7 ms·

This is a contentious issue and in case you are not from SF and wondering why Y Combinator is taking a stand on it, it has to do with the politics of the tech b

by abalone 10y ago

This is a contentious issue and in case you are not from SF and wondering why Y Combinator is taking a stand on it, it has to do with the politics of the tech boom. The plain truth is that the housing crisis is a combination of too much sudden demand fueled by the tech boom and too little supply. The tech community likes to deflect criticism of their sudden influx of relatively high-income workers and say "don't blame us, it's a supply problem." This bill focuses mainly on juicing supply by removing restrictions on builders. But part of that is weakening the affordable housing restrictions on them.[1] The problem with that is, increasing market-rate housing alone may not make an appreciable difference in prices where it matters most from a macroeconomic perspective: for low-to-mid income residents. Cities need teachers, service industry workers, artists, etc. Already the restaurant industry is facing a major worker shortage.[2] Let's not even get into the cultural effects of long-term residents getting displaced en masse. So if market-rate supply alone can't solve this, then you need affordable housing regulations to set aside spots. Sam has offered a rather simplistic statement on the law of supply and demand on this. But that masks the real question: whether weakening affordable housing demands as this bill does is a smart move. Will juicing mostly market-rate housing be enough? [1] http://48hills.org/2016/05/22/a-terrible-housing-bill-looms-in-sacramento/ http://48hills.org/2016/05/22/a-terrible-housing-bill-looms-... [2] http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/print-edition/2016/02/12/restaurant-labor-shortage-sf-business-costs-bubble.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/print-edition/2016/0...

