Evidence is mounting that Apple has picked a location for its new campus

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mhays

No, you'd have to inundate the market with sites that have development potential due to being upzoned. Market prices are loosely tied to development costs (competition keeps them close), and cutting base costs would set a new balance point (reduced by roughly those costs plus finance etc.).

With the desire as strong as it is for dense urban living, it will have to be some extreme development on a massive scale to drive down the costs because the demand is huge.

[mhays]

Not really.

With apartments, if supply grows 2% and demand grows 1%, rents can actually fall. This is an obsession in the developer world.

For-sale prices are more complicated. It's about the tiny percentage of people who are buying/selling at that time...a few thousand units change change the dynamics of a major city's price trends. But it's also about optimism and other factors.

Trends are easier to track in the commercial real estate world than in the private real estate world, because the professionals are looking for accuracy rather than constant optimism. I'm on the commercial side (multifamily, office, etc.). Small variations in supply, replacement cost, etc., do have a major effect on prices in these sectors.

[jd3189]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Uhhhh, no...... The fact that people pay $25 million for Manhattan rowhouses quite clearly shows that people like living in Manhattan

Thank you. Manhattan, and NYC in general, is one of the very few places in the US where most people live in dense housing because they have to if they want to be in the city. They don't particularly like living wall to wall with other people but will deal with it to enjoy all the city offers.


Rich folks anywhere else in America live in areas we would consider very suburban.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by mhays

So people shouldn't be ALLOWED to develop their property in denser formats? Eh komrade?

YOU would not allow people to develop their property in LESS dense formats, KOMRADE.

Of course people should be allowed to develop their land in denser formats, but what you don't seem to understand is, many people don't want to!

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mhays

Not really.

With apartments, if supply grows 2% and demand grows 1%, rents can actually fall. This is an obsession in the developer world.

For-sale prices are more complicated. It's about the tiny percentage of people who are buying/selling at that time...a few thousand units change change the dynamics of a major city's price trends. But it's also about optimism and other factors.

Trends are easier to track in the commercial real estate world than in the private real estate world, because the professionals are looking for accuracy rather than constant optimism. I'm on the commercial side (multifamily, office, etc.). Small variations in supply, replacement cost, etc., do have a major effect on prices in these sectors.

True about rental markets; they fluctuate pretty readily. I was thinking more along the lines of purchasing.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Thank you. Manhattan, and NYC in general, is one of the very few places in the US where most people live in dense housing because they have to if they want to be in the city. They don't particularly like living wall to wall with other people but will deal with it to enjoy all the city offers.


Rich folks anywhere else in America live in areas we would consider very suburban.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that in the U.S., urban rowhouses cost more per square foot, on average, than single-family detached homes.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that in the U.S., urban rowhouses cost more per square foot, on average, than single-family detached homes.

They're generally on more-expensive land, which you can solve by upzoning land that currently doesn't allow them. They're also generally in cities and neighborhoods that are more expensive.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

YOU would not allow people to develop their property in LESS dense formats, KOMRADE.

Of course people should be allowed to develop their land in denser formats, but what you don't seem to understand is, many people don't want to!

I never said that. If someone wants to a full acre for their house, they can have at it. But in a city that tries not to sprawl, the land will be expensive.

Ethics are a real thing. Mine includes not wasting land. I get that this isn't the majority opinion in your part of the country.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by mhays

I never said that. If someone wants to a full acre for their house, they can have at it. But in a city that tries not to sprawl, the land will be expensive.

Ethics are a real thing. Mine includes not wasting land. I get that this isn't the majority opinion in your part of the country.

Could you be any more condescending?

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by mhays

I get that this isn't the majority opinion in your part of the country.

And it obviously isn't the majority opinion in North Carolina, either.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by mhays

As for Bishops Ranch Pedestrian...fail. It seems to be 585 acres with 30,000 employees...kind of proves my point! Your photo shows what can happen at what, seven times the density of the RTP?

I totally don't get your point. Building skyscrapers on any but the most expensive and rare of land, which usually means the city center, is uneconomical and many businesses don't even want to be there. Chevron moved to Bishop Ranch from downtown SF, presumably because it's where their executives and employees preferred. On the other hand, Salesforce, with a very different work force (younger, fewer married) and a CEO with strong ideas (like Bezos in Seattle) wanted to be downtown in the city's tallest.

Successful markets accommodate both. Facebook is now proving that. With a suburban Silicon Valley campus, it is now renting up TWO downtown SF towers and absorbing most of the available large blocks of such space.

[Reverberation]

Originally Posted by mhays

You REALLY aren't paying attention. This is flat incorrect, and easily provable. All three states put a lot of very easily-developable land off-limits or under heavy restriction. Why post about something you know zero about?

As for Bishops Ranch Pedestrian...fail. It seems to be 585 acres with 30,000 employees...kind of proves my point! Your photo shows what can happen at what, seven times the density of the RTP?

