"Just build more" isn't the solution

Notes and a bullshit check from one city's housing crisis

Photo by Danist Soh on Unsplash

By Ben Stegbauer

For some reason, honestly beyond me, I have started going to City Council meetings here in Cincinnati. Perhaps I just love pomp and circumstance. In reality I started going because a group of people were trying to get the city to pass a ceasefire resolution for Palestine and I wanted to support. Those conversations and those public comment sections are absolutely maddening and offensive. Long story short, the city has refused over and over again. Admittedly, even the Palestinian organizers don’t hold all that much stake in it, but it is simply one thing to organize around among many. And a reason for different groups to get together.

But more so at these meetings I ended up finding a bit of a wild thing; see, one, there is something to the dedication of people that have been coming to the council meetings for years to try and get them to do something about the racism of the city. This comes through a variety of avenues. For one person it is mostly for reparations from the building of I-75 which displaced an entire majority-Black neighborhood in order to be built. Recently this man has been going back even further to the early 1800s when Irish immigrants coming to Cincinnati wanted jobs over the previously resided Black residents, so they convinced owners to only give jobs to Irish people. He has some interview/documentary he likes to play. The history goes deep and it goes dark quick, and this man impressively knows it all and wants the seven council members, plus Mayor and Vice-Mayor, to at least recognize it. An honorable task. 

Soon it became clear that the Cincinnati council was looking to pass new housing legislation. Or rather to be more specific, new zoning legislation. Apparently it is a popular thing around the country as of now, and situates itself as a response to the “housing crisis.” Cincinnati’s plan, “Connected Communities,” is among the ilk of other plans by cities such as Minneapolis, Charleston, and soon to be Seattle. Many others are probably in differing talks about it too, so be on the lookout. 

But basically, the plan designates business areas throughout the city, and then the transit lines, and it wants to “upzone” those specific areas. From what I know people call it “upzoning” because buildings would be allowed to be one story taller, parking lot restrictions would cease to exist, and there would be basically no units-per-building rules. What that looks like is buildings without parking options, no zoning for family residences, and a lot more studio apartments packed into taller buildings. It follows the formula that “in order to stabilize housing prices we need to build more housing.” They show some bar graphs to display that in cities that do this, their housing prices stabilize. Then they wipe the dust off their hands, say ‘job well done,’ and wait for the yes votes to roll in. All of the developers and real estate organizations that came to speak and say how much they love the plan start popping champagne in the foyer and voilà. Another job well done fixing the city. After all, this is what local government is for.  

Photo by Louise Viallesoubranne on Unsplash. Imagine these are all the happy developers who just fixed Cincinnati!

Now, toward the end there, of course I started to get a little facetious. I started to exaggerate. Mostly all of what I just said is true. They take the very basic premise of the market and say that if we want rent and house prices to stabilize (notice they don’t say go down) we simply need more supply to keep up with the growing demand. Oh yeah, see that is what they kept on mentioning. See, Cincinnati’s population is growing. For the first time since the 1950s even. So yeah, of course we need more housing. Build it and they will come, or whatever they say in the Midwest.

Now, is this giant assumption of market findings correct? Possibly partly? But we have some leftists in the room and I am sure some of you are already running to Google to see how many vacant units there are in Cincinnati. The answer is about 20,000. So is that enough? Well, Cincinnati has a homeless population of about 6,500 currently, and a more significant housing insecure population. But now, this is all assuming that people are just numbers. So advocates say the answer probably lies in the middle somewhere. Like, yeah, we maybe need to build a bit more housing, and simultaneously invest in fixing up some of those vacant units that are not currently livable. But mostly, we need to build more housing where people will want to live. 

Let’s take a second break though. We have already reached a divide. Are both sides talking the same language? What is housing even for? Be careful asking such dangerous questions at a city council meeting. Is housing for the growing population? Is housing to secure stable housing for Cincinnatians that cannot afford their rent? Of course, the council would say both. But what we are seeing here is also something deeper. It is not an assumption but it is a value question: Should housing be left up to the market? And if it is, who is this housing really for?