pj_mukh 10y ago
How does the bill weaken affordable housing demands? And doesn't building more "luxury" condo open more affordable housing stock. This is such a confusing issue, everyone seems to be making sense.
- abalone 10y ago
  My understanding is the bill has weaker requirements (as little as 5%) on affordable housing than alternatives. Think of cities and negotiating with developers over affordability, and this is a more developer-friendly offer.
  - pj_mukh 10y ago
    I think that is meant to be left to local requirements. Municipality could jack it up to 20% AFAIK.
    - abalone 10y ago
      That's the key question. The article I cited details many limitations on local governments that would seem to limit their ability to demand affordable housing.[1] Bottom line, this bill is massively supported by developers, so take that as a gauge of how much power it gives municipalities. [1] http://48hills.org/2016/05/22/a-terrible-housing-bill-looms-in-sacramento/ http://48hills.org/2016/05/22/a-terrible-housing-bill-looms-...
      - terravion 10y ago
        But bear in mind this just brings California in line with a bunch of places that managed to build their way out of a housing crisis. $1T in war spending dumped on DC in the last decade, led to cranes everywhere, not massive rent increase.
        timr 10y ago
        Uh, DC has had significant rent (and home price) increases in the past decade. Not as bad as here, but it's definitely not correct to claim that they've built their way out of a housing crisis. In fact, when you look around, you see similar trends nationwide. A lot of this is just the predictable consequence of our near-zero interest rate policy since 2009. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/12/median-rental-price-for-a-one-bedroom-d-c-apartment-is-2000-study-says/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/12/medi... https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-washington-rent-trends/ https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-washington-rent-t...
      - yonran 10y ago
        You are confused; the 48hills article is referring to a different bill[1] (affordable housing bonus) than the Governor’s budget trailer bill that Sam Altman is referring to[2]. The Governor’s bill requires that localities deterministically and expediently approve projects near transit that provide some low-income housing and comply with local zoning laws. But speaking of the affordable housing bonus, Tim Redmond’s specific concerns seem to be that height limits, setbacks, and backyard requirements may be waived, not that there would be any reduction in affordable housing. But I agree that the affordable housing bonus law is somewhat open-ended so who knows what concession a developer might request. [1]: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB2501 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... [2]: http://web1a.esd.dof.ca.gov/Documents/bcp/1617/FY1617_ORG2240_BCP859.pdf http://web1a.esd.dof.ca.gov/Documents/bcp/1617/FY1617_ORG224...
argonaut 10y ago
> increasing market-rate housing alone may not make an appreciable difference in prices where it matters most from a macroeconomic perspective: for low-to-mid income residents. This may well be possible to argue, but you're going to need a source for a claim that goes against the basic concept of supply-and-demand.
- abalone 10y ago
  It doesn't go against it. The question is how elastic is the demand curve. If it's not elastic enough to make SF affordable for low-to-mid income residents then we may face bad macroeconomic and cultural effects. That's where price controls come in.
apsec112 10y ago
Articles by Tim Redmond are usually full of misinformation, and that one (link #1) is no exception. I could go on forever, but eg., he says: "The problem is that the building and real-estate industries have a huge lock on California politics." San Francisco is the #1 most development-hostile major city in the world. According to World Bank data, even in places like Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, it's still much easier to get planning permits than it is in SF. Blaming the power of the real estate industry for San Francisco's rents is like blaming the Chinese famines on capitalist saboteurs.
- abalone 10y ago
  Which is why this is a state bill. That would be consistent with Redmond's claim.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
- abalone 10y ago
  A 2% chance today, right? Increasing the supply of affordable housing should improve those odds. What's at stake here is how much affordable housing the city for negotiate for with developers. Critics argue this state bill undercuts the city's negotiating position.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
    Doesn't the bill only apply to developments with at least 10% onsite affordable housing? Is the city really going to negotiate a higher amount than that?
    - abalone 10y ago
      It allows for as little as 5%. Some in the city are fighting for more. For example Jane Kim, the SF supervisor who Bernie Sanders just endorsed for state senate, is fighting for 25% (down from 30%).[1] Basically this state bill is a developer move to undercut SF's negotiating position, as they have more political influence at the state level. [1] http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2016/01/sf-affordable-housing-jane-kim-charter-ballot.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/201...
TulliusCicero 10y ago
> The tech community likes to deflect criticism of their sudden influx of relatively high-income workers and say "don't blame us, it's a supply problem." Well duh, ostensibly high-paying jobs are good, remember? Like, the tech sector is one of the few remaining industries with lots of jobs that pay well, and now we gotta demonize them too? Would it be preferable for everyone to be equally poor? And it obviously is a supply problem. The California Legislative Analyst Office was pretty clear on that: > While many factors have a role in driving California's high housing costs, the most important is the significant shortage of housing in the state's highly coveted coastal communities. We advise the Legislature to address this housing shortfall by changing policies to facilitate significantly more private home and apartment building in California's coastal urban communities. http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/3214 http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/3214
- abalone 10y ago
  It's important to understand the other factors alluded to by the California Legislative Analyst Office, among others. Specific to SF is a sudden influx of wealthier residents. With such a huge gap between their income levels and say service industry or blue collar folks, they are going to throw the market rate for housing way high. Increasing the supply of market-rate housing alone may not bring things down enough, at least, not without much greater developer concessions than have been suggested.
- timr 10y ago
  "Well duh, ostensibly high-paying jobs are good, remember?" To whom, exactly? If those jobs are going to people who are moving here from somewhere else, then who benefits? There was a thriving city here long before tech startups came along. The cruel irony of this kind of job growth is that it doesn't benefit the people who are being displaced. I personally think we need a more balanced approach: we need to build more housing, but we also need to start implementing some disincentives for companies to locate offices in San Francisco. It makes no sense, for example, that we're giving tech companies tax breaks to move their employees here.
  - davidw 10y ago
chuckcode 10y ago
