11 ms·

The case for making New York and San Francisco much, much bigger

63 points by dctoedt 10y ago

smallnamespace 10y ago
The simple reason why this will never happen in SF is because property owners have both the means and incentive to restrict housing supply. New York is rather different in that NIMBYism never had the formal tools to block development as effectively. In order to convince homeowners to allow expansion, you would need to pay them off somehow. Perhaps a large tax on new developments that is redistributed out to nearby property owners? EDIT: I suspect people don't like the implication that property owners should get even more, but fundamentally property owners are the ones that vote and go to city hall meetings because they have the most skin in the game. Political and economic power are already concentrated in their hands, so there is no workable solution without their consent.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  >Perhaps a large tax on new developments that is redistributed out to nearby property owners? Surely if this would work, developers would already be bribing NIMBYs directly? If they can't profit after the bribe, then they can't profit after the tax either.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    There's significant friction in trying to bribe people out directly (e.g. did you bribe the right people, and did you pay them the right amount?). Every single transaction needs to be separately negotiated, and the developer, unlike the state, doesn't have access to all the existing value of the people they're negotiating with. The point of codifying this sort of payout is so that approval would happen automatically -- i.e. the law says the developer gets green lighted as long as they pay. Basically the 'negotiation' between developers and the community happens only once, during the legislative debate.
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      It is a fact about legislatures that this sort of negotiation would take place again every year. Places with not enough housing would want lower rates, big developers would want the scheme to be restructured so that only their accountants and lawyers could figure it out, schools (and eventually numerous other public services) would want a piece of the action, etc. And NIMBYs would still protest new development. I upvoted you because you do identify a real challenge with bribery; but this solution won't solve that problem.
      - smallnamespace 10y ago
        I agree - certainly not convinced that this particular idea is a workable solution, but any eventual fix will definitely look like bribery just because of the political dynamics here.
- ktRolster 10y ago
  there is no workable solution without their consent. Governor Brown has a proposal that would work to improve things: http://www.sfexaminer.com/san-francisco-needs-governors-housing-bill/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/san-francisco-needs-governors-hous... http://www.hcd.ca.gov/housing4agrowingca.html http://www.hcd.ca.gov/housing4agrowingca.html
overcast 10y ago
They better start making cost of living, much, much cheaper.
ctulek 10y ago
This looks like a poorly written sponsored article. More housing will boom real estate market, and only for short term. I don't believe new housing will help average Joe to have better prices. To the contrary, it will make some real estate investors richer.
- selectodude 10y ago
  So you think the demand for housing in San Francisco is literally infinite?
  - PaulHoule 10y ago
    No, but new construction is never cheap. If you want affordable housing or business space you'd need to invent a way to make more old buildings.
    - dublinben 10y ago
      The way to make more old buildings is to build more new buildings, ten years ago. We're just playing catch-up.
    - hx87 10y ago
      Construction isn't cheap, but making it more expensive or impossible certainly doesn't help things.
  - Kinnard 10y ago
    Perhaps OP never took economics and doesn't understand supply-demand dynamics? Perhaps OP thinks housing doesn't behave like a normal good or perhaps he think there are some other governing dynamics than the ones people typically learn?
    - mrec 10y ago
      > Perhaps OP thinks housing doesn't behave like a normal good Unfortunately, to some extent it doesn't. House prices go up, especially in a terminally low-interest rate environment, and lots of people with (unearned) equity from that increase pile in buying more as speculative investments. You'd hope that government would step in to break such an obvious vicious circle, but... no, it's no use, I can't keep a straight face. (Not defending OP's specific claim. Also speaking from a London perspective; YMMV.)
mgbmtl 10y ago
Interesting article, different point of view for sure, but I have a bit of trouble with sentences such as: "More housing would mean lower rent and a bigger economy" : I'm all for increasing density (up to European equivalents), but more density adds complexity and more costs (waste disposal, parking space, public transport, local commerce, health issues). I'm not an urban planner, but most of the high-density areas I've seen in my city, even those outside the core, are pretty expensive places (i.e. buildings with 10+ floors). The author also mentions the need for serious urban planning, while seeing a need for "liberalizing housing regulations". That's a bit contradictory. Also, we need a culture shift in terms of how we see high density. The urban core is not just for 20-somethings looking for an opportunity. An old industrial area was converted to high-rise buildings in the past 10 years in my city, and they didn't plan a single school. Now young professionals moved in, they like the area, have kids, but want to stay in that area. (it's no different than living in Manhattan with kids, which is not a problem if you can afford it)
