Until the Cherry Creek and Chatfield Reservoirs were built, Cherry Creek and the South Platte Rivers, respectively seriously flooded about once every thirty years and often at the same time.
From my days as a journalist, I learned that the Cherry Creek dam was not built to the engineer ordered specifications. It has nonetheless held for decades, so it isn't too bad, but it would probably fail under conditions less extreme than those it was designed to withstand.
We get more extreme weather events now than anyone expected when it was built. We will probably have what until recently was considered at 500 year weather event at least every 50 years now.
The Cherry Creek basin is mostly designed to address this risk, with green spaces and parking garages along most of its extent.
But, there is one place along its edges, where the basin has steep constraining walls, and critical infrastructure is just a few feet above the narrow walled Cherry Creek bike path. That is the Denver Health Emergency Room, Denver proper's only Level One Trauma Center.
I worry about this risk now and then, and we really should build a flood wall to protect it now, before the Cherry Creek dam fails is a "freak not freak" weather event.
What are the easiest policies to make life more affordable?
* Unilaterally end tariffs.
* Legalize car imports from China and reduce trade barriers to importing smaller cars from Europe. This would greatly increase choices and competition for basic cars.
* Support the infrastructure to shift to electric vehicles making us less vulnerable to global petroleum prices and less incentivized to go to war over oil.
* Eliminate fares for high volume transit routes.
* Encourage renewable energy sources like solar and wind which are now cheaper than coal and are not subject to natural gas price fluctuations.
* Remove barriers to building affordable housing, especially zoning that restricts density and rules out multi-family housing, parking mandates, lot size limitations, and aesthetic building code requirements. Encourage high quality manufacturing of homes and large components of homes in lieu of stick building everything on site.
* Encourage the Fed to take a more gradual approach to increasing interest rates when economic conditions call for it to do so, so that housing markets have time to adjust to higher mortgage rates which decrease affordability until housing prices transition to adjust to the ability to pay.
* Tax unoccupied housing more heavily to discourage hoarding of empty housing that reduces housing supply and drives up housing prices.
* Enact policies that financially penalize profitable companies for the burden that they impose on government when a significant share of their workers need welfare to make ends meet, in part, by increasing the minimum wage.
* Shift revenue sources for ECE (early childhood education)-12 education from property taxes to income taxes. This makes the taxes more progressive. It increases funding equity between places with large property tax bases per student (like rich suburbs and resorts) and places with small property tax bases per student (like low income municipalities and rural areas). This also reduces housing costs.
* Make free meals for all part of the standard ECE-12 education package.
* Make access to ECE and kindergarten and afterschool programs universal.
* Encourage international students at colleges and universities who basically subsidize domestic students by paying full tuition.
* Publicly fund higher education, without significant student loans, with all students with a reasonable chance of completing their degrees, while limiting admissions for students who have a high probability of failing. This makes access to higher education possible for working class and middle class kids increasing their future incomes and class mobility while making the economy more productive, and reduces the squeeze on families at the low end of upper middle class who don't easily qualify for need based grant financial aid, but still pay higher shares of their income than others.
* Reinvigorate vocational programs at high schools and community colleges for students for whom a traditional liberal arts college curriculum or four year degree isn't a good fit.
* Establish new medical school and medical professional school capacity to increase the supply of doctors and other medical professionals.
* Welcome foreign medical professionals, thus increasing the supply of medical professionals whose compensation is driven up by a limited supply, especially in rural areas where domestic medical professionals are least likely to prefer.
* Medicare for all or similar universal health care financing, that cuts out health care billing and insurance company administration costs and profits, ends barriers to health care for the self-employed and unemployed and those with jobs providing only second rate health insurance with high deductibles, funds health care in proportion to ability to pay, ends medical debt and bankruptcies, takes pressure off high cost ER care, and improves the bargaining power over drug costs and other provider costs. Health care expenses of employers also reduce wages more or less dollar for dollar.
* Broaden access to long term care, including home health care and assisted living, on a basis similar to universal healthcare, and finance it with estate taxes.
A 70 year old friend of mine writes on Facebook that she just got a new electric snowblower because her "HOA dues no longer cover snow shoveling driveway and sidewalk."
There are lots of reasons that HOAs are horrible institutions. But one of the things that they do often do well is that they make removal of snow from sidewalks a collective neighborhood function, rather than something that must be done by each individual in the neighborhood.
When are people going to wake up and realize that decentralization and private responsibility is not the solution to all problems? We seem to understand this for roads, but not for sidewalks.
Collective neighborhood snow shoveling is much more efficient since you can mechanize it with industrial grade snow blowers and snow clearing equipment.
Even if the work is outsourced to landscaping companies so that it can be mechanized, it is still less efficient to have many separate landscaping companies do the work in the neighborhood in a patchwork fashion, rather than having one provider do it, in addition to being more expensive per unit or for the neighborhood as a whole, despite not providing the service for everyone in the neighborhood.
Also, if the HOA bought its own snow clearing equipment and hired someone directly to do the job (as many municipal governments and school districts do), cutting out the middle man which its scale would often make feasible, it could do it more cheaply than hiring a landscaping firm to do the job, since it wouldn't have to cover the landscaping firm's profit and overhead costs (e.g. marketing, office and insurance costs that the HOA already incurs, billing and debt collection costs that the HOA already incurs, etc.). It could even provide a measure of economic relief to HOA members by preferring to hire residents to do the work (also reducing commuting times and demands on local road infrastructure, and making an inability to do the job at all or on time due to heavy snow making roads less passable less of a concern).
Collective sidewalk snow clearance also produces much better returns because sidewalks are a network. One delayed or not done at all link in clearing snow from sidewalks dramatically reduces the value of the sidewalk system for everyone, even if everyone else does a perfect and timely job of clearing the sidewalk in front of their house. And, in real life, perfect compliance with early sidewalk cleaning by each homeowner rarely happens for understandable reasons like being out of town, or being sick or infirm, or working atypical shifts like three twelves or having to work multiple jobs, so that you are at work when it snows.
The same logic applies to maintaining sidewalks in good condition when they crack. A badly broken sidewalk in front of one house makes the entire sidewalk network less useful for everyone who uses sidewalks in the neighborhood.
Sidewalks are a good that everyone in the community benefits from, and the homeowner benefits little from having the sidewalk in front of their own home clear. Clearing sidewalks is something you do for the benefit of your neighbors.
There is a collective action problem which HOAs solve when they correctly treat sidewalks as a common element owned by the community as a whole and managed by an entity that is responsible to the entire community.
