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> That homelessness persists in Silicon Valley has puzzled me. The reason is (as the paragraphs just below this line indicate) in fact the same reason for a gr
by yggydrasily 11y ago
> That homelessness persists in Silicon Valley has puzzled me.
The reason is (as the paragraphs just below this line indicate) in fact the same reason for a great deal of issues in the Bay Area: lack of regional planning.
Planning in the Bay Area is far too localized. Cities constantly pawn off problems on each other. There are cities that approve thousands of new units of office space but zero housing. Transit systems don't connect to each other. Sports stadiums are constructed with no thought as to how people will arrive. Freeways have lanes that appear and disappear at various county boundaries, causing dangerous congestion. On and on. It's also why so many cities don't have enough shelters and just seem to expect (as the article states) that other nearby cities will pick up the slack.
What is needed is for the disparate cities of the Bay Area to stop passing the buck and come together as a region and plan together. Continuing to hope someone else does the hard work of solving problems will continue to result in them not getting solved.
- tedivm 11y agoThe real question is how do we push for that to happen. Most of the tech people I know move around- they rent one place for a few years, then end up in another part of the bay shortly after that. There's no real incentive for the politicians on the local level to give up power, and the state doesn't seem to care. Regional governance seems to be the answer, but making that happen seems like an impossible task.
- danharaj 11y agoThe New York Metro Area might be a helpful model of regional cooperation. It has its own growth problems but the New York Metropolitan Area is home to 20.1 million people as opposed to the 7 million who live in the Bay Area and involves governments across four states.
- abfan1127 11y agoyou could de-regulate the planning all together and the the market decide the best way to allocate resources...
- superuser2 11y agoThe market decides human beings are not worth shelter, and you're suggesting it needs more power? What the fuck?
- HappyTypist 11y agoThe market certainly decided that human beings ARE worth shelter and more shelter should be constructed. More supply will result in lower prices. However, cities are barely approving residential zoning and this artificial distortion is amplifying the homeless problem. As we have seen here, regulation like rent control is much more harmful than helpful. Rather than needing to cough up an extra $50 per month for example, you wait until the market rent is double what you're paying now - and naturally, get kicked out for one reason or another. If zoning was dramatically curtained and / or abolished, the housing problem would be solved almost overnight. The high property prices ARE a market signal saying, build more houses. Regulation is preventing efficient markets.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- hkmurakami 11y ago>However, cities are barely approving residential zoning and this artificial distortion is amplifying the homeless problem. Aren't "cities" just manifestations of players within the greater market system coming together to assert their interests and preferences? Or is this an example of how a group can act to block the proper functioning of a market, kind of like a cartel?
- superuser2 11y agoCities (and countries) are democratic communities that can choose to deploy markets if and to the extent that they are useful for some resource allocation problems. And they are quite useful. But communities come first; when the market does something that opposes its values, the community can and should override it. The difference between regulation and a cartel is that regulations pervert the market for public gain at private expense and cartels are the other way 'round.
- moultano 11y agoLike everything else in California, we amend the Constitution. (Only half joking)