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Duane McMullen's avatar

Korea, a housing market I have some familiarity with, has something like the land readjustment model described for Japan.

In Korea, the formation of a community organization to readjust the land tends to be a catalyst for the adjustment to happen. It only takes a few YIMBYs to create the community organization in the first place. Then, it hits the news that the organization exists. Prices in the reorganization area go up as people who want in on the reorganization buy from the (smaller) number of people who decide they aren't interested and sell out.

The large ecosystem of people (real estate firms, design firms, financial institutions, law firms, first time home buyers who want to lock in a place for when they are 'ready', etc) who benefit from reorganization create momentum for a reorganization to be negotiated and then happen.

Often the people that started the community organization get democtratically overthrown by a new coalition of owners in the community, often from the influx of new owners who came in when the news of the community organization broke. This can happen several times through the process if enough owners become unhappy with the process, each election being vibrantly contested.

Normally, the community ends up wanting something more ambitious than is compatible with some overall city plan and the City bureaucracy intervenes to dial back the ambition of the community organization - though too much of that has costs for local politicians at the next municipal election.

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George's avatar

I think this is an extremely alarming article, because the LAST thing we want as a country is to go down the path of Japan, China, and other Asian countries with extremely dense housing and CATASTROPHIC, CIVILIZATION-ENDING BIRTH RATES:

https://x.com/MoreBirths/status/1833662042839949402

Whatever zoning law ends up with huge skyscraper condos where we cram couples who decide to have, at most, 1 child, we need to fight against it tooth and nail. The evidence is overwhelming that a handful of spread out houses are the only path toward a pro-natal future.

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