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Bay Area Regional Planner: The Board Game
- aaronbrethorst 11y agoDeveloped as an educational tool for the San Francisco Bay Area Renters' Federation The SF BARF? Seriously?
- djcapelis 11y agoWhat? It's a great description of the rental market here!
- whiteboarder 11y agoThe name is intentional. It gets them free publicly by being quirky.
- roflchoppa 11y agothe bay area rider forum already claims BARF. also why do you sound so surprised? http://bayarearidersforum.com/ http://bayarearidersforum.com/
- falsedan 11y agoWelcome to SF.
- beamatronic 11y agoWe also have the Fremont Area Rapid Transit
- schoen 11y agoI don't think there's an agency with precisely that name, but I recently got to ride the narrow-gauge rail of the Ferrovie Autolinee Regionali Ticinesi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Bus_and_Rail_Company_of_Canton_Ticino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Bus_and_Rail_Company_...
- davidw 11y agoHeck, you want that acronym, this is a neon sign company, near Treviso, Italy: http://www.fart-neon.com/ http://www.fart-neon.com/
- TeMPOraL 11y agoIt almost sounds like "fart xenon", which would be the best description of an ion engine I've seen so far :D.
- schoen 11y agoHi David, I'm glad to see that your time in Italy went so well!
- davidw 11y agoI've driven by that place, and... it's kind of hard to not notice, especially at night when it's lit up: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.631347,12.2397643,3a,20.9y,100.21h,89.79t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1stpHc33XUdbrSAl6pi2VqTw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/@45.631347,12.2397643,3a,20.9y,1...
- raldi 11y agoIf you read an article about two housing groups in San Francisco, one called BARF and one called the Coalition to Increase the Housing Supply of the Bay Area, which one would you be able to remember a week later?
- wldcordeiro 11y agoCompare like to like: BARF vs CIHSBA the point still rings true.
- kabdib 11y agoSeattle has the South Lake Union Streetcar. Which should have been the tram, with the advertising logo "Ride the SLUT!" A bunch of party-poopers didn't like that idea. :-)
- aaronbrethorst 11y agoI'm well aware of that one :) http://www.ridetheslut.com http://www.ridetheslut.com
- khgvljhkb 11y agoYou'd enjoy travelling in Scandinavia. End station in Swedish is "Slut-station" http://hugelolcdn.com/i700/103510.jpg http://hugelolcdn.com/i700/103510.jpg
- zem 11y agopeople keep bringing that up!
- ianamartin 11y agoSorry for off-topic here, but this made me smile and reminded me of something from a long time ago. The League of American Orchestras used to be called the American Symphony Society.
- asift 11y agoIt's too bad the game doesn't include an option to adopt Houston-style regulation and create a better institutional framework for regulating housing in the first place.
- seany 11y agoNot having laws to prevent "bad behavior" would make most of the Bay Area NIMBYs heads explode.
- fleitz 11y agoI believe there's supposed to be an element of realism to the game. Building new housing is hard enough, imagine trying to convince SF to do away with zoning bylaws. The rule that Marin can't be upzoned is hilarious.
- eanzenberg 11y agoThere's no real public transportation to/fro Marin to San Francisco, so how do you add substantial units to Marin without greatly impacting traffic which is already pretty painful?
- easong 11y agoThe same NIMBYs that prevent new housing also prevent new public transit. Build both - whichever one comes first will speed the other along.
- JimboOmega 11y agoBART was intended to go there when they first started building it, iirc. Marin dropped out of BART, and then San Mateo county. This is why there's the double decker tunnels downtown - one was intended to branch off towards Marin.
- hollerith 11y ago>There's no real public transportation to/fro Marin to San Francisco After the loans on the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge were paid off (some time in the 1960s or 1970s) instead of eliminating the tolls, it was decided to use the revenue from the tolls to subsidize public transportation between SF and the counties to the north of it. The buses and ferries between Marin and SF remain very good IMHO.
