The fundamental problem is that building quality housing is a society-level project - you don't just need to build a house/apt but supporting infrastructure, such as water, power, waste, public transport, supermarkets, and figure out how to connect it to the city's infrastructure.
There used to be political will to do this. Nowadays what I see around me, is that developers keep plopping down housing projects either in the middle of nowhere or in some highly undesirable area (like next to the train tracks, or some old industrial development) and sell the resulting apartments at crazy pricess. Zero infrastructure of course.
No, it's not. Society needs to back the F off and let anyone and everyone who owns property build what they can where they can as they want.
> just need to build a house/apt but supporting infrastructure, such as water, power, waste, public transport, supermarkets, and figure out how to connect it to the city's infrastructure.
No, you don't. 40yr ago, before you people <broadly gestures at HN with a certain finger on each hand> ruined it, it was common for even small time developers to build entire streets of houses on well and septic with 100a panels and pay the utility for a transformer at the end of the street. Obviously they weren't doing this downtown and obviously this doesn't work in all climates but there's no reason it can't be done everywhere east of the Mississippi.
There still is political will to do this, it happens all the time around the USA. Do you think all these neighborhoods with hundreds of new houses get built without water, power, waste, and supermarkets? See DR Horton/Lennar/Toll Brothers/etc websites, and they will all be connected to utilities and have retail mixed in or somewhere near.
If you spend enough time at city council meetings you’ll often discover that not only are those developments paying for their infrastructure; they’re also paying to modernize/maintain other supporting infrastructure - it’s literally often how they get the projects approved!
“You can build this 100 home development but it will need to pay for remodeling the school” type things happen all the time.
At least in Texas, I've seen this go both ways in practice. There is definitely some 'give something to get something' action that helps grease the wheels early on in the permitting or development process.
Years later, Some developments / developers will petition to annex themselves from the outer reaches of their adjacent jurisdictions to prevent the city from growing into these areas and 1) exerting control and 2) obtaining the roads, utilities and treatment facilities, and drainage facilities. Municipal Utility Districts (MUDs) are a popular avenue for this, and arguably works in some cases. Adjacent cities may not have the existing tax base, utility infrastructure and operations, and public works to support the type of growth in some areas. My experience is just in the past ~7 years working in the Civil field in Texas. Probably variations on this across the US at least.
Funny you mention schools, because on at least one project of mine, we've constructed a public middle & high school along with a charter school on-premise. No doubt that was a big selling pitch during the early development meetings.
Schools are really the big one - utilities are cheaper and simpler (for some value of simpler!) and existing cities really don't want that to get out of control.
(This is one of the reasons that senior developments slide through easier, as they don't impact the student base much but do provide tax revenue, which usually makes the city's job better.)
No it isn't. We deliberately hobble home construction with zoning and permitting rules, which aren't based in any infrastructure carrying capacity concerns (in fact, dense housing has advantages for infrastructure and energy uses --- few things are as inefficient as a single-family home).
Fixing exclusionary zoning rules isn't a society-scale project.
The political will disappeared as soon as we became a boomer society.
In the 1970s and 80s there were riots. Now most voters are old and own a house so they don't really give a shit. Hell they WANT prices to go up because it is their pension.
There used to be political will to do this. Nowadays what I see around me, is that developers keep plopping down housing projects either in the middle of nowhere or in some highly undesirable area (like next to the train tracks, or some old industrial development) and sell the resulting apartments at crazy pricess. Zero infrastructure of course.