This is less true of driveways. Mechanization from economies of scale is still present, although it can be moderated with outsourcing to landscaping companies. But the benefits of driveway snow clearing primarily inure to the homeowner whose driveway is cleared. There isn't the same network functionality problem.
But, of course, in the HOA suburbs no one cares about sidewalks because everybody drives everywhere, which also makes not only the people in the HOA less healthy, but also makes the community less vibrant.
And, then there is the issue that 70 year olds face a vastly elevated risk of serious physical harm when they try to shovel their own driveways and sidewalks. This is true for driveways as well.
The other lurking issue is that many suburbanites in HOAs are cash poor and time rich. Paying HOA dues or a more efficient landscaping company to do the job costs money which many people in these communities don't have. Doing it yourself with a cheap and inefficient snow shovel doesn't cost money, even though you are effectively valuing your own time and effort at a tiny hourly rate when comparing the time it takes you to the time it takes a professional to do it with the proper equipment.
The tradeoff between doing things in the monetary economy v. doing things in the non-monetary household or by barter or volunteering is an understudied issue in economics.
Private equity is playing a larger role in the housing market. Why?
Because rapid increases in interest rates, that have increased faster than the residential real estate market has time to compensate for them with lower inflation adjusted housing prices, has made buying homes unaffordable for home buyers who rely on significant mortgage debt to buy a home (especially, but not only, first time home buyers). This has created increased demand for rental housing which private equity is filling by buying single family homes (it has been a major player in the apartment market for a long time).
But, local government limitations on new housing are still more important to tenants and prospective home owners. Private equity isn't moral, but neither are smaller landlords. The main difference is that private equity concentrates the profits more than ownership by smaller landlords (and is less likely to spend its profits locally). The proportion of landlord owners housing and rental prices are predominantly governed by market forces that affect both equally and are heavily influenced by local zoning and building codes.
How did we get in this mess?
For a long time interest rates were exceedingly low in order to stimulate the economy. Housing prices soared to adapt, but low interest rates made those higher prices affordable.
But, for a variety of reasons, nominal housing prices are sticky.
In the short run, listing prices, home value appraisals, and conventional wisdom about fair market value selling prices are based on historical sales prices which are necessarily retrospective and often include comparable sales that pre-date the rise in interest rates, but mortgage rates reduce buyer's ability to pay almost instantly.
In the long run, there are two factors.
One is that sellers can afford to sell heavily leveraged homes for less than their mortgages and also need enough left over after paying off their mortgage to have a down payment for their next home. And, mortgages are in nominal dollars, not a percentage of the home price. Leverage makes a small decrease in home values disproportionately erode the seller's equity, and most younger home owners have lots of mortgage debt.
Secondly, sellers are human and psychologically anchor on the price that they bought their home for. Selling at a loss feels like losing, and nobody wants to voluntarily be a loser.
If interest rates had increased more gradually, the fall in affordability caused by higher interest rates would have been more modest giving the housing market time to adjust, and allowing nominal housing prices to hold steady, while allowing inflation adjusted housing prices to fall.
But the economic models that decision makers like the Fed use to set interest rate policies give little or no weight to how fast interest rates change when they estimate the effect that this will have on the economy, because economic models are heavily influenced by equilibrium models even though they acknowledge that the economy is dynamic to a limited, but insufficient, extent.
In short, the main reason that private equity is playing a bigger role in the housing market is that the Fed has flawed economic models and isn't sensitive to the needs of younger middle class people in the housing market. Interest rates were too low in an objective sense. But increasing them so quickly did as much harm as it did good.
If private equity hadn't done it, smaller individual landlords would have, albeit, somewhat less rapidly and in smaller chunks per neighborhood spread out over many landlords in more neighborhoods. Private equity isn't new. It's been around for several decades as an important economic force. It's been around in the apartment market for almost as long. But, the reason we've seen the shift from smaller landlords to private equity is that the Fed created a huge imbalance in the single family home market, and private equity was able to respond more quickly to this sudden change (that created a sudden demand for rental housing which occupants couldn't afford to buy due to higher interest rates) than smaller landlords were.
My wife and son ran the NYC marathon together (they were just one minute short of getting a mention in the New York Times for it).
It wasn't my first trip to NYC, but each visit stirs up no impressions.
It is amazing how much a tiny hotel room (there was barely room to walk - the bed was almost wall to wall), a suitcase full of clothes, and a credit card with enough money on it to buy food and subway fares makes. We had a kitchenette, so we could have lived there, and led a reasonably dignified life.
While some things in NYC are modern and cutting edge, it is also to a significant extent, an enclave of the past. The engineering behind the subway train operations is ancient, even though the fare system is very modern. The operations of the NYSE are at their core, ancient. Its residential co-ops are historical relicts from the pre-condo era. Its trash collection systems lack alleys or even dumpsters. Its street system doesn't handle car and truck travel well at all, although its bike lanes are modern and work rather well. It has been highly resistant to big grocery store chains found everywhere else. Its rent control system is its own thing found in only a couple of other places in the nation. It is home to the UN which, alas, isn't a modern, functional institution. It tries, but isn't very disability friendly.
We are in the longest government shutdown of all time in U.S. history. The second longest was also under Trump. There is still no end in sight.
The Dodgers won the World Series.
Two words that would seem useful:
* Dila = daughter-in-law (adjacent)
* Sila = son-in-law (adjacent)
These word would cover both engaged people and people who are in a serious long term relationship with a son or daughter to the point where they have met the family and might very well be more or less permanent family members. The need for a compact word to describe someone who has this relationship to you is real.
I haven't seen a full set of 2025 election results, but generally, Democrats did well.
In the last few years, researchers have revealed something shocking about the property tax, the mainstay of local governmental finance. In virtually all jurisdictions in the country, expensive homes are undervalued by property tax assessors—and hence under-taxed—while less expensive homes are over-valued and over-taxed. Put another way, one of the major methods of taxation in America is premised on repeated determinations that the rich are less rich than they actually are and that the less well-off are better off than they actually are. To give it name, there is almost universal Property Tax Assessment Regressivity, or PTAR.
This Article explains the consequences of PTAR. It shows that PTAR, while still likely regressive, may be less regressive today than one might imagine. A consistent, long-standing PTAR in jurisdictions would be capitalized into property values and thus have largely benefited property owners many years ago, rather than today’s property owners. PTAR also limits the “insurance” value of property taxes, the way in which property taxes limit the downsides of property value declines (and the upside of increases). However, PTAR may counterintuitively make jurisdictions less scared of allowing much-needed dense housing construction.
