31 ms·

In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

• hodwik 11y ago
  I say this as a conservative: Building limits are systemically classist and racist. They maintain a geographical segregation system. If you want to fix the country then remove all limits, let developers develop whatever and whereever they deem there is demand. Remove occupancy laws where they're not about safety. Remove property line setbacks. End parking requirements. End requirements about private kitchens and bathrooms. Outlaw Zoning entirely. The nation will become more equitable economically when rich people and poor people all share the same zipcodes again. And you can do it with capitalism, you can do it by removing government instead of creating it, you can do it with freedom. Side bonus: you'll have an economic boom. Construction is an industry that creates real wealth that usually stays in the country.
  • pj_mukh 11y ago
    As a liberal, I agree. One problem, foreign money. It is mentioned in passing in the article but Vancouver (even with more sensible building laws) is still getting screwed because foreign money keeps pouring in.
    • jly 11y ago
      This is a huge point. The same thing is happening in other attractive pacific rim cities. In Auckland, they are experiencing the same problem as SF and Vancouver but the government is very active in encouraging new housing development. Because of the foreign investment, it's not enough.
    • hodwik2 11y ago
      Could you please explain why the foreign investment is a problem? Every time I've heard this discussed, it's mostly been people saying "The CHINESE are buying up houses" with a racist glint in their eyes. I don't get the impression these people would be as worried if the foreign investors were of French or Irish parentage. If I've misunderstood the issue, people correct me.
      • stcredzero 11y ago
        There was a time when people would've been just as worried.
      • pj_mukh 11y ago
        Well given that I'm South Asian, I don't think their race is an issue to me personally, and people in Vancouver who've brought this problem up are the most racially progressive bunch there is (including a huge native Chinese population that has been there for decades). Chinese money is flooding in because of issues in the Chinese investment market and they are increasing their investment in the SF market too now. The by-product is that the demand side is doubled up! Protectionism doesn't work, so what do we do? I'm firmly in the 'Build More' category but this one problem, I'm not sure how to solve.
        • thaumasiotes 11y ago
          > Well given that I'm South Asian, I don't think their race is an issue to me personally First I've heard of some sort of racial friendship between Chinese and Indians. I can assure you it's not reciprocated by the Chinese.
      • namlem 11y ago
        The Chinese people who are buying up houses aren't buying them to live in, they're buying them just to speculate. The owners stay in China. It would be just as bad if they were from another country, it's just that they happen to be Chinese.
      • jbapple 11y ago
        > Could you please explain why the foreign investment is a problem? I'm not sure, but I get the impression that the concern is partly about non-resident populations. Non-residents buying homes as investments or as a hedge against corruption driving them out of their home countries uncaps demand. More demand might end up causing wealth transfer from the renter class to the owner class.
      • mc32 11y ago
        It's not because the buyers are Chinese it's mostly due to the volume of purchases affecting the market so directly. They could be "Newfies" if you had as many driving up prices so dramatically, you'd get an outcry. It happens in the US in Portland you'll occasionally see signs about No Californians. It doesn't help that many of those are not "regular" Chinese but people with money and connected, the Chinese .1%ers, so to speak, who are buying properties as a pied de terre in the event things go bad in the homeland and they need to hightail it as well as a place to park their connected money.
    • nickff 11y ago
      This is a common intuitive argument, but the question that follows is why? Why must all housing be used? Could we not simply build more? Instead of looking at foreign purchases of homes as taking away an opportunity, it should be viewed as a stimulus program. The real problem seems to be that city planners are restricting new construction (to keep up home values, and allow them to 'shape' the city), and thus forcing foreign and domestic purchasers to compete instead of collaborate.
      • hodwik2 11y ago
        The irony being that Vancouver real estate is only a great investment vehicle because they've had such strict building regulations, with the view corridors law. Other cities are not such a sure investment, a spike in supply could destroy your capital overnight.
      • pj_mukh 11y ago
        How would they "collaborate" if the supply was higher? I think the point of the activist was that the demand is far too high (almost double what would be caused by normal incoming techies). My worry is that this investment is "flight-y" (they are not actually residents) if we double up supply and this investment leaves, SF becomes a Detroit that looks like Manhattan? P.S: Obviously, increasing supply to meet actual renters'/new residents' demand is a no-brainer.
      • 0xcde4c3db 11y ago
        Vacant houses tend to be vandalized, infested by pests, and otherwise fall into disrepair (e.g. there's no one there to notice a plumbing leak). This is less of an issue for individual vacant units in multi-tenant buildings.
        • enraged_camel 11y ago
          I'm not sure this is a problem for the types of housing purchased by foreign money. When foreigners invest in US housing, they tend to also hire property management firms that look after the property during vacancies.
      • 11y ago
    • schwarrrtz 11y ago
      Yup. One possible solution we're considering in Vancouver is some kind of residency requirement - for example, if you don't live in your property (or rent it out) for more than x% of the year, you get penalized on your property taxes or something.
    • BurningFrog 11y ago
      But the reason foreign money is pouring in to SF real estate rather than a zillion alternatives is that it's a good investment. And the reason for that is precisely the very restrictive policies designed to maximize real estate value. So if you legalize housing construction, the foreign money problem will disappear as well.
      • wwweston 11y ago
        For a few years, I've been challenging people when this discussion comes up to give examples of situations where increasing housing supply resulted in falling prices. As far as I can tell, without a fundamental demand drop, this rarely if ever happens. And you've hit on one of the reasons: the investors who want in want into a market where real estate commands the prices it does.
        • repsilat 11y ago
          Downtown Auckland, 2005/6. There was a big increase in the number of small apartments available. Prices did fall, and people I know "lost money" because of it. It was still a great thing for the city. Auckland itself is growing quickly, and the price of houses is (like in many other places) outrageous. Apartment rents are still relatively sane, though.
        • cynicalkane 11y ago
          Generally, people don't build housing supply with the intent of oversaturating the market and losing money!
          • SonjaKT 11y ago
            no but who said everything that happens is what was intended
        • Decade 11y ago
          Well, from the last discussion where Sonja participated: Philadelphia, additional housing, plus market crash. It doesn’t say that prices on existing housing went down, but the new “luxury” housing did not sell for close to the expected luxury prices. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10370964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10370964 http://grist.org/cities/urban-activists-set-out-to-sue-san-franciscos-suburbs/ http://grist.org/cities/urban-activists-set-out-to-sue-san-f...
    • gorkemyurt 11y ago
      No foreign money is good! They are not sending their kids to local schools, or driving down on 101 every day to cause traffic. They also pay way way more property tax compared to someone bought a house 20 years ago..
  • Retric 11y ago
    There is infrastructure costs associated with new construction (schools, roads, etc.) Ideally a permit should add ~40k to cover those cost per additional dwelling which scales based on actual costs. Otherwise you keep having people who live in an area pay for new schools, water treatment plants, etc several times.