While the cost of housing in the bay area gets a lot of press the entire infrastructure of the bay is getting stretched by the current tech boom. The traffic is already the second worst in the nation [1], and existing public transportation like bart[2] and caltrain[3] are already overloaded. While I'm generally in favor of development I think that this simplistic approach of just going around local planning departments is just going to lead to more problems. I think it would be better to cut state and local funding of counties if they don't match growth targets that region commits to. This way we incentivize communities to embrace growth while letting the residents still have a strong say in how and where their community grows. Letting developers call the pace hasn't made for good urban planning in other parts of the country and there is no reason to expect it to do a lot better here. Let's incentivize these parties to work together rather than giving one all the power to drive the process. [1] http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trafficindex/list http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trafficindex/list [2] http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-gets-candid-in-Twitter-exchange-with-angry-6900683.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-gets-candid-... [3] http://www.caltrain.com/Page3882.aspx http://www.caltrain.com/Page3882.aspx
- gorkemyurt 10y ago
  With the right projects like, the transbay terminal and I-280 city can actually allow development and create funds for transit at the same time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Transbay_Terminal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Transbay_Termina... http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Transit-plan-to-raze-I-280-in-SF-to-be-unveiled-6848002.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Transit-plan-to-r...
  - justizin 10y ago
    the transbay terminal is not another transbay tube, nor is it an expansion of the capacity of major bart stations. at rush hour, at many stations, there isn't only no space on the trains, there's nowhere to fucking stand and wait for them.
    - gorkemyurt 10y ago
davidw 10y ago
I don't live in SF, but having spent most of the past 15 years in Europe, which is dense: it's almost completely a supply problem. SF is not really very dense at all for a place with such a high demand for housing. Random place in SF: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7718267,-122.4388549,3a,75y,143.66h,92.09t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s7PTH3Jshnfj4VZCDNw0Dog!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7718267,-122.4388549,3a,75y,... Near where I lived in Padova, which is way smaller than SF, and way, way less well off: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3850829,11.8706466,3a,75y,183.83h,93.14t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1st_alGR0roo8WaXCMoaK7gg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3850829,11.8706466,3a,75y,18... They look fairly similar, despite a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in that area of the suburbs in Padova going for under 200K euro. Here's what Milan looks like, which does have a decent economy, for Italy: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.4582853,9.2105922,3a,90y,219.5h,87t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1snWGqaEBVqvtHw-Cr4Wv61g!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DnWGqaEBVqvtHw-Cr4Wv61g%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D46.500008%26pitch%3D-3!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@45.4582853,9.2105922,3a,90y,219... None of this 2/3 story crap, even if it's fairly far out from the city center. They've built up.
- abalone 10y ago
  Apples to oranges. SF has always been more of a boomtown. Neither of the cities you mention have experienced the sudden, massive surge in demand that SF has in recent memory. When you have sudden surges in demand you can't just pin it on supply. You have to think about macroeconomic objectives for the city (i.e. preserving low and mid income housing) as well as how to plan for the long term, like when the boom turns to bust and lots of those new residents leave.
  - surfmike 10y ago
    When was the last time SF had too much housing? Obviously prices have gone down at times in the past but it's hard to argue there's ever been an oversupply....
    - abalone 10y ago
threatofrain 10y ago
I don't think the tech community is deflecting criticism. As a minority voting group, what are they supposed to do about the problem? The limited supply is not their fault. The refusal to bid in the market would be a meaningless self-sacrifice. The lack of healthy leverage and organization by workers in other industries have nothing to do with tech workers, who, again, are a minority power in politics.
- abalone 10y ago
  Your premise that the tech community is not a major player in local politics because of their relatively small body count does not hold water. Money plays a large influence in local politics. Ron Conway is a perfect example of this: he dines with the mayor and provides major funding to local campaigns and initiatives, which usually win.
  - threatofrain 10y ago
    So you're saying that tech has been a major political player with respect to housing laws? If anything, restrictions on housing supply hurt tech companies who wish to import workers to their area. Restrictions on housing supply hurts everyone who isn't a landowner. If you're saying that a few tech elites are players in politics, fine, but that has nothing to do with the rest of the world who aren't elites. It's almost not worth mentioning that elites everywhere are players in politics. The rest of the tech world are not creating organized vehicles to channel money or votes (unlike teachers or firemen, who do organize). They're just people participating in the housing market. And whatever tech elites are doing, they don't look like they're winning the battle to up supply on housing so they can import more employees. What's the reason that money from employees of one industry are displacing workers from another industry? Because workers in that other industry lack the leverage to demand more wages that keep up with other industries, because housing supply is limited, and because population is growing.
    - abalone 10y ago
      > restrictions on housing supply hurt tech companies who wish to import workers That may be true, but a city needs more than just tech workers to function. The goal is balanced growth. > Restrictions on housing supply hurts everyone who isn't a landowner. Objectively false. Affordable housing requirements help lower income people. > whatever tech elites are doing, they don't look like they're winning the battle to up supply on housing You mean up the supply of market-rate housing. Most critics are not anti-growth, they just want more affordable housing. And as for displacing workers from other industries who can't afford market rate, it's not us vs. them. The "industries" you're talking about are intertwined: tech, restaurants, cafes, schools, police, nursing, art, and so on. If a city doesn't grow in a balanced way and pushes all those other people out it could make it an undesirable place to live. Already we are seeing big increases in restaurant prices due to cost of living.
aphedox 10y ago
I don't see how worker shortages in the service industry could possibly be seen as a bad thing. Service industry workers will be required regardless of cost of living. If supply is constrained because of cost of living, these workers will simply be paid more. Rather than trying to legislate our way to $15/hr, how is it not better to achieve the same thing with less government intervention? 'affordable housing', as required by the government, is not necessary at all.