Skyscraperpage, you're totally misunderstanding the homelessness thing. Our capacity is limited because we restrict BOTH outward and upward growth. Ease upward growth, like townhouses, accessory units, apartments, etc., and we'd be dramatically more affordable. And part of our problem is being permissive with garbage piles, which has nothing to do with land prices.

No, I get it. My point was that there is a difference between “controlling” growth and “retarding” it. Seattle, in past years has “controlled” it, the Bay Area has retarded it.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by JManc

Only if you think "savings" would be passed onto tenants and home-buyers. They're not. If anything, the needle is moving in the other direction. You'd have to inundate the market with townhouses and apartment buildings...more than the market demands to drive prices down. And who would do that?

Manhattan developers, apparently. Rents have fallen in response to new supply.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ost-since-2011

The article also notes that Manhattan just ain't what it used to be, now that the typical Manhattanite sees Brooklyn and Queens as viable options (this after roughly 2 decades of furious, basically laissez-faire growth in those areas).

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

I totally don't get your point. Building skyscrapers on any but the most expensive and rare of land, which usually means the city center, is uneconomical and many businesses don't even want to be there. Chevron moved to Bishop Ranch from downtown SF, presumably because it's where their executives and employees preferred. On the other hand, Salesforce, with a very different work force (younger, fewer married) and a CEO with strong ideas (like Bezos in Seattle) wanted to be downtown in the city's tallest.

Successful markets accommodate both. Facebook is now proving that. With a suburban Silicon Valley campus, it is now renting up TWO downtown SF towers and absorbing most of the available large blocks of such space.

I just advocated that suburbia be denser like Bishops Ranch. Are you trying to disagree with something?

[mhays]

Originally Posted by The North One

Could you be any more condescending?

You'd love the West Coast...three states where majorities of each electorate have this sort of ethic. I'll take condescending over the crap and destruction allowed to happen in most of this country.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Reverberation

No, I get it. My point was that there is a difference between “controlling” growth and “retarding” it. Seattle, in past years has “controlled” it, the Bay Area has retarded it.

Yes, that's the point I was making. They've legislated away most of their ablity to grow, both outward and vertical.

Seattle has legislated away much of our outward growth, and gone halfway vs. the SF are in terms of allowing infill. So we're expensive but much less so.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by mhays

You'd love the West Coast...three states where majorities of each electorate have this sort of ethic. I'll take condescending over the crap and destruction allowed to happen in most of this country.

I'll pass, I'm not into subduction zones or crippiling overpriced housing or hordes of homeless that ruin the urban cores anyway.

LA and the Bay are already sprawl nightmares and they'd be much worse if geography allowed it, yes that includes Seattle. It's got little to do with "ethic" lol this is the US we're talking and Seattle destroyed most of it's core for a mega-highway to the suburbs anyway.

I'm glad you were able to blow some steam off today though, tough Monday?

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by mhays

I just advocated that suburbia be denser like Bishops Ranch. Are you trying to disagree with something?

If you are agreeing that the 3-5 floor Bishop Ranch business park is appropriately dense for its suburban setting--as will be Apple's new campus (it's new "spaceship" campus is 4 floors, same as Bishop Ranch)--then I don't disagree with you and you don't disagree with the rest of us and I don't know what the back and forth in this thread is all about.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by The North One

I'll pass, I'm not into subduction zones or crippiling overpriced housing or hordes of homeless that ruin the urban cores anyway.

LA and the Bay are already sprawl nightmares and they'd be much worse if geography allowed it, yes that includes Seattle. It's got little to do with "ethic" lol this is the US we're talking and Seattle destroyed most of it's core for a mega-highway to the suburbs anyway.

I'm glad you were able to blow some steam off today though, tough Monday?

The Bay Area is no sprawlier than just about any other US metro and less sprawly than many. At least one county adjacent to San Francisco--Marin--is mostly still rural and nearly all the undeveloped land is locked into some sort of arrangement that prevents development. The sprawl is mostly across the Bay in Alameda/Contra Costa Counties and down in Santa Clara County (aka Silicon Valley). I'd argue someplace like Chicago or New York are sprawlier. There is no wilderness comparable to Marin anywhere near downtown NYC or Chicago's Loop. In fact, one great thing about living in the Bay Area is the fact you can be in a land of dairy pastures and gorgeous undeveloped coastline in a 30-40 minute drive from downtown.

[James Bond Agent 007]

I think an underappreciated reason for much of the sprawl in places like Raleigh is topography. People who haven't been there don't realize the whole place is gently rolling hills. If you look at aerials of the area in discussion, you see all these green areas between the streets and subdivisions. Those aren't being set aside to be sprawly for the sake of being sprawly, those are actual little streams and drainage ditches and ridges.
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.8868...!3m1!1e3?hl=en

Similar thing in Atlanta:
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0686...!3m1!1e3?hl=en

Compare to a *truly* flat area like around Dallas. You could never build anything like this around Raleigh, it's actually fairly dense as suburban areas go:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.1662...!3m1!1e3?hl=en