    • cpitman 11y ago
      Shouldn't this be covered by property taxes and the additional income tax of the new residents?
      • mountaineer22 11y ago
        Not all states have income tax, and why should all existing real property owners subsidize the new developer's impact on the existing shared infrastructure?
        • cderwin 11y ago
          Because the impact is not that of the developer; it's not the developer's kids that will be going to the local school, it's not the developer who will be using the local infrastructure to commute to work everyday. It's the homeowner. The cost of the homeowner's burden on the public infrastructure should rest firmly on the homeowner's shoulders, not on the person who happened to build and sell a home to him.
          • sokoloff 11y ago
            That's why people are proposing to dramatically increase the fees on new residential building permits above: precisely so that the homeowner bears the cost of those infrastructure investments. (Don't confuse that the developer pays the permit fee in the first place from who actually pays it. Obviously, the new homeowner will be the one ultimately paying for that permit fee.) I'm not saying I agree with it (I see problems both ways); I'm just trying to explain it.
  • vasilipupkin 11y ago
    There are permitting processes for a reason. So that we do not have an epidemic of shoddily built houses that fall down or burn down, etc. or, don't end up with a nuclear power plant in the middle of a quite residential street. Granted, some limits are too restrictive and should be removed and/or relaxed. Others should be kept and/or enhanced. Blanket removal of all limits is just as stupid as limits that are too restrictive
    • wmccullough 11y ago
      Removing zoning permits does not equate to shoddily built houses. This is what you call, a straw man.
      • tamana 11y ago
        A straw house, even
      • vasilipupkin 11y ago
        Did you see the or in my argument ? Zoning is what prevents someone building a nuclear waste plant ( or an industrial plant ) on a quiet, tree lined street.
    • gedy 11y ago
      Zoning is not the same as permitting - you can remove zoning restrictions without removing safety inspections, etc.
      • vasilipupkin 11y ago
        As I said, some zoning restrictions and/or permitting procedures in some places are too restrictive and should be relaxed. That in no way implies that it's a good idea to get rid of all zoning restrictions
  • mountaineer22 11y ago
    As a 'liberal', I disagree. It has nothing to do with race, it is economic disparity. These laws exist, in some extent, to preserve the existing character of the area, for better or worse. If you want to change these laws, I suggest you get involved (not necessarily to the same extent as Starchild in the article). What you are suggesting, would lead to a lower quality of life for everyone, rich and poor. It would increase crime and decrease sanitation. Do you own real property?
    • hodwik2 11y ago
      >"If you want to change these laws, I suggest you get involved." I've been considering campaigning for Donald Trump. Given his background, I think he may be the most likely president to push for the sort of anti-Zoning laws I'm interested in. Perhaps you're right. >"Do you own real property?" Yes, I own a home in a wealthy suburb just outside of Philadelphia. I am well aware of the growing pains this would cause. But that can't stop us, this is a human rights issue, as far as I am concerned.
      • mountaineer22 11y ago
        So, if I bought the house next door to you, and had 8 separate families live there (I would be charging them rent), you would be okay with that? Also, since garbage storage would be a problem, I told my tenants they can just toss their garbage bags over the fence into your yard, and you would take care of it. And since parking is now an issue with 15 additional cars, and friends visiting in their cars, I suggested they use your driveway or yard as parking. Are you okay with that?
        • ec109685 11y ago
          The parent poster is not advocating for trespassing and liter.
          • mountaineer22 11y ago
            Nor am I, but what can he do to enforce his rights at that point? My tenants don't car about his property, and now he has to figure out which tenant violated his rights? Yet, all these families now have legal rights and protections to live next door to him. Call the police? Now you are taking a disproportionate amount of taxpayer resources to protect this specific individual's private property rights. What if it keeps happening? Assign a special task-force to my specific rental property (the one next-door to the parent poster)?
  • rokhayakebe 11y ago
    The nation will become more equitable economically when rich people and poor people all share the same zipcodes again. I have seen this in Atlanta where someone making an ok living, say $50,000, can live in one of the greatest neighborhood.
  • surfmike 11y ago
    I totally agree that building limits are bad. But zoning and planning still have some virtues. I think we need something to swing the balance towards more housing without throwing out zoning. So perhaps targets for housing units created, and if a city isn't doing enough, everything is already up zoned to, say, 4x the density previously allowed.
  • llamataboot 11y ago
    Arguably though, people are implicitly willing to pay quite the premium for racial and class segregation. Why would a purely 'free market' approach (hard when there are so many externalities involved) work better than an inclusionary zoning approach? (rather than the exclusionary zoning regimes of, for example, most suburbs in he US) - Encourage/demand high-density infill mixed-income housing.
    • stcredzero 11y ago
      People can pay for class segregation. I suspect if we let them, it would become separated from race segregation over time.
      • llamataboot 11y ago
        Depends on your time scale I guess. Arguably class and racial segregation are highly linked in the US and is the primary way that racial disparities continue to be reproduced so persistently. See, for example, http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018211 http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018211
    • varelse 11y ago
      One problem is that one need not be particularly racist for segregation to occur spontaneously: http://nifty.stanford.edu/2014/mccown-schelling-model-segregation/ http://nifty.stanford.edu/2014/mccown-schelling-model-segreg...
      • llamataboot 11y ago
        Just because something could exist, doesn't mean it is what is happening though. I think all complex systems modeling has things to teach us, and I've looked a lot at Schelling and other agent-based models, but arguably they don't hold up to empirical evidence. http://www.nyudri.org/research-index/2009/empirics http://www.nyudri.org/research-index/2009/empirics
  • ktRolster 11y ago
    If you want to fix the country then remove all limits, let developers develop whatever and whereever they deem there is demand. That's a bad idea, too. For example, in Fremont right now, there's a development that was built without being placed in a school district. So the students who will live there have no real school. Also, there are serious environmental impacts that need to be considered every time you build a new housing unit. Outlawing zoning completely is a bad idea too: you'll end up with housing units built next to noisy factories or smelly plants, and then the people in the new houses will complain to get the factory shut down, even though the factory was there before they were, and it was making noise when they moved in. Furthermore, when you build new housing, you need to consider how those people are going to get transportation, water and electricity (and heating in most places). You can't just throw up a housing unit anywhere and expect those things to be built magically.
    • nickff 11y ago
      What you say assumes that people want to purchase anything a developer builds, anywhere, at any price. In reality, market forces encourage developers to build nice homes in good areas well served by various amenities (which are publicly and privately available). The problem is that development is so tightly restricted in most areas, that new residents have few options. In short, you are blaming the market for the results of zoning and land use restrictions.
      • ktRolster 11y ago
        In short, you are blaming the market for the results of zoning and land use restrictions. I didn't blame the market for anything. You have reading comprehension issues. Fix that.