It seems to me the answer depends on one thing and one thing only. Whether or not you think the market must be the solution? It was wild hearing some of these council members, especially those ardently pro-Connected Communities speak. “This is just simple economics!” “This is great policy!” But is it? So other council members stepped in (three to be exact). “Hold on! Hold on!” they said. “We gotta add some provision in here about affordable housing.” They cited the fact that Minneapolis, after passing their Minneapolis 2040 plan, had to go back and add an affordable housing provision. One of the council members wanting this addition said “this plan is good, but why can’t we make it great…” he later added “I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing I didn’t stand up for people.” Admirable for sure, for sure. But still, there are nine total votes. So three dissenters mean nothing. The victory lap commenced. 

Photo by Anastasiya Badun on Unsplash. Big thumbs up all around! Housing problem solved!

Reporters started to point out that no housing development that has passed through this council has passed without an affordable housing addition, so when council members say “we should just handle that on a case by case basis,” perhaps they were telling the truth. Other reporters brought up that affordable housing additions usually don’t work, because then developers will simply go to other cities to build where it would be more profitable. Hmmmm, profitable. We should note that. And that is something that a developer stood up and told them during a meeting, and one who self-identifies as someone who wants to build affordable housing. Wow, he must be telling the truth. Why would he lie, after all? 

But let’s take a step back. See, there is a more interesting history going on there. One council member and many thirty-something millennials celebrated this plan because it was distancing the city from zoning practices, like redlining and single-family zoning that served racist purposes. This should be celebrated after all. Out with the archaic. These millennials then loved to talk about how they want their kids to have more neighbors (remember the population is growing). So Cincinnati is finally facing its racist history. Shouldn’t that aforementioned man be happy? Well, he wasn’t. He spoke at this meeting. And he slammed his hand into the table. Called the piece of legislation yet another instance of the city choosing profits over Black neighborhoods, and citing that these kinds of developments would cause nothing but displacement for his community. So the council was still racist. Right after he slammed down his hand and gave one last yell about the ceaselessly pervasive racism, the next two people up were a pair of real estate investor representatives. They had great things to say about the plan. When I gasped and let out a cackle about the grave absurdity in the scene, the section of people around me gave me glances.  

Fair enough. Although you take a couple more looks deeper and it gets even muddier. So in Cincinnati, the population is rising? Well yes, but actually the two demographics rising are white people and Latinos. Other racial demographics are still experiencing population declines (most noticeably the Black population. Asian Cincinnatians are growing too, but staying at nearly the same percentage). The guesses at the reason for increases are the dual reality of growing immigration from down south, and that there are more white collar jobs for college grads or such, and that is making Cincinnati an attractive option. After all it is still less expensive than say a Chicago or Denver who also gets lots of those same types of jobs and people. So when we talk about building housing for the new population, that is who we are talking about. When we talk about the need to remove single-family zoning and redlining, should we question that the impetus was to make more room for the white people moving in, who will pay more property taxes to the city? Perhaps any impetus is good impetus? Of course it's also slightly bullshit to just simply talk about removing legislation and nothing about reparations. Actually that’s all it is, bullshit. 

So it feels like a giant catch-22. To develop or not to develop? To displace or not to displace? See, the council did a brilliant maneuver. They did just enough engagement to rile up the old white people that were so so afraid of “affordable housing” moving into their neighborhood, even though no actual affordable housing is part of the plan, that they were able to pit this entire thing as a battle between NIMBYs (Not-in-my-backyard) and progressives that want “more” for Cincinnati (they sometimes call themselves YIMBYs, yes-in-my-backyard). Truly brilliant PR in the end. It worked wonderfully. Except for a couple of leftists that spoke, noticeably mostly from or related to the Homeless Coalition of Cincinnati. They put on a teach-in the week before. Two of the council members voting no attended that teach-in. So what do they have to say? Well, that it is simply housing deregulation to simply erase all zoning laws and give all the decision-making power into the hands of the developers. It is for profits, not for housing. 

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

This upzoning thing though. When I was doing more and more research it really started to feel like one of those topics that housing advocates would write books about in five or ten years, as yet another round of disastrous displacement. That it in the end fueled the housing crisis under the guise of stability. But who knows… maybe it could all work. I say that just so I can go on record. If it works, you know. If the oppressed people of Cincinnati begin to experience a resurgence of affordable housing (and by that I mean truly affordable… at 30% Area Median Income) then I will go back to the Cincinnati City Council and shake every single one of those council members' hands and buy them some delicious pastry of their choosing. Including the Mayor who loves the plan. Aftab Purveal, you have a big ole danish with your name on it if this ends up working! Good for you!