- eastbayjake 11y agoI'm confused about some of the "goals" and their impact on strategy. The first goal prohibits downtown upzoning in Alameda County to "protect view corridors", and I'm not sure whether that's a randomly drawn card or whether that's the first goal the group of players must accomplish. If so, that immediately eliminates my hobby-horse about SF rents: downtown Oakland has the infrastructure to handle many more residents and businesses without blocking views more than they already are, and it's only comparative rents with SF that are keeping it from being built out.
- falsedan 11y agoYou can read the rules[0], they state that each player gets some goal cards (each with two policy goals) & the winner is the player who achieves all but one of their goals (or all of them). 0 : https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/005/082/476/9ce6e22f89f241fe56e50f73d20721a2_original.png?v=1450238963&w=680&fit=max&auto=format&lossless=true&s=9c249304e85e23e8001c91df327b9e8f https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/005/082/476/9ce6e22f89f241f...
- kelukelugames 11y agoLOL, Alfred discovered a niche market: political, topical board games. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1700980409/california-water-crisis/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1700980409/california-w...
- kmonsen 11y agoAnd another one: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1700980409/high-speed-rail-board-game https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1700980409/high-speed-r...
- sdenton4 11y agoI have a copy of California Water Crisis; it's actually quite well-designed and a fantastic discussion piece.
- walshemj 11y agoBoardgames have always had that side to them the genesis of monopoly is one well known example.
- wlesieutre 11y agoFor reference, the game Monopoly was copied/adapted from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord's_Game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord's_Game > The game was created to be a "practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences". She based the game on the economic principles of Georgism, a system proposed by Henry George, with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants.
- azundo 11y agoThere is a fantastic 99% Invisible podcast on The Landlord's Game/Monopoly: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-landlords-game/ http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-landlords-game/. Highly recommended.
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- awalton 11y agoDoesn't seem like a fair game. The NIMBYs pretty much always win.
- darkstar999 11y agoIt seems like the large influx of affluent tech employees are the real winners. The NIMBYs have been there before the boom. You would probably act the same.
- woah 11y agoHow are the people moving in the winners? They are the ones getting ripped off the most. The city that used to be home to a constant influx of weirdos and innovators has been taken over by an aging landholder class, who will do anything to preserve their grip on power and drive up their multimillion dollar property values, while draping themselves in progressive bs.
- ZanyProgrammer 11y agoBecause they (with their high 5/low 6 figure salaries) are driving up the costs of apartments, meaning that to even rent in the Bay Area is becoming a losing proposition if you make less than 100K. I suppose landlords are also making out like bandits, but the real losers are people who'd be solidly middle class anywhere else, but now have to listen to the laments of someone making 6 figures how they are the real working class now in the Bay. I mean, I suppose that even someone making a 100K salary can't buy a house easily by themselves, but at least they can live here in a decent apartment. The real losers are people who can't even afford an apartment to rent in the Bay Area. By and large those people aren't software engineers.
- davidw 11y ago> they (with their high 5/low 6 figure salaries) are driving up the costs of apartments, meaning that to even rent in the Bay Area is becoming a losing proposition That's right: the people moving in are not the winners. Their salaries are high, but they're spending a large percentage of it in rent. Granted, overall, they're pretty well off, but they're not really "the winners" compared to people who actually own the land.
- rhc2104 11y ago"You can't upzone any squares in Marin." heh
- marincounty 11y agoMarin is a weird county. Yes--there are Nimby's, but it's the infrastructure. These towns are small. The roads are narrow. The sewer systems are pathetic. It was just not designed to scale out. Anyone who has been in 101 traffic knows what I mean. There were times I slept in my truck while in San Francisco, instead of dealing with that traffic. I was in construction at the time, so my appearance the next day didn't matter. I would like to see the county/towns approve a few variances. I honestly don't think they ever pass them, but they happily take in the fees. Years ago I had a chance to buy a cabin in Laginitas, but the zoning was agricultural and the lady at the planning department, said she would take my money, but my chances were zilch. She was just being honest. I still wish I bought that cabin though. I don't have an answer to the housing crisis. I would like to see more harbors built. Harbors where you can live on your boat. I want to clear up a few misconceptions. In San Francisco, most Union Plumbers, and Electricians are making $100/hr. Housing has been a problem in Marin and San Francisco forever. I don't like it. Most Marinites wanted Bart, but at the time the state didn't have the money. I know because my father worked on that project for over a year. Part of the problem is the head honcho wants to live/work in a very desirable city/location. If they want employees to show up for work--pay them more, or set up shop in a less desirable place to live. Or, let them telecommute? Again--I've though about this for years, and I don't see a solution. My solution has been living on a boat, but it's not for everyone. I truly think if their were more harbors that allowed live-aboards it might help? And approve a few trailer parks?