So, should PTAR be fixed?
The answer is a qualified yes. Fixing PTAR would be an efficient form of wealth redistribution, if a somewhat oddly directed one, as it only shares revenue among homeowners in individual local governments. Capturing the insurance benefits of the property tax would have substantial benefits for the many homeowners with undiversified portfolios. However, fixing PTAR should be paired with policies to mitigate its downsides and enhance its upsides. More taxing authority should be given to bigger jurisdictions, as doing so would enhance the insurance and redistributive benefits of fixing PTAR. And states should pair fixes to PTAR with greater oversight of local zoning authority to ensure a better property tax system does not come at the cost of exacerbating the housing crisis.
What the strange case of PTAR reveals is that the property tax is not, as many have argued, the perfect tax for local governments to levy. Instead, the property tax turns out to be the bad local tax we have grown used to. To make it “work,” we have allowed local governments to engage in all sorts of bad policy—taxing the less well-off at higher rates than those richer than them, and restricting housing growth in order to avoid redistribution.
Artist's rendering from Douglas County via the Denver Post
The Project
The controversial Zebulon Regional Sports Complex in Douglas County is set to break ground this fall. It is a $1.3 billion project planned for a site near Chatfield Reservoir in a brownfield development with "an old dynamite-making plant that operated for decades at the proposed Zebulon site" although it purportedly has been fully remediated. The state signed off on that conclusion in 2022.
The plans for the Zebulon Regional Sports Complex are huge.
On the drawing board are four baseball fields, three ice rinks and a pair of soccer fields. Eight to 10 basketball courts — which can be converted into 20 volleyball courts or 30 pickleball courts — are also in the mix. Add in a 400,000-square-foot, domed indoor sports facility that will house more fields for year-round play. . . .
And that’s just the first phase, which could break ground as soon as this fall on a 50-acre parcel just southeast of the master-planned Sterling Ranch community. Later phases could bring as many as eight additional sports fields, along with restaurants, shops and a hotel[.]
Does It Pencil?
I've worked with clients to help vet a similar proposals on a smaller scale, so I have so familiarity with the economics of these deals. For the life of me, I can't see how this could pencil as a "for profit" private sector venture at this scale in this location.
Sure, there is unmet demand in the area, which has had and continues to have large subdivisions rolled out over the last few decades (like 12,000 homes in Sterling Ranch which will house 35,000 people when completed that is only 20% built out), without sufficient government investment or HOA in community amenities. So, a much smaller private non-profit or public sector recreation center run by Sterling Ranch's metro district might work.
But, the demand just isn't there for something of this scale, and a similar but smaller complex in Centennial isn't thriving.
[A] citizen survey conducted last year by Douglas County ... revealed [that] a “mega-sports complex” was identified by 33% of respondents as the “least appealing option” of a list of potential amenities. The survey also showed that just 22% of respondents were dissatisfied with the number of youth sports facilities in the county.
Another smaller recreation center is already on the drawing board for Highland's Ranch which would be between the South Suburban Recreation Center twenty minutes to the east and the Zebulon complex.
The county investment is about $800K in engineering planning for infrastructure (realistically, a drop in the bucket) and a portion of the about $22 million a year in revenues for the the next 15 years from the county's 0.17% sales tax for its Parks, Trails, Historic Resources and Open Space Fund established in 1994.
But even this investment is controversial, in part, because the county leadership whose home rule county proposal epically crashed and burned in June, and which has a history of infighting and political posturing, isn't popular and doesn't have much public trust.
Moreover, as a "for profit" it probably isn't eligible for municipal bond financing with private activity bonds. This project would probably have, at best, a BBB credit rating implying roughly a 6.1% corporate bond interest rate, while a comparable municipal bond would have roughly a 3.6% interest rate, which is a $32.5 million a year difference for an investment of this size. Municipal bond eligibility, that it could receive as a non-profit, would be worth more than all of the sales tax revenue that could be diverted to the project.
There are a few other sports complexes with a similar (but slightly smaller than the proposed full build out) scale in the metro area, the South Suburban complex further east in Douglas County, one in Arvada, and one in Jefferson County (IIRC). But those are strictly government owned and funded, and the most similar South Suburban Parks and Recreation District facility further east, in Centennial, doesn't seem to be thriving.
Bottom Line Analysis
Philosophically, the fact that it is a brownfield development is a good thing, the fact that it provides amenities in a rapidly growing community with unmet needs is a good thing, and the fact that the risk that it will be an unprofitable money pit will fall mostly on wealthy, private sector, for profit, investors with only modest public subsidies is a good thing. It is also estimated to create 1,800 temporary jobs to build it, which is a good thing in what is mostly a bedroom community, where construction work for its huge sprawling suburban subdivisions is winding down due to factors like a limited supply of water for new taps.
But the fact that the proposal appears to be vastly bigger than the realistic demand for recreational facilities, the fact that the public is subsidizing a for profit company (even if it isn't a professional sports team), and the fact that it doesn't have much public support when the public will be providing significant sales tax funding support to the project, aren't good things.
An independent non-profit project, or metro district, or South Suburban Parks and Recreation District (with annexation of additional territory, if needed) sponsored project, that is less ambitious, with more phases to allow experience to determine if demand justifies something larger, would make more sense, in my opinion.
I'm a "Fox" and not a "Hedgehog". I know many things and focus on details rather than "one big thing" that solves every problem.
But, I'm going to try to put on my hedgehog hat and come up with ways to address some of the biggest problems facing the U.S. today if forced to suggest just three solutions to each of them. The point of this exercise is partially to force prioritization of lists of proposals that can get bogged down with good ideas to solve small problems or to make lower priority reforms to big problems.
Affordable Housing and Homelessness
Housing prices in major metropolitan areas are high. What is the single biggest thing we can do to address that?
Eliminate virtually all zoning regulations of residential density, parking requirements, minimum lot sizes, and regulation of the purposes for which buildings can be used. This primarily reduces the land value part of housing costs which is the main factor that makes housing in big cities so much more expensive.
What is another big thing that we can do to address that?
End all property tax funding of public schools and replace the lost revenue, dollar for dollar, with increased state income taxes. This will typically reduce property taxes by more than 50% freeing up income for making principal and interest payments. It would also reduce inequities in school funding and would be more progressive as a tax source.
What is a third big thing we can do to address that?
Spend whatever it takes to provide basic housing first, immediately, to every single homeless person in the United States. Housing first is cheaper than letting people live on the street and paying the costs of that. This is less burdensome on the health care system, reduces crime, and improves quality of life for both the people who would be homeless and the people that their being homeless in their neighborhoods would impact.
