5 ms·

It almost leads you to suspect that these policies have been an utter failure in San Francisco. A rational person might suppose that to avoid the fate of San F

by readams 10y ago

It almost leads you to suspect that these policies have been an utter failure in San Francisco. A rational person might suppose that to avoid the fate of San Francisco, that Portland should try something different. Perhaps something that recognizes that supply and demand are real, and that setting price controls at a level below the market-clearing price will lead to shortages.

narrator 10y ago
They have low housing prices in Detroit. Maybe they should emulate Detroit. Seriously, high housing prices might be a sign that people really want to live somewhere. If you make more places like San Francisco, where people actually want to live, maybe prices in San Francisco would fall a little since it wouldn't be so special of a place anymore.
- dietrichepp 10y ago
  …what? They call it "supply and demand" for a reason, because prices are affected not only by desirability but also by availability. Maybe prices are high because San Francisco is just doing a really terrible job at building enough units to keep up with demand. Maybe it's because many people want to live there. Or… if we want to be really crazy… we could say it's a combination of both factors.
  - narrator 10y ago
    So you want to increase availability and drive down price? Recreate what makes San Francisco so great somewhere else and have everyone who wants to live in San Francisco move there. Heck, you could start with Oakland.
    - dietrichepp 10y ago
      The comment seems disingenuous. But many of the things people like about SF are difficult to copy. Perhaps it would be easier to build more units in SF.
      - narrator 10y ago
        Sorry about the snarky tone, but I am a little annoyed at the build more housing crowd because they are uncreative. It's kind of like the people who think education and health care will be better if we just spent more money on them. The people who, before Elon Musk, who wanted to get humans to Mars by just increasing NASA's budget and buying more 100 million dollar disposable rockets from ULA. The problem is is that no one wants to get to the heart of the matter because it's just too hard or maybe even counter-intuitive. More money being spent on development, rising land prices and so forth is something that fills everyone's pocket and ignores whatever actual underlying problem exists in the larger system. It's a process where every additional dollar just leads to diminishing marginal returns and eventually negative marginal returns once the city gets so full that everyone's quality of life is damaged.
        dietrichepp 10y ago
        Yeah, just color me a little confused. I'm not sure what underlying problem you are talking about here. The fact that people want to live in some cities more than others is not a problem in and of itself. The fashion of the times will dictate whether people want to live in suburbs, rural areas, or more densely packed urban centers. Refusing to build housing because you don't want developers to profit from it deals serious harm to the people who can't afford to live here because supply is short. Saying that we should make other cities desirable doesn't work because it takes too long by comparison—because of the high political and social complexity of urban planning. You say that development damages quality of life, but I'd argue that denser cities have higher quality of life, subjectively speaking, and if you disagree then maybe you want to move to a less dense city. This is exactly what everyone else is doing—moving to improve their quality of life. That and voting for NIMBY policies which make it hard on people who move to your city. I've lived in Portland since the 1980s, and the same forces that made life better for those who live here pushed out the disadvantaged, the black, the artist, the musician, the immigrant. It sucks but protesting development or throwing bricks at CATs is only going to make the problem worse.
- c3534l 10y ago
  https://medium.com/newco/a-guy-just-transcribed-30-years-of-for-rent-ads-heres-what-it-taught-us-about-sf-housing-prices-bd61fd0e4ef9#.ufmhx65zw https://medium.com/newco/a-guy-just-transcribed-30-years-of-... If the amount that housing costs increase above inflation is mostly determined (in the general area at least) by a combination of the economy and available units, then yes Detroit is evidence of that relationship as well. I do feel as if Portland has generally learned from San Francisco and is more willing to allow for housing development, and to be allowed to build up.
intopieces 10y ago
Nobody believes or has claimed that supply and demand are "not real" and reducing the housing crisis to "Econ 101" is highly disingenuous. It ignores non-economic factors (environmental, cultural) that are contributory. Everyone wants to wave a magic wand and fix housing, but until we acknowledge that such a wand does not exist (and that the situation far exceeds Econ 101) we will continue having the same unproductive conversations.
- twblalock 10y ago
  It's very obvious that many of the people and organizations active in San Francisco politics do not understand economics 101. They say some really stupid things, and voters believe them. There are certainly productive conversations to be had within a rational economic paradigm, but too many of the participants reject the paradigm, and therefore no productive conversation with them can occur. For example, here is one opinion piece from the Examiner, in which the author writes, "But supply and demand does not apply to housing": http://www.sfexaminer.com/nato-green-do-the-math-you-cant-buy-a-home-in-sf/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/nato-green-do-the-math-you-cant-bu... Here is another paper, by the founder of the Coalition of San Francisco Neighborhoods and the Council of Community Housing Organizations, which denies that supply and demand operate in the San Francisco housing market: http://www.sfhac.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/calvin-welch-paper.pdf http://www.sfhac.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/calvin-welch...
  - intopieces 10y ago
    It's incredible what you can conclude when you take pieces out of context. The first article says suppy and demand is not enough to explain the complexity of housing vis-a-vis the demographics that demand it. The paper you linked expands on this. It's clear that you want a solution. We all want a solution. But there isn't one solution. There are competing interests at play, and smugly declaring that anyone who denies your oversimplification is saying something "stupid" or "irrational" only highlights what little information you have to add to the discussion. I'd much rather see a point by point rebuttal to the studies done rather a simple, "it's not confirming my belief about economics so must be utter bullshit." Yawn.
btilly 10y ago
There is almost no evidence that rent control is the primary, secondary or even tertiary cause of San Francisco's woes. As https://medium.com/newco/a-guy-just-transcribed-30-years-of-for-rent-ads-heres-what-it-taught-us-about-sf-housing-prices-bd61fd0e4ef9#.r7qldtd56 https://medium.com/newco/a-guy-just-transcribed-30-years-of-... shows, the long-term price curves barely change in 1979 when rent control came into existence. The three things that matter are the amount of housing, the number of jobs there are, and the total salary paid for those jobs. See the article for the formula. I am sure that a similar formula applies in San Francisco. The result is that having or not having rent control is immaterial. Being unwilling to build housing is a problem.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- aorloff 10y ago
  Rent control helps the well connected, not necessarily those who need it : http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122126309241530485 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122126309241530485 and ties up existing inventory. I know people here in SF who have an apartment, and own a house or two outside the city, but will never give up their apartment because its just so cheap. Rent control definitely ties up supply.
  - btilly 10y ago
    In theory, absolutely! In practice the effects seem to be small.
    - dietrichepp 10y ago
      The evidence presented in the article you linked is really not strong enough to support your conclusion with reasonable certainty. It's using a massive "post hoc ergo proper hoc" fallacy to prop up a weak argument. "Ties up supply" is also a statement that is not necessarily connected to "increases price". I'm not entirely clear on the economic theories behind rent control, but from what I understand, it affects availability more than it affects price.
megablast 10y ago
You can blame those policies all you want, but they were bought in for a reason. San Francisco's problem was that it grew too fast, and that is difficult for any city to handle.
cvwright 10y ago
Portland resident here. Ballots are due today for our local elections. Almost every single candidate for local office is making vague promises that sound a lot like the San Francisco approach. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