- davidw 11y ago> These towns are small. The roads are narrow. This describes a large portion of Europe, where people manage to live and work just fine. Here's street view of what looks like a fairly central place in Mill Valley: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.9066516,-122.5461843,3a,75y,141.92h,94.63t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1saSHrInYm7gKcBiI8tfwhsA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.9066516,-122.5461843,3a,75y,... And here's one of downtown Monselice, a smallish town in Italy: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.2419025,11.7514149,3a,75y,307.27h,91.5t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sY5AGd00n-eH3xyCSwz2r6A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@45.2419025,11.7514149,3a,75y,30... They're both fairly pleasant places in my experience.
- fleitz 11y agoIn the game of zones, you win or you rent.
- Cyberdog 11y agoA strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
- baakss 11y agoThere's a chess term for that too. :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang
- JoshTriplett 11y agoI love that the game ends in 2038 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem). Also well-done is the rule that the state of the economy determines the highest zone that can be built, since a zone does no good if not actually populated, and ghost towns benefit nobody. The rules about how commute times change if you build adjacent to C/D zones or out in the middle of R zones seem quite well thought-out as well. Though that does raise the question of why they can't be brought down again by building a D zone (so more people can live closer to work). This does rather subtly demonstrate the primary problem: players in this game have to care about goals like "keep small towns small" or "at least 5 R-1 zones in ...", and treat those as having parity with rent and commute times. (Obviously, without conflicting constraints there'd be no tension and no game; that this is a game nicely demonstrates the problem.) Not to mention rules like "Upzoning brings a zone up one level", since within the rules of the game, C and D zones are strictly preferable to R zones, and having more housing is strictly better than having less housing. (And, obviously, repeatedly re-zoning the same area in reality would be more disruptive than changing it once.) As another commenter said, "the only winning move is not to play". A game like this makes a clearer and cleverer political statement than a pile of ads and protests.
- Rhapso 11y agoMaybe I am missing something, but how would the unix epoc overflowing a problem? As long as they don't handle overflow errors, all the math still works until it overflows twice...
- JoshTriplett 11y agoRelative differences could potentially work; absolute times would map to the wrong time. Anything that asked the system for the current time and stored it in a 4-byte value would get the wrong time.
- urlgrey 11y agoThe counties included on the board appears heavily editorialized; the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) includes Sonoma, Napa, and Solano counties which are not shown (http://abag.ca.gov/overview/members.html http://abag.ca.gov/overview/members.html).
- capkutay 11y agoSpeaking of regional planning, here's a huge fuck-up happening in SF planning today: http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2015/12/no-progress-for-a-subway-extension-to-north-beach-and-a-setback.html http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2015/12/no-progress-for-a... Basically, they built the SF Central Subway all the way up to the Pagoda site in North Beach. Due to bureaucratic BS, the city can't buy the site and therefore they can't turn it into a subway station. As a result, the city's only subway line (other than BART) will stop at Chinatown. It's stuff like this that just proves the impotence of the SF government.
- Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago>Due to bureaucratic BS, the city can't buy the site and therefore they can't turn it into a subway station. The environmental review process really wrecks projects like this. It's also a favorite tool of NIMBYs, especially in California. City getting too dense for your taste? Let's argue it's bad for the environment, even though urban living is better for the environment than sprawl and the housing will be built there instead.
- capkutay 11y agoNot to mention, if the city approves the environmental review, 3rd party groups can SUE to challenge the validity of the environmental review. Turning a 5-7 year process into a 10-12 year process.
- pbreit 11y agoLet me guess: there's no downside to building homes?