There are more households now, there are some stats in this thread. There are also fewer houses, apparently.

But yeah, there is a general trend whereby neighborhoods that lots of people moved in 30-40 years ago are largely inhabited by older folks. Usually these places were in locations close to cities that became more desirable in the last 20 years, increasing their housing values. The kids of these home owners can't afford a house in the same area, so they move away.

It's a sad cycle that leads to both the parents and the kids more isolated because no one can afford to live near each other.

no worries!

Where are these numbers coming from? I think your 408,424 numberis from here and for 2000. U.S. census numbers for 2017-2020 show total households as 426,769, which would suggest a ~4.5% household growth outpacing pop growth.

> There is actually less housing now by over 20k units. I guess the following question is why or how did that happen?

This is actually surprising to me and I wouldn't have guessed total units actually going down. I guess houses have a natural attrition rate from fires, neglect, plain old neglect, and things like that. If nothing new is built, then supply will naturally decrease.

Changing household sizes are a big one. Somerville, for example, used to one of the most densely populated places in the country, because you had like 7 people living in a 2-bed. Expectations for space & privacy have increased, so now you have couples with no kids in that same 2-bed that used to hold seven. After the pandemic there was also ton of sudden household formation as people left their parents that brought a spike in rents. Basically, even while there are fewer people competing over houses, there are more households than available homes.

Also, I don't think rental prices grow linearly with pop growth—if the state's population grows by 4% but only enough housing is built to accommodate 3.9% growth, then renter competition is still present, which will increase rents every year until there are fewer households willing to pay the price then there are houses.

I have to imagine that retrofitting these buildings would cost way more than just tearing it down and building something else.

Storing things:

Storing people:

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.

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?

> 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.

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.

Where, exactly, should builders cut costs in order to make new construction affordable?

Vacancy rates are very low. There just aren't that many unoccupied homes. Even these companies buying property are largely renting them out. They aren't sitting empty.

The ability of these companies to make money is premised on a low supply of housing in high-demand locations. If housing supply increases, both market rents and housing values should fall or at least track below inflation, leading to these companies putting their homes on the market.

There aren't enough houses. Boston has been adding high-paying jobs like crazy, and those people need to live somewhere.