by abalone 10y ago

pj_mukh 10y ago

How does the bill weaken affordable housing demands? And doesn't building more "luxury" condo open more affordable housing stock. This is such a confusing issue, everyone seems to be making sense.

abalone 10y ago
My understanding is the bill has weaker requirements (as little as 5%) on affordable housing than alternatives. Think of cities and negotiating with developers over affordability, and this is a more developer-friendly offer.
- pj_mukh 10y ago
  I think that is meant to be left to local requirements. Municipality could jack it up to 20% AFAIK.
  - abalone 10y ago
    That's the key question. The article I cited details many limitations on local governments that would seem to limit their ability to demand affordable housing.[1] Bottom line, this bill is massively supported by developers, so take that as a gauge of how much power it gives municipalities. [1] http://48hills.org/2016/05/22/a-terrible-housing-bill-looms-in-sacramento/ http://48hills.org/2016/05/22/a-terrible-housing-bill-looms-...
    - terravion 10y ago
      But bear in mind this just brings California in line with a bunch of places that managed to build their way out of a housing crisis. $1T in war spending dumped on DC in the last decade, led to cranes everywhere, not massive rent increase.
      - timr 10y ago
        Uh, DC has had significant rent (and home price) increases in the past decade. Not as bad as here, but it's definitely not correct to claim that they've built their way out of a housing crisis. In fact, when you look around, you see similar trends nationwide. A lot of this is just the predictable consequence of our near-zero interest rate policy since 2009. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/12/median-rental-price-for-a-one-bedroom-d-c-apartment-is-2000-study-says/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/12/medi... https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-washington-rent-trends/ https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-washington-rent-t...
    - yonran 10y ago
      You are confused; the 48hills article is referring to a different bill[1] (affordable housing bonus) than the Governor’s budget trailer bill that Sam Altman is referring to[2]. The Governor’s bill requires that localities deterministically and expediently approve projects near transit that provide some low-income housing and comply with local zoning laws. But speaking of the affordable housing bonus, Tim Redmond’s specific concerns seem to be that height limits, setbacks, and backyard requirements may be waived, not that there would be any reduction in affordable housing. But I agree that the affordable housing bonus law is somewhat open-ended so who knows what concession a developer might request. [1]: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB2501 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... [2]: http://web1a.esd.dof.ca.gov/Documents/bcp/1617/FY1617_ORG2240_BCP859.pdf http://web1a.esd.dof.ca.gov/Documents/bcp/1617/FY1617_ORG224...

argonaut 10y ago

> increasing market-rate housing alone may not make an appreciable difference in prices where it matters most from a macroeconomic perspective: for low-to-mid income residents. This may well be possible to argue, but you're going to need a source for a claim that goes against the basic concept of supply-and-demand.

abalone 10y ago
It doesn't go against it. The question is how elastic is the demand curve. If it's not elastic enough to make SF affordable for low-to-mid income residents then we may face bad macroeconomic and cultural effects. That's where price controls come in.

apsec112 10y ago

Articles by Tim Redmond are usually full of misinformation, and that one (link #1) is no exception. I could go on forever, but eg., he says: "The problem is that the building and real-estate industries have a huge lock on California politics." San Francisco is the #1 most development-hostile major city in the world. According to World Bank data, even in places like Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, it's still much easier to get planning permits than it is in SF. Blaming the power of the real estate industry for San Francisco's rents is like blaming the Chinese famines on capitalist saboteurs.

