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wise_garden_hermit t1_j46p5gg wrote

Reply to comment by waninggib in Share your opinion about Fane Tower by quinntronix

Luxury buildings like this are a fishtank for rich people. They would live in Providence anyway. With this tower, they will be contained in one spot and not compete for lower tier housing.

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waninggib t1_j46pvad wrote

Assuming what you’re saying is rooted in actual data and fact and not just an overall wild assumption, how exactly is that progress for this city? What does having another place for rich people to live do to better the lives of everyone else?

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wise_garden_hermit t1_j46r9no wrote

> Assuming what you’re saying is rooted in actual data

Yes. As [1] plenty [2] of [3] research [4] shows [5]. In terms of data & research, this is uncontroversial.

> how exactly is that progress?

Small steps. We need more housing. This is housing, however imperfect. I would appreciate more housing, be it constructed by the government or private development, towers or duplexes, apartment buildings or townhomes, I don't really care. There is a housing crisis. Let the housing get built.

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waninggib t1_j46ttme wrote

None of the links you provided support your assertion that the rich people in the city will live here and no longer compete for housing with everyone else.

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wise_garden_hermit t1_j46uf4r wrote

Each of those links support the theory that market rate housing (what is usually termed luxury housing as a marketing ploy) leads to reductions in rent in the nearby neighborhood. The leading theory on why this empirical effect exists is that it increases slack in lower tiers of the housing market. Please, read the discussion section of these papers for further mention of this and other potential explanations. Or, better yet, search the literature yourself.

What is your theory of housing here? Do you think that this tower will attract people to Providence who otherwise would not have moved here? Where would wealthy people live otherwise?

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waninggib t1_j46uu1c wrote

I think this tower is not the answer to the housing crisis in Providence and I think it’s naive to believe it is. Luxury development is not the solution in any of the links you provided. We don’t need this, we need our tax dollars to be invested in making more affordable housing, not to support the desire for a private developer to gain more wealth and power.

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wise_garden_hermit t1_j46vq1x wrote

I also don't think it's the solution. But I do think its new housing. And new housing is a solution, as evidenced by the existing literature.

Do I like this tower? No. Does it provide something that the city, state, and region needs? Yes. Could affordable housing be better? Sure. But the choice is not between this tower and affordable housing. The choice is between this tower and nothing.

We have barely built any housing in decades. It's a crisis. We are losing our privilege to be picky about what does get build. Just build the damn tower. We can build affordable hosing too. Or more market rate housing. Just build something.

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Proof-Variation7005 t1_j48hn22 wrote

>I think this tower is not the answer to the housing crisis in Providence and I think it’s naive to believe it is

Nobody has ever or will ever claim it is. But there's no solution that can skip past the "build a shit ton of new housing fast" part of the equation.

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> We don’t need this, we need our tax dollars to be invested in making more affordable housing, not to support the desire for a private developer to gain more wealth and power.

Would your opinion on this be the same if there were zero tax dollars going towards it? Cause, boy, do I have a fucking newsflash for you

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