Health Care
The U.S. pays far more per person for healthcare than any other country on the planet and gets poor results for its money, while inflicting great financial hardship on people. What is the single biggest thing we can do to address that?
Adopt "Medicare for All" financed with a higher Medicare payroll tax and a higher Obamacare tax on investment income. Roll in long term care coverage currently paid for, for many people, with the Medicaid long term care program.
End Medicaid. End the Medicaid Estate Recovery System (i.e. the poor man's death tax). End private health insurance. End worker's compensation coverage of medical expenses. End the separate veteran's healthcare programs. End Obamacare insurance premium subsidies. End health insurance tax deductions and employer health insurance mandates and private health insurance mandates. End lawsuits by private individuals to pay for medical expenses. End casualty insurance policies designed to cover liability for medical expenses in lawsuits. This would greatly reduce administrative cost waste, bad debt, denial of care, linkage of health care to employment, would reduce health insurance and worker's compensation and CGL insurance expenses for businesses, would simplify tax returns for individuals, and would facilitate more effective cost control on provider payments. It would also increase use of preventative care thereby reducing more expensive acute care and would shift expensive ER care for the currently uninsured to more appropriate lower cost providers. This would especially help working class people who are mostly likely to have inadequate health insurance and to struggle with paying medical bills.
In round numbers, the U.S. federal and state governments spend about $2 trillion a year on Medicare, Medicaid, and VA health care, private health insurance policy premiums are about $1.5 trillion a year, and out of pocket health care expenses are about $0.5 trillion a year, for a total of $4 trillion a year of spending on health care, which still leaves about 27 million people without health insurance (in a country with about 336 million people). Cutting administrative costs, profits, marketing, provider level health insurance claim processing, bad debt expenses for providers, shifting ER care for the uninsured as a last resort to primary care and urgent care, price negotiation with providers from drug providers to hospitals to physicians and nurses, since the U.S. pays higher prices for everything than anyplace else in the world, substitution of preventative care that is foregone for cost reasons for later acute care, reduced worker's compensation, car insurance, homeowner's insurance, and other casualty liability insurance premium rates since they don't have to cover health care expenses, state and local public hospital funding, public employee health care funding, and reduced personal injury litigation costs associated with shifting payment obligations for medical expenses, could cut that $4 trillion to $3 trillion (about 25%). So, public expenditures for health care at all levels of government combined would increase by about 50% over current levels (some of which would be covered by eliminating tax exclusions, tax deductions and credits for health care under existing tax law) while largely eliminating household level and business level health care expenses, ending medical expense driven bankruptcies and collect litigation costs, and lower other household and business insurance premiums, and covering all 27 million of the uninsured. Tax bills for households and businesses would go up, but a lot of wasted time in households and businesses dealing with health insurance and medical bill related issues would disappear.
What is another big thing we can do to address that?
Legalize "recreational" drugs in a highly regulated and controlled manner similar to Colorado's marijuana legalization to reduce harm, while providing strong support for substance abuse treatment including drug based therapies and inpatient treatment funded with Medicaid for All resources. This would dramatically reduce the overdose epidemic, and would improve recovery rates for alcoholics and drug addicts, something that takes a particular toll on the poor and working class. This would also dramatically reduce gang crime and organized crime and would cripple cartels, and would reduce crime by addicts and would reduce incarceration costs associated with controlled substance users and jail deaths from drug withdrawal. The reduced demand would also dramatically reduce crime abroad from Columbia to Mexico, which would reduce the flow of refugees and migrants to the U.S. and would reduce corruption in the affected governments.
What is a third big thing we can do to address that?
Double the number of medical student slots for educating physicians by expanding medical school capacity and building new medical schools. We shouldn't have the same number of MD education slots as we did fifty years ago, with twice the population, and there is no shortage of highly qualified premed graduates to fill those slots. Limited supply also drives ups provider costs. Ending student loans for medical students and Medicaid for All ending bad debt issues and administrative costs for self-employed doctors and lowering malpractice insurance coverage due to not having to pay for malpractice related medical bill compensation would also allow reduced MD charges without undue hardship for MDs.
Higher Education
It is very expensive to go to college and many people leave college with large student loans that can't be discharged in bankruptcy. Many kids who are ready for college don't go, but many kids who aren't ready for college go at great expense in public funds and for themselves. What is the single biggest thing we can do to address that?
Provide 100% grant based funding for tuition, room, board, and books to students pursuing higher education whose grades and test scores and other factors show that they have at least a 50% chance of completing the higher educational program that they are enrolled in. Do not fund higher education for people who have a low chance of completing the higher educational program that they are enrolled in. End government sponsored or guaranteed student loans. This would much better utilize our nation's supply of academically competent students while reducing dropouts and failures by people who aren't currently ready for college at great expense and undermining personal self-worth. The status quo of indiscriminate state subsidies to in state students and very low admission thresholds that insure that huge percentages of students admitted at public and for profit colleges drop out without degrees is wasteful while still excluding poor and working class students at high levels from the system. Some of the political alienation towards higher education also comes from people who tried and had bad experiences since they weren't ready and dropped out and from people who were shut out of the system when they were prepared and take a sour grapes attitude towards it.
What is another thing we can do to address that?
Improve apprenticeship systems and vocational education programs, both for high school aged students whose academic performance indicates that traditional liberal education programs in a four year program don't make sense for them, and through community colleges. Adopt occupational specialty identification and training approaches used by the U.S. military for enlisted recruits for civilians. This would provide a path to missing middle occupations and recognize that not going to college doesn't have to mean that there is no path to the American dream.
What is a third big thing we can do to address that?
Forgive all existing federally guaranteed or federally provided student loans, and end the prohibition on discharging student loans in bankruptcy for all other student loans ten years after the repayment period begins if a degree is earned and professional certification is obtained in a pre-professional program, and after five years in all other cases. This would provide intergenerational justice to struggling Millenials and Gen Xers and Gen Z. These students could then better afford the American dream and could better afford to get married and have kids.
Poverty
Lots of people, especially children and single parents, but also many older adults with little education or skills, are poor and struggling. What is the single biggest thing we can do to address that?
Make the large, per child tax credit, that was available during the pandemic, permanent, and replace the complicated and audit prone earned income tax credit with a simple income tax credit equal to Social Security taxes (for both employers and employees) up to the minimum wage times thirty hours a week (or an equivalent amount of credit against self-employment taxes - reflected in not having those taxes withheld. The usefulness of the child tax credit in reducing child poverty in a simple way was demonstrated in the pandemic, and the EITC is far too complicated and has bad incentives for people trying to climb out of low income jobs and is too expensive to administer. This would make it more affordable for Millennials and Gen Z to marry, have kids, and achieve the American Dream.