      • saeranv 11y ago
        I agree with the sentiment of vastly deregulating urban zoning conditions. However there are a couple of places where the market forces will lead to poor long-term community development. For example, outside of urban areas the market tends to incentivize suburban sprawl. In Toronto, you can see this in the GTA region like Markham or Brampton: vast tracts of cookie-cutter residential neighborhoods, without any consideration for integration with mixed use. Zoning does compound this, with density limitations, and parking requirements. However, the developers are perfectly happy with the high return on investment they can get building cheap single-family houses. I also abhor zoning and what it does to cities. But look at Japanese cities to see what good, minimal zoning can achieve, without prohibitive height limits, nonexclusive zoning etc. More on Japanese zoning: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.ca/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.ca/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html
  • raldi 11y ago
    We don't have to remove all limits; we can get a ton of benefit just by adjusting the stupid ones. For example, the ones that require seas of single-family houses around most of San Francisco's major transit hubs: https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/3qu9uv/i_made_maps_of_all_the_fourstory_zoning/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/3qu9uv/i_made...
    • jeffdavis 11y ago
      And also height restrictions to protect views. You could still ask for nice architecture so views are pleasant.
  • no_wave 11y ago
    You're not a conservative, you're a libertarian.
    • hodwik2 11y ago
      That's the same thing in the US. "Libertarian" is just what Republicans call themselves when most of their friends are Democrats, and they're worried people will think they're racist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_conservatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_conservatism
      • saryant 11y ago
        That's certainly not true.
    • rayiner 11y ago
      OP may be a libertarian, but you can't determine that from what he posted. There is a strong conservative case for fighting segregation enabled by zoning. I'm currently living in a rich suburb of DC. The local high school, one of the best public schools in the country, is underenrolled. Per student spending in this county is far lower than in DC proper, because we're not trying to make up for all of the consequences of segregated inner city neighborhoods by ineffectually shoveling money at schools. If we could get some lower-income people into dense housing in this area, we could replace expensive DC teachers with cheaper Fairfax County teachers and probably achieve better outcomes for kids to boot. A lot of the symptoms liberal policies try to fight are caused by the underlying disease of segregated cities and suburbs. If we had more integrated communities where minority populations weren't relegated to looking in from the outside, the demand on the welfare state would go down.
  • edderly 11y ago
    It's been tried and the problem is that you end up with slums. http://www.victorianweb.org/history/slums.html http://www.victorianweb.org/history/slums.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_End_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_End_of_London
  • nihonde 11y ago
    Japan (which is not a perfect analogue) handles several of these issues nicely, IMO. I live in a city of a few million people. Nearly every building is multi-tenant. Even homes are designed with two- or three-generation residents in mind. Large, functional apartment complexes are the norm. Many people live in so-called one-room apartments because they're affordable and available. I'm not familiar with zoning rules here, but just looking around tells me that there is far less segregation of commercial, industrial, and residential space. Also, housing in Japan is designed with a twenty to thirty year lifespan, so almost every space is relatively new. For example, I rent a brand new four-bedroom, two-bath house in a lovely, safe neighborhood with good schools and parking for two cars and a few bikes, for US $1,700 per month. (That is considered shockingly expensive to most people here, but I'm anchored on the American markets.) This way of living might offend some people's aesthetics or their idea of what they deserve, but it works very well.
    • hodwik 11y ago
      In Japan in most places the height limit for wooden structure is 4 stories (higher than most of the US), they have fewer restrictions on building spacing, and fewer restrictions on how much sq. feet per person is required. That makes it possible to have much denser towns. They're one step closer to the ideal.
    • ekianjo 11y ago
      Im in japan too and there are very clear zoning rules per area. There are very clear bedtowns with no industries or commerces but its probably not near where you live. There is very little freedom to build new things that is why you get extremely expensive apartments and rents. This prevents people to live on their own unless they are married and get enough income for that. And its the first time i hear someone say that 30 years limit for buildings is a good thing. In practice they use shitty and cheap materials, have no isolation so its too hot in summer and cold in winter and it looks like shit. They dont build anything to last and its not a good aspect since its wasteful.
      • nihonde 11y ago
        Yes, I can understand your views. I guess it's possible to disagree about this. I've seen how bad things are in America in terms of affordable housing, so the options in Japan seem quite nice by comparison. As for bedroom communities without commerce, I would attribute that to: (1) an excellent public transportation infrastructure, and (2) an overall migration of livelihoods to Tokyo/Osaka-scale urban centers. My experience (in Nagoya) is that there are offices and light industry mixed with residential in every direction until you reach 里山. In fact, many people that I know operate businesses out of their homes, including light manufacturing, restaurants, etc.——something you cannot do in most American cities. And finally, I can certainly understand your view on the "disposable" nature of housing here, but I still think it makes good sense. This is earthquake and typhoon country, so the codes change with advances in technology. The industrial nature of the housing business here drives the cost way down. In America, residential construction projects are notoriously difficult, over-budget, and late. Compared the efficiency of scale of a company like Sekisui, American contractors are an unfunny joke. I have seen homes built in Japan with a crew of no more than three or four men, plus a few traffic guards, in just a few weeks. And they work quietly and keep the area clean. I can build a new house in my city in Japan for around US$150,000——something that is completely impossible in most American cities. (The price of land here in another matter, of course. It's very expensive.) I will never understand why Americans pour money into old houses. Even 伊勢神宮 is rebuilt every twenty years, and it's more than two thousand years old!
  • crdoconnor 11y ago
    >The nation will become more equitable economically when rich people and poor people all share the same zipcodes again. Sure. Works great in Brazil. https://imgur.com/jRg2ZKQ https://imgur.com/jRg2ZKQ
    • sokoloff 11y ago
      That "spiral staircase" of pool balconies is pretty awesome.
  • paulsutter 11y ago
    Bad zoning is really bad, but zoning is useful. What you need is mixed offices and housing with street level retail. Coffee shops, restaurants, places to go. You also want underground transportation because parking wastes space, cars interfere with pedestrians, and stoplights are a pathetic drag on movement. Self-driving electric cars could have high utilization for underground tunnels. Like a subway, with stations in dense areas and on/off ramps to highways. Self driving cars can keep to closer tolerances (narrower tunnels, shorter following distance) and electric cars mean simpler ventilation (no carbon monoxide).
    • nvader 11y ago
      I really like this idea of a subterranean highway that houses a self-driving fleet of electric cars. It seems like it would let commuters bring their own certified cars to use the system, while passengers who simply want a ride between dedicated stops could take an electric bus, perhaps.
      • paulsutter 11y ago
        I expect most people would prefer self driving uber rather than individual ownership. And I wonder if buses (analogous to subway cars) offer any advantages. Think of the average utilization of a subway tunnel. Despite the high density of people in a subway car, the vast majority of the tunnel is empty.