- jimrandomh 10y ago
  The causality goes the other way: places become dense because people want to live there and bid the prices up, and developers respond to those prices by building taller. The really high prices happen when people want to live somewhere and bid the prices up, but no one can build to make room for them because of zoning regulations.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    I think the causality goes both ways. People want to live there because of the advantages of density, and the area becomes denser to accommodate them.
- woah 10y ago
  It's real simple. If density is increased, more people can be serviced with a given length of sewer and water pipes. Busses don't have to drive as far. Cars don't have to drive as far. Businesses have more customers. The high-density places in your city that are expensive are only expensive because the developer probably had to fight a multi-year battle to be allowed to build there, with millions of dollars at risk because permitting could be stopped by a cranky neighbor at any point in the process. Dealing with those kinds of legal impediments to construction, it only makes sense to build higher profit luxury housing, and since there is a lack of housing the market can bear it.
maxsilver 10y ago
The biggest problem with density is _cost_. Even if we "liberalize housing regulations", density in America still means housing prices 2x-4x higher than current averages. Wages can't support that -- most people can barely afford housing today as it is. Even higher tech industry wages can't support that in many places. (Even in my small-town-Midwest city, tech wages don't cover "downtown" cost of living) Until we get serious about planning density for people who work for a living, this problem will only get worse. If you just let cities get bigger on their own with "less regulations", developers will build cities full of penthouses (as they do today). Sure, millionaires will save some cash, but 99% of the population will still forever be priced out, and therefore be driving in from elsewhere
- woah 10y ago
  Your comment makes no sense. You are telling us that increased supply drives up prices?
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    "Land rents" are the increase in value of a plot of land caused by its location. As more people fill an area, network effects raise production. This means people have more money to spend on land to have access to this network. So yes. Land Is Different.
  - maxsilver 10y ago
    Yes, because housing isn't just about any "supply", it's the right kind of supply. In car terms : If companies only built Lamborghinis and Ferarri's, cars would never be affordable for regular people. Even if you built 1 million of them, you'd never end up with the Yaris or Camry or other regular cars that the market actually needs. Increased supply can drive up prices, if your increasing the wrong kind of supply. This is the same problem we see in cities today. Developers build exclusively super-ultra-high-end housing. If we loosen restrictions, Developers will just build more exclusively-ultra-high-end-housing. Sure, your wealthy folks will save 5% on housing costs as supply increases and the cost of "ultra-high-end" housing drops. But the 95% of regular folks will still forever be priced out of the market. It will take 60+ years before ultra-high-end housing becomes affordable enough for a regular person to afford it. To solve the gentrification problem this article mentions ("to stop gentrification steadily erode opportunities for ordinary, middle-class people") we have to start by building urban housing for ordinary, middle-class people. Something no city in America is currently doing.
PaulHoule 10y ago
The Winner Take All economy is a circle jerk. Palo Alto is successful because you can't make an exit from 49.5 states.
CPLX 10y ago
I agree with the basic premise, but it seems to me that those two cities in particular are quite different. New York definitely has its NIMBY crowd, and people will scream about development in certain places under certain situations, but on the whole it seems to be an entirely different culture towards growth. As a longtime NYC resident, my feeling at least is that everyone here basically agrees on the premise that they are going to live in a giant, incredibly dense, tall, interconnected city that looks like a city. People might lament loss of historic buildings, get annoyed by the aesthetics of cookie cutter towers, or get seriously concerned at lower income people being ignored by builders, but we do get that we live in a big city. From the outside, it seems like the Bay Area is completely schizophrenic. San Francisco has obvious big city problems that seem largely unaddressed. The Valley is completely dominated by automobile-scale planning with a way of life based on four story office parks surrounded by parking lots, a fundamentally broken model. And the people with real money seem to want to continue some fantasy that everyone is living in a bucolic nature preserve rather than the choked up global megacity that clearly surrounds them. I have little doubt that NYC will, in fact, just get much much bigger over the next 20 years, and will generally have the same fundamental structure and urban fabric. The Valley on the other hand seems like it's going to need to change course.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- komali2 10y ago
  The weird thing is, there's no reason we can't have both (megacity and nature preserve). A hop skip and a jump over the golden gate bridge brings you to the expansive Golden Gate Recreational Area. Head south and you have lots of state preserves, national parks, state parks, and etc for hiking/climbing. A mere three hour drive south is the incredible Big Sur. A few more hours East, Yosemite. So why not develop down town? Why not knock down the dinky little family two stories in Daly City and put up highrises? I don't get it.