What is another big thing that we can do to address that?
Reduce the regular Social Security retirement age to 55 years to people who do not have college degrees, without a reduction in benefits, and pay for any shortfalls in social security from existing obligations or new coverage, by increasing the payroll tax cap by however much is necessary to pay for it. Consider this payback for not imposing higher education costs on the public, and well as a rough justice categorical recognition that jobs that require less education are frequently more physically demanding and harder to continue to perform in late middle age. This would particularly help the Trump demographic. Many people in this demographic are already voting with their feet by leaving the work force and often applying for disability benefits which wouldn't be necessary with this categorical benefit that is much cheaper to administer and has better incentives.
What is a third big thing we can do to address that?
Provide paid maternity leave, at public expense, from six months of pregnancy to fifteen months after birth, as a short form, temporary, Social Security disability benefit. Add an additional six months to this time period for twins. Pay for this as well with an increased payroll tax cap. This greatly reduces the need for infant daycare, and increase the health of mothers and babies especially for working class families without unduly burdening employers. The pandemic proved that not being at work in late pregnancy out of economic necessity increases maternal and infant health. This would make it more affordable for Millennials and Gen Z to marry, have kids, and achieve the American Dream.
Transportation
Internal combustion engines are polluting and make up dependent upon oil. What is the single biggest thing we can do to address that?
Reduce trade barriers to importing foreign EVs and batteries, and subsidize high speed charging networks. There are lots of good EVs out there that aren't being exported to the U.S. due to trade barriers, especially from China. EVs reduce pollution and reduce fossil fuel dependency with petroleum dependency creating national security issues.
What is the second biggest thing we can do to address that?
Build dedicated high speed rail in interstate highway corridors where there is high traffic volume on medium distance routes (and upgrade medium speed rail corridors that already exist like the one in the Northeast Corridor), and use that high speed rail not only for passengers but for mail and package delivery by the USPS. Pay for this, in part, by shutting down low speed AMTRAK routes with the heaviest subsidies per passenger-mile. This could reduce pressure to expand highways, is environmentally sound, reduces highway maintenance costs, and provides mutual support between the rail system and the postal system. It would improve speed on these routes relative to both cars and to commercial flights. But it only makes sense where it makes some sort of economic sense based upon cost and demand. Medium distance, high volume routes are the sweet spot for high speed rail. Reducing petroleum dependency in addition to being environmentally and climate sound would increase national security and economic stability by reducing exposure to global oil production shocks.
What is a third big thing we can do to address that?
Convert short haul government fleet vehicles like garbage trucks, intracity and school buses, and urban postal delivery vehicles to EVs. This is a perfect niche for EVs even before charging networks are built out, reducing pollution and reducing oil demand with the benefits described above.
TL;DR Townhouses and duplexes are probably not much more or less dangerous than single family homes, and on balance are probably a little safer from structure fire risks.
A friend on Facebook, in reaction to the meme above, expressed concern that townhouses and duplexes might be more vulnerable to threats like fire and insect infestations (relative to single family homes) or unlawful entry via the attic, and that even if current building codes address these concerns, that codes are not widely complied with to alleviate this risk. My own home which is half of a duplex, does not have a firewall that extends to the attic and has a shared open attic space (it was built in 1925, long before current fire and building codes were in place).
While this is a facially plausible possibility, I am skeptical of all of these points.
Structure fires were way down in the U.S. from 1977 to 2021, which suggests that more stringent building and fire codes are having the desired effect of reducing the risk of home structure fires:
Structure fire statistics are lumped by 1-2 unit homes v. "apartments" which seem to include everything from structures with three or more townhouses to high rise apartments, so the distinction between single family homes and duplexes is hard to evaluate:
Another fire statistic publication provides raw data in chart form, and reveals that there are slightly fewer deaths per fire in duplexes than there are in single family homes, despite the fact that duplexes have more residents, on average, than single family homes:
The structure fire statistics aren't provided as rates relative to the percentage of housing stock of each time in residential units, although another source sheds some insight into the existing mix. If the chart below is right, there are about 1/3rd as many townhouses and duplexes as there are single family homes (or less), but the number of fires in duplexes is about 11th of the number of single family homes (with considerable uncertainty because the distinction between single family homes and duplexes isn't made in about half of the data).
There are about 32% as many apartment fires as there are single family home fires, but it is unclear from the illustration above where the percentage of housing stock that counts as apartments rather than 1-2 unit residences fits between 10%/62% (for 20+ unit apartments) and 32%/62% (for all attached residences except single family homes), so somewhere between 1/6th and 1/2. The 5% of the housing stock that is not elsewhere classified probably fits into the other categories of residential structure fires in the fire statistics. The statistics aren't inconsistent with the likelihood of a fire being roughly the same for apartments as for 1-2 unit residences, but don't definitively establish this point either and could err in either direction.
Apartment fires are much less deadly per fire than single family home and duplex fires, despite having far more residents per fire, on average, in a distinction that has arisen since 1980, probably due to more strict building codes for apartments built since then:
The statistics above don't completely and finally resolve the issue, although they do seem to suggest that duplexes and townhouses at a minimum, aren't materially less safe than single family detached homes. The homeowner's insurance bill for my duplex is not very much different than for a comparable single family home, which suggests that there isn't much of a difference in risk.
Also, modern townhouses and duplexes do require a firewall between each unit, in a building and fire code requirement that I suspect is followed in a very high share of all new builds, although though my friend is more skeptical about code compliance (and I would agree that code compliance is patchy in smaller scale renovation work).
Note also that these trends exist despite the fact that apartment dwellers tend to be younger and less affluent than duplex and townhouse dwellers, who in turn tend to be younger and less affluent than single family home dwellers, on average, and one would generally expect, a priori, that younger and less affluent residents would be more likely to do things that would cause fires (although younger people are less likely to smoke and are probably more likely to live in more recently built housing).
Shared walls (and ceiling/floors in apartments) also have benefits. Most notably, they increase HVAC efficiency.
I agree with all three libertarian approaches to helping workers: relaxing immigration laws, ending exclusionary zoning laws, and relaxing unnecessary occupational licensing requirements. These aren't sufficient, but they are all steps in the right direction.