abalone 10y ago
Which is why this is a state bill. That would be consistent with Redmond's claim.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

abalone 10y ago
A 2% chance today, right? Increasing the supply of affordable housing should improve those odds. What's at stake here is how much affordable housing the city for negotiate for with developers. Critics argue this state bill undercuts the city's negotiating position.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- TheCoelacanth 10y ago
  Doesn't the bill only apply to developments with at least 10% onsite affordable housing? Is the city really going to negotiate a higher amount than that?
  - abalone 10y ago
    It allows for as little as 5%. Some in the city are fighting for more. For example Jane Kim, the SF supervisor who Bernie Sanders just endorsed for state senate, is fighting for 25% (down from 30%).[1] Basically this state bill is a developer move to undercut SF's negotiating position, as they have more political influence at the state level. [1] http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2016/01/sf-affordable-housing-jane-kim-charter-ballot.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/201...

TulliusCicero 10y ago

> The tech community likes to deflect criticism of their sudden influx of relatively high-income workers and say "don't blame us, it's a supply problem." Well duh, ostensibly high-paying jobs are good, remember? Like, the tech sector is one of the few remaining industries with lots of jobs that pay well, and now we gotta demonize them too? Would it be preferable for everyone to be equally poor? And it obviously is a supply problem. The California Legislative Analyst Office was pretty clear on that: > While many factors have a role in driving California's high housing costs, the most important is the significant shortage of housing in the state's highly coveted coastal communities. We advise the Legislature to address this housing shortfall by changing policies to facilitate significantly more private home and apartment building in California's coastal urban communities. http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/3214 http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/3214

abalone 10y ago
It's important to understand the other factors alluded to by the California Legislative Analyst Office, among others. Specific to SF is a sudden influx of wealthier residents. With such a huge gap between their income levels and say service industry or blue collar folks, they are going to throw the market rate for housing way high. Increasing the supply of market-rate housing alone may not bring things down enough, at least, not without much greater developer concessions than have been suggested.
timr 10y ago
"Well duh, ostensibly high-paying jobs are good, remember?" To whom, exactly? If those jobs are going to people who are moving here from somewhere else, then who benefits? There was a thriving city here long before tech startups came along. The cruel irony of this kind of job growth is that it doesn't benefit the people who are being displaced. I personally think we need a more balanced approach: we need to build more housing, but we also need to start implementing some disincentives for companies to locate offices in San Francisco. It makes no sense, for example, that we're giving tech companies tax breaks to move their employees here.
- davidw 10y ago

chuckcode 10y ago

While the cost of housing in the bay area gets a lot of press the entire infrastructure of the bay is getting stretched by the current tech boom. The traffic is already the second worst in the nation [1], and existing public transportation like bart[2] and caltrain[3] are already overloaded. While I'm generally in favor of development I think that this simplistic approach of just going around local planning departments is just going to lead to more problems. I think it would be better to cut state and local funding of counties if they don't match growth targets that region commits to. This way we incentivize communities to embrace growth while letting the residents still have a strong say in how and where their community grows. Letting developers call the pace hasn't made for good urban planning in other parts of the country and there is no reason to expect it to do a lot better here. Let's incentivize these parties to work together rather than giving one all the power to drive the process. [1] http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trafficindex/list http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trafficindex/list [2] http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-gets-candid-in-Twitter-exchange-with-angry-6900683.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-gets-candid-... [3] http://www.caltrain.com/Page3882.aspx http://www.caltrain.com/Page3882.aspx

gorkemyurt 10y ago
With the right projects like, the transbay terminal and I-280 city can actually allow development and create funds for transit at the same time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Transbay_Terminal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Transbay_Termina... http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Transit-plan-to-raze-I-280-in-SF-to-be-unveiled-6848002.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Transit-plan-to-r...
- justizin 10y ago
  the transbay terminal is not another transbay tube, nor is it an expansion of the capacity of major bart stations. at rush hour, at many stations, there isn't only no space on the trains, there's nowhere to fucking stand and wait for them.
  - gorkemyurt 10y ago

