3 ms·
Being one of the rare natives in Silicon Valley who reads HN, let me chime in here: The history of anti-development in the Bay Area really goes back to Marincel
by narrator 11y ago
Being one of the rare natives in Silicon Valley who reads HN, let me chime in here: The history of anti-development in the Bay Area really goes back to Marincello [1]. Back in the mid 60s they had a plan to turn the Marin Headlands into a suburb full of ranch houses and cul-de-sacs.
>"Marincello was originally conceived to house up to 30,000 people in 50 apartment towers, as well as hundreds of homes and townhouses. There would also be a mall and a grand hotel at the highest point of the headlands. [2]"
It got shot down through heroic community activism and now we have that wonderful open space instead of condos. Of course, open space makes people want to live here and then they complain about how it's so expensive because it's so nice and wouldn't it be nice if we built a lot more housing.
Why does everybody have to squeeze into this tiny little area? You've got the whole rest of the country that's mostly empty to work with. There are plenty of alternative metropolitan areas that are far cheaper. Why bring everyone here? I think it's because the wealthy venture capitalists and executives who own the companies and like to be on-site managing and talking to people and such like living here, so everyone else has to live here too in whatever accommodation they can find.
1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marincello https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marincello
- toomuchtodo 11y ago"Why does everybody have to squeeze into this tiny little area? You've got the whole rest of the country that's mostly empty to work with. There are plenty of alternative metropolitan areas that are far cheaper. Why bring everyone here? I think it's because the wealthy venture capitalists and executives who own the companies and like to be on-site managing and talking to people and such like living here, so everyone else has to live here too in whatever accommodation they can find." Knocked it out of the park. The problem isn't affordable housing. The problem is caused by VCs and tech companies who require labor to be on site.
- moultano 11y agoOpen space isn't what gets replaced by development. It's molding crumbling strip malls and lead covered, termite infested, low rise apartments. I think you'll find that every proponent of high density housing is also in favor of public green space.
- ghaff 11y agoOnly because open space these days usually has pretty strong advocates, especially in the Bay area. Developers would be more than happy to build in green space given the chance--as the parent comment noted.
- sliverstorm 11y agoYour parent is saying today's open space is literally where development was proposed, decades ago.
- moultano 11y agoAnd he's opposing current housing increases, based on a fight over open space that happened decades ago and was resoundingly and permanently won by open space. This is not the issue anymore, and it's an idiotic equivalence. The Bay is full of crappy construction that is ready to fall over on its own without any help from developers, but sitting on multi million dollar land. This is what needs to be and would be developed. When people today oppose development, it's these shit holes they are protecting.
- ghaff 11y agoAnd for whatever the faults of housing/tax/transit/etc. policies in $POPULAR_CITY--and there are always myriad such--it's pretty much always the case that there's some practical upper limit to how many people can live there (especially when the geography limits outward growth). Clearly cities can grow, including growing upwards, over time. But this is a decades-long process.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]