  • skewart 11y ago
    > Building limits are systemically classist and racist. They maintain a geographical segregation system. This. Outlawing dense, urban growth does real harm to people's lives, and to the environment. It's one of the clearest examples of xenophobia and greed coallescing to extract wealth and concentrate it in the hands of the privileged few. Just because it's, say, a crowd of mostly Bernie Sanders supporters pushing to "preserve neighborhood character" in the Berkeley hills at a local city council meeting, and not a skyscraper board room full of bankers in expensive suits, doesn't make it any less nefarious or the impact any less real.
    • hodwik 11y ago
      >"and to the environment" That's a great point, and one that has been largely missed here. I used to live in a city with aggressive green-space initiatives. (85% of the city had to be green space.) Locals would tell me that it was "good for the environment". I'm sorry, but no. Green space initiatives force sprawl. They're bad for the environment, full stop.
      • makomk 11y ago
        Suppose there were no green space initiatives. Then the only green space you could be sure of having would be your own garden. How would this discourage sprawl?
        • skewart 11y ago
          Peole wouldn't have to leapfrog over the greenspace to find a place to live. I think urban green space is great, as long as it also comes with housing density. The problem is excessive greenspace coupled with mandatory low-density single family dwellings. You end up creating more sprawl and more carbon emissions as the people who can't afford to live in the close-in suburbs sprawl outward. Also, I say all of this as an environmentalist. Suburban parks do more to protect homeowner wealth than they do to protect our planet. Carbon emissions, ocean acidification, widespread habitat loss (think palm oil plantations in Borneo, not racoon territory in your backyard) are far more pressing environmental problems than suburban densification is by any stretch of the imagination. Seeing a few trees torn down to make way for an apartment building is a very tangible loss of greenery, but it's ultimately better for the environment. Density allows people to be more efficient in their use of resources, and ultimately preserves more habitat for wildlife.
  • specialist 11y ago
    I say this as a liberal: Building limits are systemically classist and racist. Where we may differ is enthusiasm for (de)regulation. Your rights end where my begin. I still don't want my neighbor's bad choices impacting my property's value, my personal safety. Or creating externalities which then must be covered by tax payers. Buildings must still be made to code, lest everything catches on fire. Runoff must be still be mitigated, so the hillside doesn't collapse or my basement gets flooded with sewage. Where "liberals" need better messaging is showing that protecting the environment and public health can be better for the economy. Stuff like protecting wetlands to minimize flooding, reducing runoff to protect waterways from pollutants and fecal matter, etc.
  • imaginenore 11y ago
    > remove all limits Really? Like let builders cut down all trees in Central Park, NY, and build some more skyscrapers?
  • Spooky23 11y ago
    Obligatory appendix: just don't do it where I live.
  • someguydave 11y ago
    Totally agreed. In fact, it turns out that all the ecological, economic, and cultural arguments raised against removing zoning are thinly veiled rent-seeking. Incumbent property owners benefit immensely when you must seek government permission to build on your land (to what standard: different conversation). In then end, they are gonna shoot themselves in the foot as the big tech companies become rational and move away from san francisco toward more reasonable growing cities like Denver. Here's a study that demonstrates the control existing homeowners have over zoning policy: http://cityobservatory.org/homevoters-v-the-growth-machine/ http://cityobservatory.org/homevoters-v-the-growth-machine/
    • SolarNet 11y ago
      I think some ecological zoning is necessary. But more of a "you can't build on this land" and "you can't build things like this on land near this land". There aren't any ecological reasons for zoning areas as (non-)residential areas anyway.
  • NotSammyHagar 11y ago
    It sounds appealing to have no building limits. How about if I want to start fraking on my land near your land? Cities in Texas like Dallas don't like this, so they passed laws saying you can't have hydraulic fracturing on the land in the city, because it causes small earthquakes and could cause pollution. Guess what happened, the state legislature passed a new law saying cities couldn't pass laws against frakking.
    • jessaustin 11y ago
      ...and that's why Dallas was swallowed up by a great crack in the ground.
      • NotSammyHagar 10y ago
        Dallas wasn't swallowed, but they have been having small earthquakes where they used to have none. It's much worse in Oklahoma.
  • MichaelBurge 11y ago
    Zoning in the US should be abolished. The government shouldn't be micromanaging what individuals do with their own property. People complain that others will buy up the land next door and set up a puppy smelting plant that belches bone ashes into the air, but that's a separate issue. It's not so much the puppy-smelting that's at issue, but the ashes. I think it makes sense to force manufacturing companies to keep their pollution at bay, but not to prohibit them from using the property for any lawful purpose. If you can't observe what people are doing in a building, then it's none of your business. That said, Japan[1] has an approach to zoning that would be an improvement: They classify land into 12 different zones, 11 of which allow increasingly 'undesirable' buildings to be built. You can build a house in an industrial area or shopping mall if you want, but you can't build a factory in an area zoned for more desirable buildings. Zone 9 is for heavy manufacturing, so it doesn't allow residential or commercial buildings. For something like blocking a shopping mall, you don't actually need the government to ban someone from building one in your neighborhood. Just find 1000 like-minded NIMBYs, set up a corporation with investment money from each NIMBY, get a loan from a bank to cover the rest, build or buy a new town, and simply vote as a shareholder against Walmart's proposal to buy out your land. My view is that you have no right to stop Walmart from doing what it wants on its land, and it has no right to do what it wants on your land. [1] http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html
  • jessaustin 11y ago
    If you want to fix the country then remove all limits, let developers develop whatever and wherever they deem there is demand. It's hilarious that some replies to this proposition complain about the Mexicans moving in and using local services like schools and sewer treatment, while others complain about the Chinese buying and not using local services! I'm hoping that these are not written by the same "well-meaning liberals", but it does seem likely.
  • yourapostasy 11y ago
    Decades spent in business cured me of similar notions. Externalities, reflexivity, and information+power asymmetry are (among others) unsolved problems in our capitalist systems. Pretty much anything anyone can get away with that doesn't impact the metric being measured, they will. When the metric is price, all sorts of information is lossy-encoded into that metric. I agree with the overall direction of your sentiment, it is just that ample time in the trenches of doing business has disabused me of the effectiveness of capitalism to regulate markets the way we think it does. It regulates the markets all right; the amount of human ingenuity spent trying to game the system at others' expense either now or in the future never ceases to impress me.
  • rsync 11y ago
    "Remove property line setbacks. End parking requirements. End requirements about private kitchens and bathrooms. Outlaw Zoning entirely." It's called Houston. You should go there and experience it. My personal favorite was the convenience store-cum-liquor mart being run out of a residential front porch. I'm not judging. I am merely pointing out that what you describe has been done in the United States and that you should go there and check it out.