  - karma_vaccum123 10y ago
    Eventually what you describe will force some density...if you look at an map of the Bay Area, you will see that most cities are bordered by county-owned open space or parks of some kind, which creates a natural border for development. It was very forward-thinking of local governments to create these parks and open spaces back when the there was no demand for the land.
AncoraImparo 10y ago
New York is dead though. Forget it. It had its day and failed. Its all about SF and Austin now.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- milesokeefe 10y ago
  Why/how has it failed?
- O_doyle 10y ago
  Fuck San Francisco. Orbiting satellites are where it's at.
karma_vaccum123 10y ago
Going up is one thing, but to expand out, SF would need to start swallowing adjacent municipalities, which is not going to happen. All of the upscale towns surrounding San Jose (Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino) were approached to be absorbed numerous times over the past few decades...none regret their decision.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  San Francisco has no adjacent municipalities that aren't separate counties, since the city and county boundaries have been identical since 1856.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    Is that an issue in California? Plenty of cities straddle counties in Texas, and NYC is actually five counties. On the other hand, I don't think cities can generally straddle counties in Florida (at least, I know of none that did).
    - honkhonkpants 10y ago
      California law prohibits a city spanning counties. However school districts and other special districts can do so.
      - vonmoltke 10y ago
        Interesting. Texas is the opposite: cities can span counties, but school districts cannot. Dallas actually touches five different counties and seven (I think) school districts.
ngrilly 10y ago
Sounds like the author is confusing correlation with causation. The fact that the biggest cities have enjoyed growth during the last few years doesn't necessarily imply that making them even bigger will produce even more growth in the future.
- timr 10y ago
  Worse, the whole argument is circular: cities are growing because jobs are moving there! Why are jobs moving there? Because that's where the people are! The whole SF housing debate -- both sides of it -- is completely irrational. One side believes that unrestricted building will solve everything, despite ample evidence to the contrary. The other believes that nothing should be built unless it's 100% affordable, despite clear evidence that this won't work, either. Meanwhile, SF continues to encourage tech companies to relocate to the city by offering substantial tax incentives. If only we could do something to reduce the severity of the crisis...
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    >One side believes that unrestricted building will solve everything, despite ample evidence to the contrary. What evidence?
    - timr 10y ago
      For starters, read this, and then read everything it links to: http://cityobservatory.org/what-filtering-can-and-cant-do/ http://cityobservatory.org/what-filtering-can-and-cant-do/ The economics are clear and intuitive: the "filtering" effect of new construction happens on a decades-long basis. Building today won't have a downward impact on prices on any timeframe relevant to the people involved in this discussion. So fine, build more...but don't expect it to solve your problems. Considering that the current housing crunch began in ~2012, it's far more likely that we can impact prices on a timeframe that matters by discouraging the (acute) crisis in demand. We can start by reversing the ill-conceived tax incentives we give tech companies to move to San Francisco.
swagv 10y ago
Favelas for you and you and you...
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Let's call this what it is: a real estate crisis. Real estate is a bigger and harder problem then people give credit for. Us "hackers" can make the world prosperous and inexpensive through innovations like self-driving cars, 3D printers, and so on, but the cost of real estate is baked into EVERYTHING: the cost of food in the store or warehouse, the cost of your haircut, the cost of your dwelling, the cost of your office, and by extension, the opportunity cost of you compared to outsourced labor from somewhere cheaper. A lot of this is our own fault: we want neighborhoods with "character." We introduce regulations that slaughter high-density living like requiring all bedrooms have windows (to protect us from actual, fire-style slaughter). We require nearly all living spaces to have full kitchens, even if the people living there almost entirely eat out (the ancient Romans didn't have a kitchen in every home, but they did have plenty of eateries). Housing and real estate cannot be "innovated" away. It cannot be "disrupted." It can only be solved with a lot of hard work and sacrifice for a way of life we are lead to believe is the only way forward.
yarrel 10y ago
Here comes Mega City One, or the BAMA.
greghendershott 10y ago
Although the "death of distance" hasn't happened as fast as expected/hoped, maybe it's too soon to give up on it. Trying to kill distance might be crazy. But is it crazier than trying to cram even more jobs, people, and housing into a tiny % of the available area? Geographical income inequality exists. Maybe it always will, and maybe we can't make it much better. But why should we try to make it even worse? Seems to me this equation has a couple "V" variables -- VR and VC -- to which small adjustments might make a large difference.
AncoraImparo 10y ago
New York is dead though. Forget it. It had its day and failed. Its all about SF and Austin now.