Today is Labor Day. As usual, there is much discussion of what can be done to help workers. But few focus on the one type of reform that is likely to help more poor and disadvantaged workers than virtually anything else: increasing labor mobility. In the United States and around the world, far too many workers are trapped in places where it is difficult or impossible for them to ever escape poverty. They could vastly improve their lot if allowed to "vote with their feet" by moving to locations where there are better job opportunities. That would also be an enormous boon to the rest of society.
Globally, the recommendation is to make immigration easier by relaxing immigration restrictions, which benefits not just the immigrants but the countries receiving them. The author explains that:
Economists estimate that eliminating legal barriers to migration throughout the world would roughly double world GDP—in other words, making the world twice as productive as it is now. A person who has the misfortune of being born in Cuba or Venezuela, Zimbabwe or Afghanistan, is likely condemned to lifelong poverty, no matter how talented or hardworking he or she may be. If they are allowed to move to a freer society with better economic institutions, they can almost immediately double or triple their income and productivity. And that doesn't consider the possibility of improving job skills, which is also likely to be more feasible in their new home than in their country of origin.
They aren't prayers, because there is no one to pray to and prayers don't work.
They are just select, somewhat realistic, wishes or dreams, and I have little ability to do much to make them happen or not.
U.S. Politics
* Harris wins the Presidential election.
* Democrats win the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.
* Democrats hold CO-8 and win CO-3 and maybe even CO-5.
* The filibuster is abolished in the U.S. Senate.
* The U.S. Supreme Court is expanded to 13-15 seats, allowing Harris to appoint 5-7 new liberal justices.
* D.C. gains statehood status.
* Trump is sentenced to and serves several years in prison on his current charges of conviction, is not released pending appeal, and is ultimately convicted of at least some charges in the three other criminal cases that were brought against him with the classified documents case dismissal reversed on appeal.
* Justice Thomas is punished for corruption.
* Abortion bans fall one by one, state by state.
* The MAGA movement collapses.
U.S. Culture And Daily Life
* Christianity continues to decline in the U.S. in favor of secular worldviews.
* The percentage of people who own guns falls.
* Crime rates continue to fall.
* Police become less likely to use excessive force and less likely to act inappropriate when accountability measures and training are improved.
* Life expectancies and general health improves with new medical advances and better public health measures.
* Southern and country culture, and cultures of honor ebb and wane.
U.S. Economics
* Electric vehicles increase their market share.
* Coal consumption continues to plummet.
* Petroleum consumption plummets.
* Fossil fuel dependent economies like Wyoming, Alaska, and Texas see huge, long term stagnation similar to what was seen in the Rust Belt.
* The U.S. becomes more urbanized.
* Anti-fraud enforcement becomes more successful.
* Lawns and grass landscaping become more rare in the arid West.
* Land use regulations are relaxed.
* Unnecessary occupational regulation is relaxed.
* Immigration remains substantial and undocumented immigrants are largely legalized.
* Copyright laws and other intellectual property laws are weakened.
International Affairs
* Ukraine wins its war with Russia.
* Putin dies or is removed from office.
* The Houthis are defeated in Yemen.
* Hezbollah is defeated in Lebanon.
* Iran's efforts to make war with Israel prove futile.
* North Korea and Russia cease to be able to support their large military forces and greatly reduce them.
* Countries with fossil fuel economies like Russia, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia see long term stagnation as fossil fuels become less important in their economies, and this undermines their authoritarian leaning regimes.
This is the biggest apartment building in the world.
The colossal Regent International apartment building in Hangzhou, China, is is the largest residential building globally and hosts over 20,000 residents! Initially designed as a hotel, this 36-story architectural marvel was transformed into a self-sufficient community, boasting high-end residential apartments, a vast food court, swimming pools, salons, supermarkets, and more.
Designed by Alicia Loo, the chief architect behind the world's second seven-star hotel, the Singapore Sands Hotel, this S-shaped giant stands 206 meters tall. He has dominated Hangzhou's central business district since its inauguration in 2013.
Home to a diverse community, from young professionals to influencers and small businesses, the Regent International building spans over 260,000 square meters, reshaping the skyline and redefining urban living in China.
Rent ranges from about $200 a month for an interior windowless apartment to $550 a month for apartments with a balcony.
I posted this meme on Facebook and a friend of mine left the comment: "To me it is a symbol of the overpopulation that is killing the planet."
I responded (with minor editing for a blog format):
It shouldn't be.
First of all, global population is nearing a peak and leveling off - the places that are still seeing surging population, especially sub-Saharan African and Afghanistan, have profoundly lower population density.
China, in particular, has plummeting fertility rates and is far below the replacement level. It is at 1.4 billion people now, but actually lost population in the last year or two and will continue to. China has a fertility rate about half of the replacement rate, so its population will probably fall by close to 400 million people in thirty years and that's at current rates which are still plummeting.
High density urban environments have the lowest total fertility rate.
Second, the environmental impact of people in extremely high density environments is much lower per person than if they are spread out - they use less heating/cooling energy (especially in multifamily housing like this since there is less surface area to lose/gain heat per capita due to shared walls, and shared ceiling-floors), produce far less global warming air pollution, use much less transportation energy, build fewer cars per capita, use less water, destroy less land/sensitive animal habits than lower density development, etc.
I'm sure it has lots of elevators, which are one of the single most energy efficient means of transportation other than bicycles, almost all power used to go up is recovered going down. And, people in densely populated areas can also use more efficient intercity transportation - this part of China has high speed electric rail that is faster and has less environmental impact than intercity transportation by cars or airplanes for short to medium distance intercity trips (admittedly China's electrical grid has way too much dirty coal, but that isn't an urban density related issue).
Manhattan, for example, has better energy efficiency and overall less waste production and pollution per capita than any other place in the U.S.
There is also an iron rule in economics that the bigger and more dense a city is the greater its per capita GDP in a very systemic, cross-cultural, cross-time period way. It is a power law relationship, so more dense urban areas are exponentially more productive per capita with no upper limit observed to date. So dense cities also greatly reduce environmental impact per $1 of GDP by both being more productive and less polluting per capita.
More density means a smaller human footprint on the Earth. Put 20,000 people in suburban tract homes and you'd eat up 3+ square miles of land instead of one city block of maybe 1% of a square mile (6.4 acres), so that's a 99% reduction in habit destruction that can be left for open space, parks, and farming.
Sure, the 6.4 acres for this high rise produces way more waste, energy consumption, and water consumption than my urban residential neighborhood would with 180 or so people in the same area of land, rather than 20,000 people, and far more than a suburban neighborhood with maybe 20 people in that land area, or an exurban neighborhood with 4 people in a mini-mansion on a single 6.4 acre lot. But per capita, it is much, much better for the planet.