    • saryant 11y ago
      Houston's a fascinating city. I lived there for a few years between leaving the Bay Area and winding up in Colorado. It's a vibrant and energetic place with a never-ending influx of new immigrant cultures from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Very, very few American cities have embraced pluralism to quite the same extent (and no, I don't include SF on that list).
    • shiftpgdn 11y ago
      You are misinformed. The city of Houston has very harsh setback and parking requirements that encourage an unending suburban style sprawl. Off the cuff it's 7 parking spots per 1000 sq ft of business and buildings in the non central business district area (about a 30x30 square block space) must be 10-20ft from the city easement.
  • seattle_spring 11y ago
    So basically make life cramped and awful for everyone instead of just some?
• you_eeeeeediot 11y ago
  This is exactly what we need, another SF article. Please tell us more.
• rokhayakebe 11y ago
  Why can't people just move out? Take 1000 people/families and go start your own min SF elsewhere.
  • tamana 11y ago
    Because there's demand for labor in SF.
  • Tempest1981 11y ago
    And why aren't we working from home 2 or 3 days a week? I would live further out if I could commute less often.
• lalala12399 11y ago
  I can't tell you how many people I know making very good money in tech and finance living in rent-controlled units paying ridiculously low rents in SF.
  • mountaineer22 11y ago
    I appreciate you telling us that you can't tell us (as much as everyone will appreciate this equally insightful comment).
    • tymekpavel 11y ago
      lalala12399 is using an idiom in the American English language.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  • long 11y ago
    What's an example ridiculously low rent?
    • refurb 11y ago
      $900 per month for a one bedroom unit, with parking, in the Mission.
    • dawhizkid 11y ago
      1000-1500 in a good area
  • tamana 11y ago
    How? They must be illegal since those aren't longtime residents.
    • rconti 11y ago
      Why, and does it matter? I have no idea how rent control works. Clearly it's a silly, broken idea, because, I, too, know people of people who have moved into rent-controlled units and benefited from it. Whether it's legal or not, well, who cares. It happens, and it points out why rent control is stupid.
• raldi 11y ago
  The audio clip from the Lafayette city manager smears BARF by implying the group is trying to destroy the Bay Area's wilderness. In actuality, the efforts over there involve a large area of land that Lafayette wants to use for a single-family-housing development, whereas BARF believes that state law requires it to be used for apartment buildings. Also, if you want to preserve the region's wilderness, the last thing you want to do is obstruct housing density in the urban center. That just pushes people to sprawl outward into the surrounding countryside.
• salimmadjd 11y ago
  SV is becoming a real estate business instead of tech. When you have 50% or more of salaries spent on rent or mortgage then so much of the revenue generated is just lost into real estate instead of innovation growth, investment and R&D. I don't understand why FB, Apple, Google, etc. do not lobby hard the local cities and push to build 100,000 new units. It'll bring the rent or house prices down and it will allow many new startups to afford local hires or bring developers over here.
  • joe_the_user 11y ago
    Facebook has attempted to build more housing and sometimes succeeded. Even a billion dollar company apparently has less influence than many people owning million dollar homes and living and voting in the city. It will eventually be up to groups like BARF to sue cities that let business build while refusing to provide housing for the employees of said businesses. http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_27717752/facebook-floats-idea-more-housing-menlo-park http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_27717752/facebook-flo...
    • rconti 11y ago
      Anton Menlo will be opening shortly just 2 miles from FBHQ.
  • mrep 11y ago
    They've tried before and it hardly ever works. I remember reading an article a few years ago about google trying to build 1000+ housing units in mountain view and the town shut them down as they didn't want the town to become controlled by Googlers. Edit: @joe_the_user posted a link about facebook trying to
    • Tempest1981 11y ago
      Mountain View has over 70 developments planned -- check this out: http://www.mountainview.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=18651 http://www.mountainview.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?... (39 page PDF, but has some pictures.)
• davidf18 11y ago
  What has happened in SF, NYC, London, is that the high cost of housing is caused by market inefficiencies as pointed out by a number of economists (eg, Edward Glaeser, Paul Krugman, Tim Harford) called “rent seeking” where politics is used to artificially limit supply (in this case through zoning restrictions) to create artificial scarcity. This is true of NYCs 13,000 limit on Taxi medallions which caused them to have a market value of $1.2 million until Uber came along and provided alternatives (the values have dropped to about $700k). The “rent seeking” is a regressive tax which transfers wealth to billionaire real-estate developers like Donald Trump from the middle class and the poor. It also harms the economy as a whole since more income is going towards rent and housing mortgages less income is going towards goods and services. It also artificially limits construction so there are few fewer construction jobs than there would be if the market inefficiencies were removed. Edward Glaeser is author of “Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier” Tim Harford is author of “The Undercover Economist, Revised and Updated Edition: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor - and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!”
  • tamana 11y ago
    The construction bit seems silly. Everyone lives somewhere, so construction industry is just more active in exurbs and building more roads. Skyscrapers are very expensive per unit, they are only a bargain where land is expensive
    • davidf18 11y ago
      Many people are living with roommates because of the high cost of housing or they are living in smaller apartments than they otherwise would. Removing the politically caused scarcity in land use would ensure more construction as these people would move into new apartments.
  • crdoconnor 11y ago
    The high cost of housing is simply due to the transformation of land into a 'gold-like' asset. This was done by untaxing it and reducing interest rates to zero (propelling demand for more 'gold' like assets). It wasn't a market inefficiency that made land hard to create and intentionally drove up its value. It was neoliberals.
• dawhizkid 11y ago
  Anyone else in SF notice rents have either stabilized or gone down a bit?
  • tommoor 11y ago
    They have indeed, decent 1 bed in downtown is ~2800 now instead of 3000+ a year ago
• tomjacobs 11y ago
  12,000 people moved to San Francisco in 2014. How many new units of housing were built? Almost 4,000! What housing crisis? https://medium.com/@TomPJacobs/what-housing-crisis-3c0568a5dd44 https://medium.com/@TomPJacobs/what-housing-crisis-3c0568a5d...
  • raldi 11y ago
    Actually, 64,000 people moved to San Francisco in 2014. 7,000 moved into the 4,000 new housing units that were built. 5,000 crowded in with existing residents. 52,000 displaced 52,000 existing residents. Source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/exposing-special-interests-room-ballot-box/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/exposing-special-interests-room-ba...
    • timr 11y ago
      No. You're reading that incorrectly. That article says that 64k people were born or moved here, and that 63k moved out or died, for a net population gain of 1k. (EDIT: I misattributed this. That's Aaron Peskin's reading of the ACS numbers, which appear to be low. The actual ACS numbers suggest that the net gain has been around 12k per year since 2010. Still nowhere near a 64k net gain per year.) SF has grown by about 45k (edit: 60k) residents since 2010 -- which, by the way, is about 70% faster than average growth rates since the 1980s. No city can handle that level of hypergrowth without problems. http://sf.curbed.com/2015/2/4/9995388/sfs-population-is-growing-way-faster-than-its-housing-stock http://sf.curbed.com/2015/2/4/9995388/sfs-population-is-grow...