by readams 10y ago

narrator 10y ago

They have low housing prices in Detroit. Maybe they should emulate Detroit. Seriously, high housing prices might be a sign that people really want to live somewhere. If you make more places like San Francisco, where people actually want to live, maybe prices in San Francisco would fall a little since it wouldn't be so special of a place anymore.

dietrichepp 10y ago
…what? They call it "supply and demand" for a reason, because prices are affected not only by desirability but also by availability. Maybe prices are high because San Francisco is just doing a really terrible job at building enough units to keep up with demand. Maybe it's because many people want to live there. Or… if we want to be really crazy… we could say it's a combination of both factors.
- narrator 10y ago
  So you want to increase availability and drive down price? Recreate what makes San Francisco so great somewhere else and have everyone who wants to live in San Francisco move there. Heck, you could start with Oakland.
  - dietrichepp 10y ago
    The comment seems disingenuous. But many of the things people like about SF are difficult to copy. Perhaps it would be easier to build more units in SF.
    - narrator 10y ago
      Sorry about the snarky tone, but I am a little annoyed at the build more housing crowd because they are uncreative. It's kind of like the people who think education and health care will be better if we just spent more money on them. The people who, before Elon Musk, who wanted to get humans to Mars by just increasing NASA's budget and buying more 100 million dollar disposable rockets from ULA. The problem is is that no one wants to get to the heart of the matter because it's just too hard or maybe even counter-intuitive. More money being spent on development, rising land prices and so forth is something that fills everyone's pocket and ignores whatever actual underlying problem exists in the larger system. It's a process where every additional dollar just leads to diminishing marginal returns and eventually negative marginal returns once the city gets so full that everyone's quality of life is damaged.
      - dietrichepp 10y ago
        Yeah, just color me a little confused. I'm not sure what underlying problem you are talking about here. The fact that people want to live in some cities more than others is not a problem in and of itself. The fashion of the times will dictate whether people want to live in suburbs, rural areas, or more densely packed urban centers. Refusing to build housing because you don't want developers to profit from it deals serious harm to the people who can't afford to live here because supply is short. Saying that we should make other cities desirable doesn't work because it takes too long by comparison—because of the high political and social complexity of urban planning. You say that development damages quality of life, but I'd argue that denser cities have higher quality of life, subjectively speaking, and if you disagree then maybe you want to move to a less dense city. This is exactly what everyone else is doing—moving to improve their quality of life. That and voting for NIMBY policies which make it hard on people who move to your city. I've lived in Portland since the 1980s, and the same forces that made life better for those who live here pushed out the disadvantaged, the black, the artist, the musician, the immigrant. It sucks but protesting development or throwing bricks at CATs is only going to make the problem worse.
c3534l 10y ago
https://medium.com/newco/a-guy-just-transcribed-30-years-of-for-rent-ads-heres-what-it-taught-us-about-sf-housing-prices-bd61fd0e4ef9#.ufmhx65zw https://medium.com/newco/a-guy-just-transcribed-30-years-of-... If the amount that housing costs increase above inflation is mostly determined (in the general area at least) by a combination of the economy and available units, then yes Detroit is evidence of that relationship as well. I do feel as if Portland has generally learned from San Francisco and is more willing to allow for housing development, and to be allowed to build up.