63 points by dctoedt 10y ago

The simple reason why this will never happen in SF is because property owners have both the means and incentive to restrict housing supply. New York is rather different in that NIMBYism never had the formal tools to block development as effectively. In order to convince homeowners to allow expansion, you would need to pay them off somehow. Perhaps a large tax on new developments that is redistributed out to nearby property owners? EDIT: I suspect people don't like the implication that property owners should get even more, but fundamentally property owners are the ones that vote and go to city hall meetings because they have the most skin in the game. Political and economic power are already concentrated in their hands, so there is no workable solution without their consent.

aninhumer 10y ago
>Perhaps a large tax on new developments that is redistributed out to nearby property owners? Surely if this would work, developers would already be bribing NIMBYs directly? If they can't profit after the bribe, then they can't profit after the tax either.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  There's significant friction in trying to bribe people out directly (e.g. did you bribe the right people, and did you pay them the right amount?). Every single transaction needs to be separately negotiated, and the developer, unlike the state, doesn't have access to all the existing value of the people they're negotiating with. The point of codifying this sort of payout is so that approval would happen automatically -- i.e. the law says the developer gets green lighted as long as they pay. Basically the 'negotiation' between developers and the community happens only once, during the legislative debate.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    It is a fact about legislatures that this sort of negotiation would take place again every year. Places with not enough housing would want lower rates, big developers would want the scheme to be restructured so that only their accountants and lawyers could figure it out, schools (and eventually numerous other public services) would want a piece of the action, etc. And NIMBYs would still protest new development. I upvoted you because you do identify a real challenge with bribery; but this solution won't solve that problem.
    - smallnamespace 10y ago
      I agree - certainly not convinced that this particular idea is a workable solution, but any eventual fix will definitely look like bribery just because of the political dynamics here.
ktRolster 10y ago
there is no workable solution without their consent. Governor Brown has a proposal that would work to improve things: http://www.sfexaminer.com/san-francisco-needs-governors-housing-bill/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/san-francisco-needs-governors-hous... http://www.hcd.ca.gov/housing4agrowingca.html http://www.hcd.ca.gov/housing4agrowingca.html

overcast 10y ago

They better start making cost of living, much, much cheaper.

ctulek 10y ago

This looks like a poorly written sponsored article. More housing will boom real estate market, and only for short term. I don't believe new housing will help average Joe to have better prices. To the contrary, it will make some real estate investors richer.

selectodude 10y ago
So you think the demand for housing in San Francisco is literally infinite?
- PaulHoule 10y ago
  No, but new construction is never cheap. If you want affordable housing or business space you'd need to invent a way to make more old buildings.
  - dublinben 10y ago
    The way to make more old buildings is to build more new buildings, ten years ago. We're just playing catch-up.
  - hx87 10y ago
    Construction isn't cheap, but making it more expensive or impossible certainly doesn't help things.
- Kinnard 10y ago
  Perhaps OP never took economics and doesn't understand supply-demand dynamics? Perhaps OP thinks housing doesn't behave like a normal good or perhaps he think there are some other governing dynamics than the ones people typically learn?
  - mrec 10y ago
    > Perhaps OP thinks housing doesn't behave like a normal good Unfortunately, to some extent it doesn't. House prices go up, especially in a terminally low-interest rate environment, and lots of people with (unearned) equity from that increase pile in buying more as speculative investments. You'd hope that government would step in to break such an obvious vicious circle, but... no, it's no use, I can't keep a straight face. (Not defending OP's specific claim. Also speaking from a London perspective; YMMV.)

mgbmtl 10y ago

Interesting article, different point of view for sure, but I have a bit of trouble with sentences such as: "More housing would mean lower rent and a bigger economy" : I'm all for increasing density (up to European equivalents), but more density adds complexity and more costs (waste disposal, parking space, public transport, local commerce, health issues). I'm not an urban planner, but most of the high-density areas I've seen in my city, even those outside the core, are pretty expensive places (i.e. buildings with 10+ floors). The author also mentions the need for serious urban planning, while seeing a need for "liberalizing housing regulations". That's a bit contradictory. Also, we need a culture shift in terms of how we see high density. The urban core is not just for 20-somethings looking for an opportunity. An old industrial area was converted to high-rise buildings in the past 10 years in my city, and they didn't plan a single school. Now young professionals moved in, they like the area, have kids, but want to stay in that area. (it's no different than living in Manhattan with kids, which is not a problem if you can afford it)