      • raldi 11y ago
        > That article says that 64k people were born or moved here, and that 63k moved out or died, for a net population gain of 1k. No, it really doesn't. Could you quote the part of the article that leads you to that conclusion? Here's the quote from the article that leads me to a different conclusion (that population growth was ten times higher): "In order to make room for the 52,000 people who come here each year that aren’t accommodated by new building or by crowding, 52,000 current residents have to leave [and] about 12,000 of those new people become a net addition to our city" Here's another: "The population estimate for San Francisco in 2014 is 852,537. The estimate for 2015 is 864,816. This represents a population increase of 12,279" > No city can handle [9,000 new people per year] without problems. Certainly not insurmountable problems; Manhattan went from 942,292 people in 1870 to 1,164,673 in 1880. San Francisco went from 506,676 in 1920 to 634,394 in 1930. Shanghai did this: http://apps.chicagotribune.com/news/chicago-architecture-in-china/img/grfc-shanghai.png http://apps.chicagotribune.com/news/chicago-architecture-in-... What kind of problems are you referring to, and are they really worse than the horrific housing and displacement problems they would solve?
• narrator 11y ago
  Serious question: why does everyone have to live in San Francisco? There are lots and lots of cheaper places to live and work, but it seems there is something that only San Francisco can do that everywhere else can't. Why aren't city planners working on creating that special "whateveritis" in their city as fast as possible? I don't want any pat answers like "the people are there" or "the jobs are there" because that's basically a tautology saying "everybody is there because everybody is there".
  • city41 11y ago
    But everyone is here because everyone is here. The cycle likely started with National Semiconductor and grew from there. For me, I'm including Silicon Valley in "here". I live in San Jose and it's unbelievably crowded down here too.
    • jseliger 11y ago
      There is a field called Economic Geography that discusses these issues, and Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City is a good introduction to them. The short answer is that dense cities produce disproportionately more ideas (as measured in patents, peer-reviewed articles, and the like), GDP, and artistic output than less-dense areas. Cities appear to promote knowledge spillover effects and idea recombination. That's an answer to the grandparent post's original question too.
  • BurningFrog 11y ago
    They don't. There are over 7 billion people not trying to move to SF. About 100.000 new housing units would probably fix the current crisis.
    • Tempest1981 11y ago
      And worsen the traffic/transit "crisis". Or begin a crisis of overcrowded schools. It's a balancing act.
  • superuser2 11y ago
• rconti 11y ago
  The Times selected as an "NYTimes Pick" a comment from someone in Berlin who absolutely makes my blood boil. (S)he starts off by stating privilege as a 5th-generation San Franciscan (obviously, the kind who DESERVE to live in the city), and who fled in the tech boom of the 90s. The usual rant about whitewashing and yuppies and artists being pushed out ensues. Of course they don't want more housing built, because then dirty artists from other places would move in -- you need to preserve the history of San Francisco's starving artists, and never let new culture of any kind in. Except (s)he says, okay, maybe some "affordable" housing should be built. No discussion on the endless problems of how to manage the waiting list for this "bucket" of housing, or what happens when those people become too successful. And, in the end, (s)he has moved to Berlin, a city almost TWICE as dense as San Francisco. No doubt some NIMBY in Berlin at some point whined about building more housing for these "outsiders", but I'm sure (s)he does not have the critical thinking necessary to recognize that such a special flower could be the same force in Berlin that (s)he whines about happening to San Francisco.
  • skewart 11y ago
    Yeah, the comment section on that article is pretty sad. The number of people whose argument against building more housing is a fear that it will make the city "ugly" is astounding. It's mind-numbingly selfish and greedy to think that a family should barely be able to make ends meet, and children should spend less time with their long-commuting parents, just so that SF can meet your personal aesthetic sensibilities. Look, I love architecture and design, and I love beautiful cities, and I would love to remake all of North America according to my personal taste. But I'm not so entitled as to think that my occaisional aesthetic pleasure is more important than someone else's basic livelihood. Also, not to mention, the whole argument that density has to be ugly and "unliveable" is utterly ridiculous and false - there are lots of dense cities that are widely considered beautiful - Paris and Barcelona come to mind. /rant As the article says, it's easy to get worked up about this stuff. I suspect the "but it will be ugly" commenters are actually well-intentioned.
    • rconti 11y ago
      Well absolutely. And one commenter there (or here) mentioned the negative externalities of someone else's development driving down your property values or making your schools overcrowded or whatever. All of these things are deserving of sympathy and consideration, but.. well, currently they're getting too much of it.
• Animats 11y ago
  Move YCombinator out of Silicon Valley and the SF housing problem will go away. Too many startups in too small an area. Livermore, perhaps.
• Tempest1981 11y ago
  In March 2016, there was a slowing of job growth (increase of only 1300, vs. 8700 in February). Jobs actually decreased in the "San Francisco Area", but grew in South Bay and East Bay: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_29771531/bay-area-job-gains-slow-sharply-but-south http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_29771531/bay-area-job... Nice summary graphic: http://www.mercurynews.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=7489112 http://www.mercurynews.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay...
• siculars 11y ago
  The solution is terminally simple: _All_ new development must include 10% to 20% of units to low income people. Everywhere. SF. NYC. LA. etc. The end.
  • guard-of-terra 11y ago
    How would those low income people be determined? Lottery? First come first serve? I think that this solution in actually employed in Russia, and it kind of works in half-assed way, but does not produce any miracles.
  • alanh 11y ago
    that might be helpful if new apartments were being built -- or not -- but to a rounding error, no new units are being built in SF or in most of the surrounding area
• willholloway 11y ago
  With the secular urbanization trend created by the consolidation of jobs in the city for work, contrarians that can work remotely have an incredible opportunity for easy living. I've given up on living in major metro areas and the rat race it entails. I tried it in a few different cities, and it was fun in my 20's. But now at 31, I want to semi-retire, do some remote consulting and work on my ideas. There are a lot of places that let you do this, Southeastern Connecticut is one. You don't need much money at all, and it's very doable for competent developers. Get a good deal on a multi-family house, let the tenant(s) pay all your housing costs. Find some remote work. Find someone with a sailboat that needs to sell quick, get a deal. Spend the summer on the water. Keep a small nut, stay free. Take Amtrak to NYC, or Boston, get hotel rooms for short trips or find someone that will cut a deal for a room mate that only wants to come in a few weekends a month for all your city excitement needs. Make some friends in Providence and take the short drive on 95 to play disk golf with them or go to concerts. You can rent a million+ waterfront home for the fall, winter and spring for < $1,000 a month here. I had always wanted to take a startup all the way to a big exit for the FU money I thought I needed to be free. It turns out you don't even really needs millions to live life on your own terms if you do it in the right place. If you do it right you can spend 1.5-2x Thailand/Vietnam digital nomad costs in quiet, scenic, pockets of the Northeast Megalopolis.
