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There is a problem with having huge national parks that no one's mentioned. The SF Bay Area is plagued by a severe housing shortage, resulting in very very hig
by jimrandomh 11y ago
There is a problem with having huge national parks that no one's mentioned.
The SF Bay Area is plagued by a severe housing shortage, resulting in very very high rents. One reason is because local governments block new construction in the existing city and town areas, but there's another reason why housing is scarce, which becomes immediately apparent if you look at a map (eg https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4359471,-122.1895837,60360m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4359471,-122.1895837,60360m/... ).
The Bay area is surrounded on all sides by national parks, filling several times as much area as the actual inhabited places. These are places where people could be living, which would make housing more affordable for the entire area.
- cafebeen 11y agoNo one's mentioned it because those aren't national parks, and the large national parks are quite far from densely populated areas like the bay area: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_parks_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_parks_of_the_...
- jonah 11y agoThey could allow higher-density housing. People wouldn't have to commute as far as if they were building houses up in the mountains.
- jimrandomh 11y agoYes, they could, but that's a separate political battle against different politicians. Developing one of those parks would be an alternative solution.
- AndyMcConachie 11y agoOr people could stop expecting to live in ranch homes and move into apartments. There's plenty of land in the bay area, but bay area communities don't want residents. They want businesses because residents don't produce any taxable income for the municipality.
- jimrandomh 11y agoI think you might have an unrealistic view of the housing situation there. If your complaint about expectations were calibrated to reality on the ground, it would be "people could stop expecting to live in apartments and move into closets".
- erikpukinskis 11y agoNo, their view is entirely realistic. San Frqncisco zoning laws are controlled by property owners who have every reason to prevent high density housing because they're all getting rich off their tenants. As for your comments about closets... The only reason people are even considering living in closets is because property owners are preventing new units from being built all over the city.
- toufka 11y agoAnd that would kill the golden goose. That public land in proximity to the city is pretty much the exact reason people enjoy living in the Bay Area in the first place. Were they to pave the Marin Headlands, and put condos on Skyline Boulevard, and apartments at the Presidio and Lands End, you would destroy the motivation for many people to live in the region. No one can afford a yard, but everyone collectively owns significant yardland within walking and biking distance of each of their house.
- evanb 11y agoWhich national parks do you mean? Sure, there's the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, Point Reyes, San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge, the smelly salt flats down by Fremont, and there's the California Coastal National Monument. Surely you don't mean that developing the Presidio, an extremely small hilly portion of Marin, distant areas of the North and South bay, and literally the ocean would solve the Bay Area's housing problems? The nearest national parks to the Bay are Pinnacles NP (130 miles from Civic Center), Yosemite (160 miles) Lassen Volcanic NP (250 miles). Admittedly, there are a ton of regional and state parks.
- intopieces 11y agoThe SF bay area is plagued by a severe housing shortage, but building up is the solution, not building out. The bay area is not dense at all.