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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.

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.