  • beachstartup 11y ago
    i know of people doing this in vermont and oregon.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
• Animats 11y ago
  SF just needs to get 60,000 people to move out to get back to 2000. One possibility is to take over Colma, the city of cemeteries. Living population 1,792, area 1.9 square miles. South San Francisco could take more apartments. South San Francisco has an abandoned railyard, a demolished ballpark, and a large dump.
• pfarnsworth 11y ago
  The problem is that the Bay Area has too much money. Period, end of story. You can't fix things by going unregulated. Douglas Rushkoff talks about how Internet companies these days are extractive, and Facebook is the prime example of this. (I'm not demonizing Facebook in any way, I respect the hell out of them.) The nature of how they make money is that they have users from around the world, and all their money essentially flows from those countries of origin into Menlo Park. It's extractive, and there's more money flowing into Menlo Park than would have normally occurred without a global economy. The same goes with Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, etc. There's an inordinate amount of money flowing into the Valley because of this globally extractive nature of the Internet and that's the problem. So now, Facebook et al can afford to hire very good engineers. Friends of mine with 8-10 years of experience are making $180-200k with 15% bonus and $350,000 in RSUs over 4 years. That figure is unbelievable. Over 4 years they are making over $1,300,000 each. And they are good but run-of-the-mill engineers that passed the interview. I'm assuming all the engineers at places like Netflix, LinkedIn, Salesforce, Google, etc are all making equivalent amounts of money, or more. How can anyone in a "normal" job compete against this? My kids' daycare teachers make $40-50,000/yr. Two Facebook engineers make more money than the entire daycare that my children go to. Of course there is going to be rampant inflation across the board when there is so much money circulating in this area. Things like Uber can thrive because it's cheap relative to time. So, deregulation is not the answer because it will just be exploited by the rich. Do you really think that rampant building across the The only answer is for companies like Facebook to distribute their workforce back around the US or around the world. Having Silicon Valley being the money capital of the world is causing this problem, just like it does for Wall Street. Facebook, Google, etc, need to move their workforce around, with real equal development centers in the MidWest, in the South, on the East Coast, in Europe, Africa, Asia. This will distribute the money and cause income inequality to abate here. This is the only answer. You can't stop it with deregulation, or even regulation, because the money won't stop flowing.
  • drumdance 11y ago
    So do you feel like Saudia Arabia is extracting money from the West? And while we worry about being dependent on foreign energy sources, should they be worried about foreign money sources? Google and Facebook succeed in part because they attract the best engineers. Those people aren't going to move to the midwest or wherever just because it's "better" for the economy. It's called trade.
• gorkemyurt 11y ago
  Article doesn't mention that none of the developers are trying to raze down beautiful Victorian houses to build skyscrapers. Most of SF, West of Van Ness avenue, remains untouched, even the super ugly single family houses in Richmond and Sunset. All the development is happening in Eastern Neighborhoods; SOMA, Mission Bay and Central Waterfront. A very small percentage of the construction overall that's happening in the Mission district and Potrero hill is creating all this anti development noise. Even in these neighborhoods developers just want to build housing in underutilized land.. like this laundromat: http://sf.curbed.com/2014/5/23/10095908/38-housing-units-proposed-for-mission-street-laundromat http://sf.curbed.com/2014/5/23/10095908/38-housing-units-pro... or a graffiti lined warehouse: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2015/06/mission-housing-development-to-replace-moratorium.html#g1 http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/201...
• SonjaKT 11y ago
  Hi guys, it's me, Sonja Trauss, AMA.
  • simulate 11y ago
    Hi Sonja. How can San Francisco locals like me can help encourage building? Are there ways to engage that you've found particularly effective? What can my friends who live in the Bay Area but outside of San Francisco do?
    • SonjaKT 11y ago
      Vote in this spring's election, slate card here: www.sfyimby.org/slate/ SF has early voting, so people can vote at City Hall any day between May 9th and June 7th. We're trying to get all the specifically pro-housing people to vote on May 10th. We will be able to look up how many people voted specifically on May 10th. The goal is 2000 people, which is NOT A LOT. This is extremely achievable. What will this do? If we get 2000 people (or honestly, 600 would be pretty impressive) to show up to vote on May 10th, it will cement the pro-building constituency as a real constituency in SF. It would be great for our candidates to win, but the real goal here is show of organized strength. Politics is about perception. If we get 2000 voters, that will be incredibly impressive and it will generate another round of news coverage. The news coverage will embolden electeds to vote for pro-housing laws and recruit new volunteers. It will be news because the received wisdom is that the kind of people who are pro-building - new people, young people and tech workers - are impossible to organize. So, literally, the most important thing you can do is vote with us May 10th in SF. If you can't come May 10th, vote for the slate another day, that's good too. If you don't live in SF, don't let that stop you from voting :D. Get one friend who lives in SF to vote on your behalf. I guarantee your friend was not planning on voting in this election. Can you ask them to do a favor for you? If you live in the East Bay sign up for East Bay Forward: http://www.eastbayforward.org/forwardtogether/ http://www.eastbayforward.org/forwardtogether/ If you live in the Peninsula, http://www.peninsulaforward.org/ http://www.peninsulaforward.org/ They'll direct you to local political battles. If you do live in SF, also try to convince one (or more) friend to vote with you this Spring. There is no way to get to 2000 besides adding 1+1+1+1+1 + ... +1. I am counting on you guys to vote, and bring people to vote. I can't convince all 2000 people to vote all on my own :D The gold standard for getting people to vote is them having a one-on-one conversation about it with a friend. Despite the quote in the article (taken out of context) ranting at the bar IS effective. After this election - watch the news - if we're successful the political landscape will be more in our favor. Politics isn't broken, you just have to know how to work it. If the idiots in the Tea Party were able to take over the Republican party and shut down the government, we can definitely get a few upzonings passed.
• everyone 11y ago
  Why is the bay area important? In the software industry, in theory, where you are should be irrelevant as long as you have decent internet. Why not just choose a city that has the requirements your business needs and set up there. One example I can think of is Id deciding to set up Austin.
  • cylinder 11y ago
    It will happen more when the current cycle of tech enters maturity. Right now shareholders just want Growth! and don't care about profits. Once the big companies enter maturity, they will be forced to cut costs, and salaries will come down, real estate costs will be scrutinized so offices will be spread around the world. It happens in every industry, it is nothing new and will happen in tech.