Several laws passed in previous years will also go into full effect Monday, including a measure approved in 2021 that allows Colorado consumers to opt out of having their personal data sold or used to generate targeted advertising.
Another bill passed in 2021, which banned single-use plastic bags at checkout lines at the start of this year, has another provision taking effect Monday that will allow local governments to enact even stricter plastic bag limits.
Here are six other new laws set to go into effect:
Occupancy limits . . .
House Bill 1007 prohibits local governments from limiting how many unrelated adults can live together in an apartment or housing unit. For college towns like Boulder or Fort Collins, that means cities generally can’t cap how many roommates can live together, except for health and safety reasons. Roughly two dozen Colorado cities and towns had occupancy limits, though only a few — including Fort Collins — actively enforced them. . . .
Sexual assault cases . . .
House Bill 1072. . . . It blocks defendants and defense attorneys from using what a sexual assault victim was wearing as evidence of consent in court. The new law also tightly limits how the victim’s previous sexual history, including with the defendant, can be used in court. . . .
Limit on poison
Sodium nitrite is a preservative used often used in curing meats. But in higher concentrations, it can be fatal when ingested by people, and it’s increasingly been used in suicides here and elsewhere in the United States. That’s made easier by the availability of the higher-potency substance for purchase online or in sporting good stores. Starting Monday under House Bill 1081, those higher potencies will no longer be available in Colorado except for approved commercial purposes. . . .
Fewer guns in sensitive spaces
One of several gun-reform bills passed this year, Senate Bill 131, prohibits the open or concealed carrying of firearms in public or private schools, on university and college campuses, and in child care centers. The new prohibition also covers certain government buildings and the state Capitol. . . . The bill . . . does allow local governments to opt out of its provisions. The Douglas County Board of Commissioners did so in May.
Elections protections . . .
House Bill 1147, requires political ads and messaging to prominently disclose when they include a “deepfake,” meaning an artificially generated picture, video or voice that replicates a real person. . . .
House Bill 1150, extends existing criminal penalties and fines to people who participate in attempts to organize false slates of presidential electors. Essentially, that means anyone who attempts what a group of lawyers and officials tried in 2020 in support of then-President Donald Trump will face specific criminal liability in Colorado. . . . Colorado’s new law takes existing crimes like perjury or forgery and expands them to include a person seeking to participate in a false elector scheme.
Manufacturing large modules for a building off-site and then assembling them in a couple of days on site has all sorts of benefits over on site stick built construction. And, this is one area where China is far ahead of the United States in technology and economic organization.
U.S. construction firms, to a great extent, operates like pre-industrial craft shops in the manufacturing industry, that never updated themselves to the modern, maximally automized and optimized factory production model.
Manufacturing large modules for a building off-site in construction projects is significantly cheaper than getting the same work done on site.
The number of workers required is significantly lower without the hurry up and wait of traditional construction projects. You can spread the work over the entire years rather than being limited by weather to the building season, which provides more stable employment with a steady paycheck and regular hours. Workers at a factory can live close to a factory whose location never changes that can be transit accessible, and workers who drive to work can use designated factory employee parker that doesn't disrupt the neighborhood where they are working. Factory workers can use real bathrooms with running water and sinks, instead of porta-potties and sometimes hand sanitizer, and can enjoy pleasant break rooms with refrigerators and microwaves and nice coffee machines and TVs, or go to familiar neighborhood restaurants to have lunch.
In contrast, in the status quo, most construction work is seasonal, workers work unpredictable long hours when conditions are good and have unpredictable unpaid interruptions due to weather and other onsite project delays associated with sequencing tasks in the complex PERT chart that face all sorts of random interuptions, and workers have to drive to different construction sites on a daily or weekly basis all over the region where their construction firm operates.
On site workers swamp the neighborhood's publicly available parking on and off for weeks, have to use grotty temporary toilets, often can't wash up with running water, constantly contend with dust, mud, dew, frost, wind, chills, heat, pre-existing electrical and gas lines, darkness, glare, and construction debris at sites whose configurations constantly change even during the course of a single construction project.
For example, many of my Colorado relatives on my father's side, are dry land farmers on the Eastern Plains which occupies them during planting and harvesting season, and then migrate to Front Range cities and mountain towns for construction work much of the rest of the year to make ends meet. not that I'll ever really get why they sink so much multifaceted skill and expensive land, water rights, and equipment into something so uncertain due to fires, droughts, hail, etc. and so unprofitable in all but the best of years.
When you construct a building on site, you need to negotiate new combinations of subcontractors on a project by project basis and have only limited control over how those subcontractors do their jobs, which adds a great deal of administrative and management expense, while impairing quality control, uniform safety rules, and efficiency. In a factory, in contrast, you don't have to renegotiate the organizational structure of the factory for each new project.
Since everyone in a factory is an employee you can impose stricter quality control and safety rules and use workers more efficiently. It is easier to get workers in a factory who smoke to do so in designated areas that spare fellow workers secondary smoke and prevents fire risks, than it is to enforce that at an on site construction project.
In onsite construction, construction workers are notorious for showing up late or not at all. This isn't simply a matter of construction workers being worse people than other employees.
An office or factory worker can follow a routine and let habits take over, and when they arrive, what they need to start working will generally naturally and almost automatically be in place be virtue of the structure of the workplace which doesn't change much. And, office and factory workers aren't exposed to the same risks of occupational injuries and illnesses (and the away from work time necessary to treat them), that on site construction workers are on a daily basis.
In contrast, construction workers have to have the bandwidth every day to keep up with a constant barrage of changing schedules at different places with unfamiliar transportation times to get there due to traffic and construction and have to keep track of all the tools, equipment, safety gear and supplies that they need for each particular job. Often, at least somebody has been hurt or get sick from events at some previous job (often different jobs for different workers). And, those construction workers aren't conditioned to the expectation that everything will be on time, because often it isn't and they don't feel the obligation to hold themselves to higher standards. The delays that foster disrespect for exact work times flow, in part, from the fact that project managers need to make sure that everything the workers need before they can do their job from permits, to prior steps in the construction process, to construction waste dumpsters, to portable toilets, to heavy equipment, to parking spaces for worker vehicles, to partial road closures is in place before those workers show up in a process that has to be repeated from scratch with every new job and has numerous potential chokepoints that can stop everything, even before considering weather conditions and supply chain issues that add additional layers of unpredictability to the process.
