4 ms·

She can take the payout and buy some place more affordable, perhaps even an apartment in the building that replaces her house. Not the best outcome for her, I'm

by hx87 10y ago

She can take the payout and buy some place more affordable, perhaps even an apartment in the building that replaces her house. Not the best outcome for her, I'm sure, but beats the hell out of starving municipal and state governments of revenue, broken infrastructure, and forcing everyone else to pay extortionate rents and mortgages just to live there. If the law allows it and the regulatory compliance costs are low enough, maybe grandma can take out a home equity loan and turn her 1-story ranch into a 3-story apartment and take advantage of the cash flow. If she needs a little more, and her neighbors are also having trouble paying their property taxes, they can pool their resources together and build an even larger apartment block to replace their old houses. Win-win for everyone, except for busybody NIMBYs who care about "neighborhood character" to the exclusion of everything else.

archagon 10y ago
Any argument that boils down to "grandma should move to make room for the techies" lacks perspective and will never gain any political traction. Moving is not just something you "do" after building a life somewhere for 40 years.
- hx87 10y ago
  As I mentioned, she doesn't have to 'move' except in the most technical sense--she can take house a home equity loan (made possible by the house's appreciation) and convert her house into an apartment by adding another floor or converting a garage or by demolishing the house and building an apartment block in its stead. She can continue to live in one of the units, probably the first floor, and benefit from a reliable stream of income from tenants. Oh, and BTW, this idea that "techies" aren't people, or somehow less deserving of moral consideration than everyone else, is reprehensible.
  - archagon 10y ago
    Speaking as a "technie" myself, I feel no one really addresses the undercurrent of entitlement to live in the city. Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the sense that a lot of the housing discussion in the tech community boils down to "but... I really want to live in SF for cheap". From what I understand, it's very common for programmers to live in the (very expensive) city and commute down to the South Bay for work. That's not a pattern borne out of necessity.
    - Futurebot 10y ago
      You chase everyone out it means: - Service workers (everything from baristas to cops to teachers) either disappear or have to deal with punishing commutes - Brain drain. When even people making a decent salary get pushed out, it's bad for cities (http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/05/26/silicon-valley-exodus-is-real-even-techies-cant-afford-the-bay-area-anymore/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/05/26/silicon-valley-e...) - Many people believe living in the place one was born/grew up in should be a right. That's a value difference. Markets do not get to dictate everything if we don't allow that. Luckily, the market does have a solution to the housing problem itself: build a lot more of it, and prices will drop.
      - archagon 10y ago
        Will highrises and density bring rent down? I think it's been shown that the number of houses needed to actually do that is enormous. In practice, what's likely to happen is that the city will fill up with even more of the well-off. (That is to say, people working in tech.) In a decade rent might come back down, but by then all those groups will be long gone anyway. Personally, I don't have any vested interest SF housing, as it's really not one of my favorite cities. But I keep thinking of what I would do if this was happening to a city I did actually love and live in, and I think in that situation I would be more sympathetic to the NIMBYs than the newcomers. I don't think there's any moral imperative for cities to keep growing.
        hx87 10y ago
        At any given density, replacing low-rises with high-rises will bring rent down, as long as construction isn't overly burdened with neighborhood review and low-income-unit requirements. Sure, a lot of units will need to be constructed for rents to come down a significant amount, but a massive swath of the western sections of the city consists of 1-3 story single family houses, maybe with a shop on the first floor, which are ripe for conversion into 5-story walk-ups. That alone will provide a significant boost to housing stock without the seismic and elevator costs of high-rises. SF isn't my favorite city either, but what has happened in my current and favorite city (Boston) has made my less sympathetic to NIMBYs, both the high-income (I want my house to appreciate without doing any work!) and low-income (I want 20% of units just for me!/Screw the middle class!) types--they are the ones making things worse. Cities grow because businesses move there, and businesses move there because they want to be close to and network with other businesses. Employees can't exactly prevent that by staying in Nowhere, KS. I agree, there isn't any moral imperative for cities for keep growing, but for now at least, there is a practical one, and thus there is a moral imperative for cities to accommodate those to wish to live there.
- sigusr1 10y ago
  I feel like any solution that thinks supply and demand shouldn't affect housing is missing some sort of perspective itself.
- rconti 10y ago
  Any argument that boils down to "this other argument lacks perspective" presumes that there is a preferably alternative without all kinds of unintended consequences. We're seeing the unintended consequences of one alternative. Of course, we haven't tested all of the possible universes yet.
  - archagon 10y ago
    My point is that changing the deeply-entrenched status quo is not a matter of looking at a spreadsheet and picking the "best" option. The consequences of the alternative have to be preferable over the consequences of the status quo to the voter base. No amount of rabble-rousing will make people vote against their own best interests.