davidw 10y ago

I don't live in SF, but having spent most of the past 15 years in Europe, which is dense: it's almost completely a supply problem. SF is not really very dense at all for a place with such a high demand for housing. Random place in SF: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7718267,-122.4388549,3a,75y,143.66h,92.09t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s7PTH3Jshnfj4VZCDNw0Dog!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7718267,-122.4388549,3a,75y,... Near where I lived in Padova, which is way smaller than SF, and way, way less well off: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3850829,11.8706466,3a,75y,183.83h,93.14t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1st_alGR0roo8WaXCMoaK7gg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3850829,11.8706466,3a,75y,18... They look fairly similar, despite a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in that area of the suburbs in Padova going for under 200K euro. Here's what Milan looks like, which does have a decent economy, for Italy: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.4582853,9.2105922,3a,90y,219.5h,87t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1snWGqaEBVqvtHw-Cr4Wv61g!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DnWGqaEBVqvtHw-Cr4Wv61g%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D46.500008%26pitch%3D-3!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@45.4582853,9.2105922,3a,90y,219... None of this 2/3 story crap, even if it's fairly far out from the city center. They've built up.

abalone 10y ago
Apples to oranges. SF has always been more of a boomtown. Neither of the cities you mention have experienced the sudden, massive surge in demand that SF has in recent memory. When you have sudden surges in demand you can't just pin it on supply. You have to think about macroeconomic objectives for the city (i.e. preserving low and mid income housing) as well as how to plan for the long term, like when the boom turns to bust and lots of those new residents leave.
- surfmike 10y ago
  When was the last time SF had too much housing? Obviously prices have gone down at times in the past but it's hard to argue there's ever been an oversupply....
  - abalone 10y ago

threatofrain 10y ago

I don't think the tech community is deflecting criticism. As a minority voting group, what are they supposed to do about the problem? The limited supply is not their fault. The refusal to bid in the market would be a meaningless self-sacrifice. The lack of healthy leverage and organization by workers in other industries have nothing to do with tech workers, who, again, are a minority power in politics.

abalone 10y ago
Your premise that the tech community is not a major player in local politics because of their relatively small body count does not hold water. Money plays a large influence in local politics. Ron Conway is a perfect example of this: he dines with the mayor and provides major funding to local campaigns and initiatives, which usually win.
- threatofrain 10y ago
  So you're saying that tech has been a major political player with respect to housing laws? If anything, restrictions on housing supply hurt tech companies who wish to import workers to their area. Restrictions on housing supply hurts everyone who isn't a landowner. If you're saying that a few tech elites are players in politics, fine, but that has nothing to do with the rest of the world who aren't elites. It's almost not worth mentioning that elites everywhere are players in politics. The rest of the tech world are not creating organized vehicles to channel money or votes (unlike teachers or firemen, who do organize). They're just people participating in the housing market. And whatever tech elites are doing, they don't look like they're winning the battle to up supply on housing so they can import more employees. What's the reason that money from employees of one industry are displacing workers from another industry? Because workers in that other industry lack the leverage to demand more wages that keep up with other industries, because housing supply is limited, and because population is growing.
  - abalone 10y ago
    > restrictions on housing supply hurt tech companies who wish to import workers That may be true, but a city needs more than just tech workers to function. The goal is balanced growth. > Restrictions on housing supply hurts everyone who isn't a landowner. Objectively false. Affordable housing requirements help lower income people. > whatever tech elites are doing, they don't look like they're winning the battle to up supply on housing You mean up the supply of market-rate housing. Most critics are not anti-growth, they just want more affordable housing. And as for displacing workers from other industries who can't afford market rate, it's not us vs. them. The "industries" you're talking about are intertwined: tech, restaurants, cafes, schools, police, nursing, art, and so on. If a city doesn't grow in a balanced way and pushes all those other people out it could make it an undesirable place to live. Already we are seeing big increases in restaurant prices due to cost of living.

aphedox 10y ago

I don't see how worker shortages in the service industry could possibly be seen as a bad thing. Service industry workers will be required regardless of cost of living. If supply is constrained because of cost of living, these workers will simply be paid more. Rather than trying to legislate our way to $15/hr, how is it not better to achieve the same thing with less government intervention? 'affordable housing', as required by the government, is not necessary at all.