    • someguydave 11y ago
      Agreed. As someone who owns san francisco/sv companies via my s&p 500 fund, I'm disappointed that their boards aren't considering their fiduciary duty to contain real estate and salary costs. After all, what percentage of the highly paid tech workers come from elsewhere in the US? Is there really a justification for them to all be present physically in san francisco other than to swell the egos of their bosses?
• Decade 11y ago
  These articles always pit “newcomers” like Sonja Trauss (2012, originally from Philadelphia) against “long-time residents” like Jennifer Fieber (1990 from wherever). What about my generation: Kids born in San Francisco, who are growing up in a city where either we stay with our parents indefinitely, we move into tech, or we move out of the area. In terms of the economy, we are newcomers, but in terms of community, we’re losing our friends and family. We need more room so we can move out of our parents’ houses. So, when I see people like Fieber campaigning against more housing, I find it quite upsetting. This is the past stealing from the future.
  • rconti 11y ago
    Unfortunately, "the past" votes more regularly than "the future" (particularly the future which is underage or not yet born). And they REALLY vote more than outsiders!
  • SonjaKT 11y ago
    YEP! +1 SF has 11,000 "newcomers" per year that come here by being born here. Some of my most active volunteers are in just the situation you're describing - frustrated by the stress on their families caused by the kids either having to stay at home or move far away. The councilman from Mountain View who was instrumental in getting the 8000 new homes approved down there was anti-growth his whole life, until a couple years ago when both of his children, both in their 20s, were still living with him. It was a revelation for him. heh.
• brianmcconnell 11y ago
  Twenty year SF resident here, and property owner. I am consistently amazed at how selfish a lot of people here are. They'll talk about how pro-housing they are, until someone bulldozes a teardown home on their street and _gasp_ builds infill development. I am one of the last single family homes on my street, and as much as I would like it to remain a quaint little street, it needs denser development, so I've never complained about the condos going up. My property rights end at my property line (simple concept but one that confounds weak minds who can't be bothered to read the fine print when they bought their place).
  • kafkaesq 11y ago
    My property rights end at my property line (simple concept but one that confounds weak minds who can't be bothered to read the fine print when they bought their place). Zoning is a bit more complex than that. And isn't simply about "property rights."
• old-gregg 11y ago
  I suspect that building more will not make a dent because everyone (at least everyone here in HN comments) assumes that more construction is the solution with _everything else_ staying the same. But it won't. More housing will bring more people. SF is one of the most desirable places in the world to live, with striving economy, great climate, liberal culture and breathtaking scenery. Half of Americans want to live in SF, and probably billions world wide. Building insane amount of additional housing units in SF, say 4,000,000, will result in Bay Area economy expanding even further, more companies will be created and the existing ones will probably grow faster. SF will completely eclipse NYC as the economic powerhouse and we'll have 5MM people living in skyscrapers with 1br apartments going for the same $4K/mo as they are now: see Hong Kong.
  • Apocryphon 11y ago
    There's a lot more space in the Bay Area. If we truly put our minds to it, we could expand from Novato to Gilroy, from Pacifica to Contra Costa.
• tryitnow 11y ago
  "We really need everything right now" I support more building but I can't agree with the above. Straus's statement is the embodiment of the kind of short term thinking that inevitably leads to planning disasters.
• spoonie 11y ago
  Would reduced housing costs put downward pressure on salaries? Or could some combination of growth/competition keep them where they are?
• nosefrog 11y ago
  If you live in SF and want to do something about the housing crisis, vote with us on May 10th: http://www.sfyimby.org/ http://www.sfyimby.org/
• shykes 11y ago
  When I moved to the Bay area from France, I was very surprised by the complete lack of organized government at the regional level. Decisions, planning an budgeting seem to happen either at the San Francisco level, or at the California level. That is a huge gap! The result is that nothing ever seems to get done at the scale of the bay, and SF is left to deal with a problem bigger than one city. The fact that SF seems to get blamed for everything, without any visible cooperation with Palo Alto, Mountain View or Cupertino, is absurd. Contrast this with France which, for all its flaws, has an intermediate level of government called "region" with actual decision-making power and budgets. The result is an exceptionally good transportation infrastructure and overall decent housing situation in the "greater Paris" region, which has 3x the population density of SF and a much larger population than the bay overall. If the city of Paris alone were left to deal with the challenges of a fast-growing population hub, then there would be no counter-balance to the natural inter-city politics and they too would have a non-existent transportation network and an embarrassing lack of adequate housing.
  • bufordsharkley 11y ago
    I think this is a big reason why Los Angeles does (when compared to the Bay Area) an adequate job at delivering public transit-- unified governance over the entire city allows for this, as opposed to the power than any mid-peninsula city has to stop the advance of subway lines.
    • deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
• alanh 11y ago
  http://www.sfbarf.org http://www.sfbarf.org ← The organization mentioned in the article. You can apparently sign up for ~4x/year email from them. Seems like a no-brainer for concerned locals.
• thegayngler 11y ago
  I guess I think they should keep things as they are and let the prices keep going up. Sure people will be displaced. Ohhh well. The free market can sort this out. Companies have to go set up shop somewhere else to get their needs met and likely for cheaper. Prices will come down in San Francisco and some other city who is more willing to accommodate the tech industry will arise. I think Austin Texas or Portland or LA or Atlanta would be happy to accommodate the tech industry.
• intrasight 11y ago
  In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with the residences of a city saying "this city is done". I'm not saying that I agree with SF being "done". It's not all that different from arguing with a manager asking when some complex IT system is going to be "done". My answer is always the same - it will never be done until you pull the plug on it. But back to cities like SF. Who other than the people who live there should be able to say it's done in terms of new development? I certainly don't want to give a vote to anyone who benefits from development (unless they live in the city, and in that case their vote should count no more or less than anybody else). There is plenty of good greenfield and brownfield space in the USA. Developers and people that want cheaper housing have places to go. There are so many great medium and large sized cities. There are places that may very well be the next SF. If I were a young adult, I'd be collaborating with other like-minded young adults to do some urban homesteading. But do your homework. And decide if what you are trying to do is get in on the ground floor of the "next happening thing" or just find a place that you like just the way it is. Rarely if ever can you have both. Go to local planning meetings to verify that others mostly share you point of view. And later when other claim NIMBYism, call them out on it and say "we came here because we like the way it is and want to keep it that way". That is neither elitist nor racist. The consensus may change - that is democracy. If the place you are changes into something you don't like then just go look for a new place. Change can be a good thing. It clears away the cobwebs and detritus of being in one place too long. Clearly this "5th-generation San Franciscan" thing carries no weight. One's dead ancestors don't get to vote.
• make3 11y ago
  What a long, sparse on content article.
• cm3 11y ago
  There are so many nice places to live in the US, why is remote work not more prevalent? Yes, it's nice to meet face to face, but there are many jobs where remote is perfectly possible and saves a lot of resources. Also it's a lot more fun if you only meet face to face occasionally.