intopieces 10y ago

Nobody believes or has claimed that supply and demand are "not real" and reducing the housing crisis to "Econ 101" is highly disingenuous. It ignores non-economic factors (environmental, cultural) that are contributory. Everyone wants to wave a magic wand and fix housing, but until we acknowledge that such a wand does not exist (and that the situation far exceeds Econ 101) we will continue having the same unproductive conversations.

twblalock 10y ago
It's very obvious that many of the people and organizations active in San Francisco politics do not understand economics 101. They say some really stupid things, and voters believe them. There are certainly productive conversations to be had within a rational economic paradigm, but too many of the participants reject the paradigm, and therefore no productive conversation with them can occur. For example, here is one opinion piece from the Examiner, in which the author writes, "But supply and demand does not apply to housing": http://www.sfexaminer.com/nato-green-do-the-math-you-cant-buy-a-home-in-sf/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/nato-green-do-the-math-you-cant-bu... Here is another paper, by the founder of the Coalition of San Francisco Neighborhoods and the Council of Community Housing Organizations, which denies that supply and demand operate in the San Francisco housing market: http://www.sfhac.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/calvin-welch-paper.pdf http://www.sfhac.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/calvin-welch...
- intopieces 10y ago
  It's incredible what you can conclude when you take pieces out of context. The first article says suppy and demand is not enough to explain the complexity of housing vis-a-vis the demographics that demand it. The paper you linked expands on this. It's clear that you want a solution. We all want a solution. But there isn't one solution. There are competing interests at play, and smugly declaring that anyone who denies your oversimplification is saying something "stupid" or "irrational" only highlights what little information you have to add to the discussion. I'd much rather see a point by point rebuttal to the studies done rather a simple, "it's not confirming my belief about economics so must be utter bullshit." Yawn.

btilly 10y ago

There is almost no evidence that rent control is the primary, secondary or even tertiary cause of San Francisco's woes. As https://medium.com/newco/a-guy-just-transcribed-30-years-of-for-rent-ads-heres-what-it-taught-us-about-sf-housing-prices-bd61fd0e4ef9#.r7qldtd56 https://medium.com/newco/a-guy-just-transcribed-30-years-of-... shows, the long-term price curves barely change in 1979 when rent control came into existence. The three things that matter are the amount of housing, the number of jobs there are, and the total salary paid for those jobs. See the article for the formula. I am sure that a similar formula applies in San Francisco. The result is that having or not having rent control is immaterial. Being unwilling to build housing is a problem.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
aorloff 10y ago
Rent control helps the well connected, not necessarily those who need it : http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122126309241530485 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122126309241530485 and ties up existing inventory. I know people here in SF who have an apartment, and own a house or two outside the city, but will never give up their apartment because its just so cheap. Rent control definitely ties up supply.
- btilly 10y ago
  In theory, absolutely! In practice the effects seem to be small.
  - dietrichepp 10y ago
    The evidence presented in the article you linked is really not strong enough to support your conclusion with reasonable certainty. It's using a massive "post hoc ergo proper hoc" fallacy to prop up a weak argument. "Ties up supply" is also a statement that is not necessarily connected to "increases price". I'm not entirely clear on the economic theories behind rent control, but from what I understand, it affects availability more than it affects price.

megablast 10y ago

You can blame those policies all you want, but they were bought in for a reason. San Francisco's problem was that it grew too fast, and that is difficult for any city to handle.

cvwright 10y ago

Portland resident here. Ballots are due today for our local elections. Almost every single candidate for local office is making vague promises that sound a lot like the San Francisco approach. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.