Photo by Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu on Unsplash. Make sure we have enough danishes for this victory lap!

So in the end I learned a lot, you know. The platitudes you read online are all true in the end. And it’s all maddening. And by “it’s” I mean the Democrats’ (every single council member is a Democrat) inability to do three interrelated things: 1.) view life outside of the market, 2.) actually respond to crises with effective rule, and most importantly, 3.) not throw a temper tantrum when they are criticized. I hope the first point is clear throughout this. By the second point I mean that they insisted on viewing the housing crisis as actually a very simple problem. A simple problem of supply and demand. A council member did in fact say, “wow supply and demand, the problem is just simple economics.” Maybe it is simple? Maybe it is? But we live in Ohio. Our housing insurance market is about to crash, because of climate change-induced natural disasters. In the Midwest, the most damage is caused by stormwater. All in all, when temperatures get hotter the air carries more moisture and there are more rain dumps that overwork the sewer systems in cities like Cincinnati that have outdated combined sewer systems (as does both Columbus and Cleveland). Sewage back-ups into people’s basements is getting more and more common, and they are costly and dangerous. How will the council respond to this aspect of the housing crisis? 

At community meetings people said, “I rent out part of my house and I can’t afford to rent it at an affordable price anymore because insurance costs are surging. I don’t want to raise the rent of this person I’ve known for twenty years, but I have no choice.” How does the market respond to this? Well of course it doesn’t…it just leads to people with the capital to afford rising insurance costs to be the ones to afford to own buildings. And these people have no qualms raising rents. How will the council respond to known rental price gouging? The FBI just gutted an Atlantan company for doing this? How will they make sure this doesn’t happen with any of the big name developers that will want to build in Cincinnati? I am sure there are better people to give better analysis on what exact combination of factors are driving the housing crisis. Some combination of low supply, rising insurance costs, price gouging, empty units, and a larger wealth gap that simply leaves behind people who cannot afford to pay two-thirds of their paycheck on rent. But I did realize one thing in going to these meetings and reading the articles that the council members wrote in support…they definitely aren’t those experts either. 

I’m harping too much on a couple of people. After all, it is this lack of imagination, this absolutely one-sided relationship with the market that just rips people from any ability to dream. And thus it makes these proud liberals completely unable to respond to crisis. Of course we all saw this with Covid. With the crisis of police murder. The ecological crisis. The housing crisis over and over. The migrant crisis. Yeah, we see it over and over again. I think perhaps there was something about this whole scene of these Democratic Council Members trying to get ahead of the curve by playing the same game they have been playing for fifty years. In fact, playing the same game as the Republicans and the Conservatives. That was so wild to me. At every level they really are the same. At every single level. But they are also the same proactively. They are the same in their imagination. In their worldview. It is not just the concept of “well it would be nice if we could do that, but we are in a crisis right now and we gotta save the banks.” These council members took two years to carefully craft policy. And this is all they could come up with? Really? Huh… I really had been giving them too much credit from the beginning. I wonder if from the first meeting they actually barred a handful of words. And by a handful of words I mean two. Public and housing. 

Now the fairest question to be asked throughout all of this is a simple one: “Why would you have faith in any of these people at all?” Well, I didn’t per se, but perhaps I also did. I had some faith that when confronted with people in pain they would respond with a little more than “I’ve already done enough for you.” Maybe I thought they would respond with at least a little more heart. So yeah, maybe I did give them too much faith. I mean it has always been clear that the act of policy making and the act of helping people are nearly mutually exclusive. Or at least, they just aren’t seen to be related at all by policy makers. So I don’t know. 

My last comment will be twofold. One, there are much better articles out there about upzoning. Some of them are linked above. Some of them are linked in the articles linked above. The other is that I did find it to be slightly helpful to be at these meetings. Yes they were maddening to maybe a dangerous degree, but it felt helpful. It felt slightly better to not just see these developments beginning to be built. I’d recommend going to a council meeting or two, staying slightly in the know of what is going on in your local community. As leftists should we expect anything out of our governments? No, not at all. But you can also put it on record that they are psychopaths that know exactly what they are doing, if that’s something you are interested in.