When you hire general contractors and subcontractors to do on site construction, the workers generally have to pay force and finance their own equipment and tools, sometimes financing it with their own subpar credit or cutting corners on what they buy because they can't afford the best equipment and tools for the job. And, the financing costs of those equipment and those tools, and a profit margin on those purchases, gets passed along to the general contractor and the owner of the land buying the building. But, in a factory, the factory owners can buy the optimal equipment and tools with a much lower financing cost, and any profit margin is collected only once at the factory level rather than at the general contractor level and at each layer of subcontractors right on down to individual employees of subcontractors who supply their own tools and equipment and safety gear.
The predictability of the in-factory part of the construction process also makes it easier to manage the cost and timing involved in procuring the necessary construction materials. Less uncertainty about when you will need construction materials, which is subject to constant rushes and delays in on site construction, means you don't need as much warehouse and construction yard space. But you also have fewer surprises about what you will need when, which allows you to shop for deals better and allows you to avoid paying premium prices when supplies are in the highest demand at particular points in the construction season that the weather allows.
Workplace injuries are an order of magnitude lower and tend to be less serious. The work environment can be better controlled, can be monitored and improved upon over time as the same space is used for one project after another. The work is done in a temperature controlled setting that is dry and has good lighting, where everything is in a familiar place that you don't have to relearn with each new project. The factory is free of the dust, mud, frost, dew, bugs, wind, excessive heat, cold, construction debris, and pre-existing natural gas and electrical lines that are ubiquitous in on site construction. Random strangers and neighbors are much less likely to wander into a factory than a construction site. Only absolutely necessary final assembly work takes place at great heights, or in windy or wet or dark or high glare conditions.
The amount of building material waste is an order of magnitude lower and you can be smarter and more efficient about what you do about the waste that you do generate. For example, it is much easier to pre-sort construction waste into five different kinds of materials each with different recycling options that don't have to be landfilled at a factory than it is to do that on site. And, the temptation to throw out, useable bits of leftover lumber or screws or paint from one job rather than trying to save it and reuse it on another project is much smaller in a factory setting. You can also power your tools and equipment with electricity from a greener, cheaper, and more efficient power grid at a factory, while you frequently have to resort to on site diesel generators in traditional on site construction projects.
The precision and quality control in the final building is greatly increased, which also makes the finished building better at withstanding storms and minor earthquakes which aggravate weaknesses caused by minor imperfections. Concrete components that can be made in the factory can be made in optimal temperature and moisture conditions that aren't dependent upon the whims of the weather which can impair their quality. The materials in the building also aren't exposed to weather that can cause them to be damaged or deteriorate for long periods of time from heat and cold cycles, warping from sun exposure, and moisture during the construction process.
You can use heavier machinery that is better for getting certain parts of the job done efficiently and well, rather than being limited to what a construction worker can carry. You can also build with heavier building components (e.g. large cast metal or wooden single beams with no subparts that provide weak points) rather than multiple smaller components fitted together on site like smaller girders or pieces of wood that are screwed or nailed together, even if larger building components are better from an engineering and architectural perspective, but aren't used because workers at a construction site can't easily carry them to the places where they need to go (e.g., in the interior of higher stories of multistory buildings).
You don't need to tie up expensive and scarce tall building cranes at the job site for long periods of time.
The disruption to people in the neighborhood where the building is going up is vastly less because there is so much less on site construction time. You still need to prepare the foundation and water main, sewer, and utility main hookups in advance which can't be done in just the flashy three stories a day of onsite construction of the building itself that is shown in the video. So it isn't quite as instant as it seems. But you are still talking a few weeks instead of a few months or couple of years of disruption to the neighborhood. And, when a stick built mid-rise building looks complete on the outside it is really only about 50% done, while a modular build like this is is more like a week or two away from being ready for occupants to move in since the interior finishes and electrical and mechanical work is mostly already in place.
The inspection and permitting process for the factory made components can be done on a predictable and routine basis in the factory, rather than making every inspection a scheduling chore and bottleneck in the process that has to be coordinated on a job by job basis that requires the inspector to climb all over half-finished buildings often many stories tall, on a construction site at critical points in the course of the project whose timing is hard to predict.
Some of the cost benefits just boil down to economies of scale. It is more efficient to add plumbing and electrical fixtures to a hundred bathrooms on an assembly line at a factory, to have twenty subcontractors add these fixtures to an average of five bathrooms each in two or three buildings each, in a work load often interspersed with a decent share of repair work in existing buildings. But the construction industry in most major metropolitan areas, where about 80% of the U.S. population and where an even larger share of new building construction takes place, is large enough to support building component factories large enough to benefit from these economies of scale.
Also, in the current site built construction paradigm, to get any kind of meaningful construction economies of scale at all, you have to build a lot of nearly identical buildings next to each other in Levittown style residential subdivisions or giant multi-building apartment complexes, or office parks, or industrial parks. But, in a factory build module system, most of the economies of scale happen at the factory, so you can get most the same construction efficiencies of scale by building thirty similar office buildings that are spread out over infill sites spread all over a metropolitan area, as you can from building all thirty office buildings right next to each other in a massive, single use office park. As it happens, that isn't how it is actually done in China, which builds massive apartment complex and office parks and rapidly builds whole new towns and cities from scratch on green fields several times a year. But it could be done that way in the U.S. where the pace of development, even in the fastest growing metropolitan areas, isn't nearly as frenetic, because the U.S. economy is more mature and has already done a lot of the economic development that it needs to do over many decades. The U.S. economy hasn't had the pace of rising demand for new construction that China is experience since the 1950s and 1960s.
The construction industry has been stubbornly unable to materially improve its productivity, cost structure, and quality for decades. It has one of the highest rates of workplace injury and death in the entire economy (neck and neck with farming, fishing, and mining). And construction defeats in the site built construction paradigm are routine, can be expensive to fix, and can lead to long, complicated, and expensive construction defeat litigation.
Greatly increasing the share of construction work that is done in factories could revolutionize the industry in a way that is cheaper, faster, safer, and far less prone to construction defects and the litigation and insurance costs that go with it. It would create a better situation for construction workers, would be more environmentally sound, and would dramatically reduce the impact that construction projects have on the neighborhoods where they a located.
Doing more construction work in factories wouldn't solve the affordable housing problem by itself. In places with soaring housing costs, rising land values are more of a problem than construction costs which are often only a minority of the total cost of housing and have been quite stable over time and between markets compared to land values. But, even if the construction module factories had a higher profit margin, they would still materially reduce the cost of building new housing which would help address the affordable housing problem.
