Comment by reilly3000
2 months ago
Work on affordable housing tech. There is a huge need for housing at all levels, and I really believe the lower end could be revolutionized by new materials and techniques, along with novel approaches to land use. You could make a real meaningful contribution and choose to make money or not along the way.
Or whatever you want really. I recently contemplated what I would do if I won the lottery and arrived at that conclusion. Hopefully you arrive at yours.
I am interested in affordable housing. Is inefficient tech the biggest contributor to housing cost?
Its definitely local regulations.
In SF for example, even after a housing project is approved, it can be challenged at any point for any reason by the community or politicians. Even projects that meet all regulations can be rejected for any reason, usually that vibes are bad. I think over half of SF is some kind of historical district. Way too much is zoned for SFHs in the city limits. etc.
It's little wonder why housing projects are so expensive in cities that have such strong NIMBYs. Like is it so unreasonable to ask for a bunch of 4 story single stair apartment buildings to be allowed to even be legal?
Of course not! Take the top N problems ordered by “impacted due to inefficient tech” and the top N ordered by social benefit. N has to be pretty large before anything interesting starts showing up on both lists.
The problem is that making tech more efficient is rarely anything more than a simple capital problem. So the real question is - where is there social benefit but no money?