system in which you have all of your basic needs met and get a nice place to live, that doesn't involve some sort of meaningful contribution to society and social buy-in/sacrifice.

IE: No sustainable system in existence is going to put you up in a nice apartment and make sure you're well-fed for your "art, philosophy, and activism services".

"While progressives may wax eloquent about the Vienna social housing model—particularly its low rents and ample supply—the merits for this system are far overblown," writes Tobias Peter, co-director of the American Enterprise Institute's Housing Center, in a brief published earlier this month.

Well, he would wouldn't he? He is ideologically opposed. And he cites another ideologically slanted article in support.

Who is doing the bristling here?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

"While progressives may wax eloquent about the Vienna social housing model—particularly its low rents and ample supply—the merits for this system are far overblown," writes Tobias Peter, co-director of the American Enterprise Institute's Housing Center, in a brief published earlier this month.

Well, he would wouldn't he? He is ideologically opposed. And he cites another ideologically slanted article in support.

Who is doing the bristling here?

I posted a follow-up to that first post.

There would be things about the Vienna Model that progressives would absolutely reject for ideological reasons stemming from equity arguments, as well as some rules and restrictions they wouldn't be too fond of.


There's no such thing as a "progressive" or "conservative" Utopia situation in any facet of life or economics. Any system that's tried to give either side 100% of what their ideal is, has failed. The fact that both the Nordic Model for education and the Vienna Model for housing has last over 50 years means that there's some conservative ideals sprinkled in where it makes sense....which I elaborated on for both systems (Much like conservative areas have certain facets where liberal ideals are sprinkled in if they wish to remain sustainable)

Mark my words, if you tried to implement the Nordic education model or the Vienna housing model here, verbatim with the same rules/restrictions in place), it would be rejected by both conservatives and progressives for the very different reasons I mentioned.


The thing that Nordic countries and some western European countries have done well is cherry pick the best aspects of the welfare state, and the meritocracy, and make them work in unison and complementary systems. In the US, "welfare state" is taboo among staunch conservatives, and "meritocracy" is taboo among staunch progressives.

 

[FireDragon76]

Young people may like the the over-arching concepts... what I was getting at is that the two factions would dislike different parts of the models.

The example I talked about before with regards to the Scandinavian model for tuition-free college.
It goes without saying that the conservative side wouldn't like the higher taxation aspect (they've already made that abundantly clear)

However, younger progressives certainly wouldn't like some of the strings that come attached with the Finnish model for tuition-free education.

https://www.oecd.org/education/education-at-a-glance/EAG2019_CN_FIN.pdf

Their admissions system into the free college program is very selective and meritocratic. (They reject 2/3 of applicants)

And the fields that younger progressives tend to want to study at disproportionately higher rates, are strictly capped/rationed over there, and those caps are based on what the market will bear.

Point of reference, here's the number degrees conferred for Finland (year 2019):
View attachment 346978

And no, you're not reading those numbers wrong, the numbers of students accepted to study things like Arts and Journalism/Philosophy/Social Sciences are really that low.

University of the Arts Helsinki - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The University of the Arts Helsinki (Finnish: Taideyliopisto, Swedish: Konstuniversitetet), also known as Uniarts Helsinki, is a Finnish arts university that was launched in the beginning of 2013. Apart from a few exceptions, it is the only university in Finland that provides education in the fields it represents.

View attachment 346979

Fewer than 2,000 undergrads and just over 200 post-grads were accepted into their various programs.

You compare that to "degrees conferred" data from the US, and it's wildly different. We have huge number who choose to pursue Humanities, Visual & Performing Arts, and Journalism (way more than there will be jobs for)


So it's not exactly what some people here think it is. You talk to some younger people here, and they have it in their minds that "If we just did things the way Finland did, I'd be able to spend 6 years pursuing and cultivating my passion, and exit the experience debt-free"

When in reality, "The Finnish Way" is:
"Are you in the top 1/3 academically? No?, well in that case you'll have to use your public education benefits for the vocational/trade school down the street, sorry"

And if you happen to be in that top 1/3:
"Oh, you want to pursue arts and/or journalism? Well, we have only have 200 seats available for that and they're reserved for the top people who show the most promise in that field, since you're not in the top 200, you'll need to apply to enroll in either the business or engineering programs which are less selective"

Are the young people here going to go for that kind of selective/meritocratic type of model? Or will they have some "equity-based" objections to those stipulations?


Same goes with this Vienna model for housing...it's not exactly what people think it is. It would seem as if people are under the impression that it's getting the same kind of nice apartment you'd get here, with all of the freedoms, but for a fraction of the price due to subsidization. That's not exactly what's happening.

Just a couple of bullet points:
- Renters are responsible for most maintenance and upkeep (and can be fined if they let something fall into disrepair (meaning if you neglect to get some pipes fixed and it leaks into the unit below, you're financially responsible for it...Fridge breaks and you need a new one, you pay for a new fridge)
- Move-in costs can be up to $30k
- You must compensate the prior tenant for upgrades/updates they made to the apartment.
- The ability to "hand down" your units (at grandfathered rates) has created some challenges.
- Things like asking your GF/BF to move in with you comes with more hoops to jump through & challenges than it would under traditional apartment arrangements. (in fact, you can get in some trouble just for having "unregistered" overnight guests in some instances -- though I don't know how enforceable that part is, I would imagine most people probably aren't picking up the phone to say "Hey, I saw Joe bring a girl home from the bar and she stayed the night" to rat out their neighbors)
- There is a 2-year waiting list, and the government assigns your unit to you, which means there's no browsing around to see which layout/floorplan you like the best or which one would be in easiest walking distance to the places you like to frequent...so you could be lucky enough to get into the one the newer buildings that happens to be next to the library or your favorite shops, or you could get stuck being assigned to the Karl Marx HOF building (no joke, that's the name of one of their social housing complexes) that was built almost 100 years ago and is in need of repairs and that the prior tenant may have made no upgrades to in the last 30 years.

In many regards, it's less like having an apartment, and more like having a Condo in an HOA (except you don't get to select your own unit)

The NY times articles (and other publications touting the model) conveniently only showed the interiors of some of the newer units with flattering lighting like this one
View attachment 346984

Hint: they don't all look like that lol. You could just as easily get assigned to the one that has an interior that looks like a throw back to the 1970's.

One could just as easily get assigned to one that looks like this:
View attachment 346985
(and if they want to make it look nicer, it's on them to do the work and cover the expenses for modernizing)

That apartment doesn't look so bad. It's far better than being forced to couch surf or sleep on the street.

 

[AlexB23]

That apartment doesn't look so bad. It's far better than being forced to couch surf or sleep on the street.

Agreed, plus with only $600/mo on rent, one could afford to remodel it after a few years.