by hx87 10y ago

archagon 10y ago

Any argument that boils down to "grandma should move to make room for the techies" lacks perspective and will never gain any political traction. Moving is not just something you "do" after building a life somewhere for 40 years.

hx87 10y ago
As I mentioned, she doesn't have to 'move' except in the most technical sense--she can take house a home equity loan (made possible by the house's appreciation) and convert her house into an apartment by adding another floor or converting a garage or by demolishing the house and building an apartment block in its stead. She can continue to live in one of the units, probably the first floor, and benefit from a reliable stream of income from tenants. Oh, and BTW, this idea that "techies" aren't people, or somehow less deserving of moral consideration than everyone else, is reprehensible.
- archagon 10y ago
  Speaking as a "technie" myself, I feel no one really addresses the undercurrent of entitlement to live in the city. Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the sense that a lot of the housing discussion in the tech community boils down to "but... I really want to live in SF for cheap". From what I understand, it's very common for programmers to live in the (very expensive) city and commute down to the South Bay for work. That's not a pattern borne out of necessity.
  - Futurebot 10y ago
    You chase everyone out it means: - Service workers (everything from baristas to cops to teachers) either disappear or have to deal with punishing commutes - Brain drain. When even people making a decent salary get pushed out, it's bad for cities (http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/05/26/silicon-valley-exodus-is-real-even-techies-cant-afford-the-bay-area-anymore/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/05/26/silicon-valley-e...) - Many people believe living in the place one was born/grew up in should be a right. That's a value difference. Markets do not get to dictate everything if we don't allow that. Luckily, the market does have a solution to the housing problem itself: build a lot more of it, and prices will drop.
    - archagon 10y ago
      Will highrises and density bring rent down? I think it's been shown that the number of houses needed to actually do that is enormous. In practice, what's likely to happen is that the city will fill up with even more of the well-off. (That is to say, people working in tech.) In a decade rent might come back down, but by then all those groups will be long gone anyway. Personally, I don't have any vested interest SF housing, as it's really not one of my favorite cities. But I keep thinking of what I would do if this was happening to a city I did actually love and live in, and I think in that situation I would be more sympathetic to the NIMBYs than the newcomers. I don't think there's any moral imperative for cities to keep growing.
      - hx87 10y ago
        At any given density, replacing low-rises with high-rises will bring rent down, as long as construction isn't overly burdened with neighborhood review and low-income-unit requirements. Sure, a lot of units will need to be constructed for rents to come down a significant amount, but a massive swath of the western sections of the city consists of 1-3 story single family houses, maybe with a shop on the first floor, which are ripe for conversion into 5-story walk-ups. That alone will provide a significant boost to housing stock without the seismic and elevator costs of high-rises. SF isn't my favorite city either, but what has happened in my current and favorite city (Boston) has made my less sympathetic to NIMBYs, both the high-income (I want my house to appreciate without doing any work!) and low-income (I want 20% of units just for me!/Screw the middle class!) types--they are the ones making things worse. Cities grow because businesses move there, and businesses move there because they want to be close to and network with other businesses. Employees can't exactly prevent that by staying in Nowhere, KS. I agree, there isn't any moral imperative for cities for keep growing, but for now at least, there is a practical one, and thus there is a moral imperative for cities to accommodate those to wish to live there.
sigusr1 10y ago
I feel like any solution that thinks supply and demand shouldn't affect housing is missing some sort of perspective itself.
rconti 10y ago
Any argument that boils down to "this other argument lacks perspective" presumes that there is a preferably alternative without all kinds of unintended consequences. We're seeing the unintended consequences of one alternative. Of course, we haven't tested all of the possible universes yet.
- archagon 10y ago
  My point is that changing the deeply-entrenched status quo is not a matter of looking at a spreadsheet and picking the "best" option. The consequences of the alternative have to be preferable over the consequences of the status quo to the voter base. No amount of rabble-rousing will make people vote against their own best interests.