jimrandomh 10y ago
The causality goes the other way: places become dense because people want to live there and bid the prices up, and developers respond to those prices by building taller. The really high prices happen when people want to live somewhere and bid the prices up, but no one can build to make room for them because of zoning regulations.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  I think the causality goes both ways. People want to live there because of the advantages of density, and the area becomes denser to accommodate them.
woah 10y ago
It's real simple. If density is increased, more people can be serviced with a given length of sewer and water pipes. Busses don't have to drive as far. Cars don't have to drive as far. Businesses have more customers. The high-density places in your city that are expensive are only expensive because the developer probably had to fight a multi-year battle to be allowed to build there, with millions of dollars at risk because permitting could be stopped by a cranky neighbor at any point in the process. Dealing with those kinds of legal impediments to construction, it only makes sense to build higher profit luxury housing, and since there is a lack of housing the market can bear it.

maxsilver 10y ago

The biggest problem with density is _cost_. Even if we "liberalize housing regulations", density in America still means housing prices 2x-4x higher than current averages. Wages can't support that -- most people can barely afford housing today as it is. Even higher tech industry wages can't support that in many places. (Even in my small-town-Midwest city, tech wages don't cover "downtown" cost of living) Until we get serious about planning density for people who work for a living, this problem will only get worse. If you just let cities get bigger on their own with "less regulations", developers will build cities full of penthouses (as they do today). Sure, millionaires will save some cash, but 99% of the population will still forever be priced out, and therefore be driving in from elsewhere

woah 10y ago
Your comment makes no sense. You are telling us that increased supply drives up prices?
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  "Land rents" are the increase in value of a plot of land caused by its location. As more people fill an area, network effects raise production. This means people have more money to spend on land to have access to this network. So yes. Land Is Different.
- maxsilver 10y ago
  Yes, because housing isn't just about any "supply", it's the right kind of supply. In car terms : If companies only built Lamborghinis and Ferarri's, cars would never be affordable for regular people. Even if you built 1 million of them, you'd never end up with the Yaris or Camry or other regular cars that the market actually needs. Increased supply can drive up prices, if your increasing the wrong kind of supply. This is the same problem we see in cities today. Developers build exclusively super-ultra-high-end housing. If we loosen restrictions, Developers will just build more exclusively-ultra-high-end-housing. Sure, your wealthy folks will save 5% on housing costs as supply increases and the cost of "ultra-high-end" housing drops. But the 95% of regular folks will still forever be priced out of the market. It will take 60+ years before ultra-high-end housing becomes affordable enough for a regular person to afford it. To solve the gentrification problem this article mentions ("to stop gentrification steadily erode opportunities for ordinary, middle-class people") we have to start by building urban housing for ordinary, middle-class people. Something no city in America is currently doing.

PaulHoule 10y ago

The Winner Take All economy is a circle jerk. Palo Alto is successful because you can't make an exit from 49.5 states.

CPLX 10y ago

I agree with the basic premise, but it seems to me that those two cities in particular are quite different. New York definitely has its NIMBY crowd, and people will scream about development in certain places under certain situations, but on the whole it seems to be an entirely different culture towards growth. As a longtime NYC resident, my feeling at least is that everyone here basically agrees on the premise that they are going to live in a giant, incredibly dense, tall, interconnected city that looks like a city. People might lament loss of historic buildings, get annoyed by the aesthetics of cookie cutter towers, or get seriously concerned at lower income people being ignored by builders, but we do get that we live in a big city. From the outside, it seems like the Bay Area is completely schizophrenic. San Francisco has obvious big city problems that seem largely unaddressed. The Valley is completely dominated by automobile-scale planning with a way of life based on four story office parks surrounded by parking lots, a fundamentally broken model. And the people with real money seem to want to continue some fantasy that everyone is living in a bucolic nature preserve rather than the choked up global megacity that clearly surrounds them. I have little doubt that NYC will, in fact, just get much much bigger over the next 20 years, and will generally have the same fundamental structure and urban fabric. The Valley on the other hand seems like it's going to need to change course.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
komali2 10y ago
The weird thing is, there's no reason we can't have both (megacity and nature preserve). A hop skip and a jump over the golden gate bridge brings you to the expansive Golden Gate Recreational Area. Head south and you have lots of state preserves, national parks, state parks, and etc for hiking/climbing. A mere three hour drive south is the incredible Big Sur. A few more hours East, Yosemite. So why not develop down town? Why not knock down the dinky little family two stories in Daly City and put up highrises? I don't get it.
- karma_vaccum123 10y ago
  Eventually what you describe will force some density...if you look at an map of the Bay Area, you will see that most cities are bordered by county-owned open space or parks of some kind, which creates a natural border for development. It was very forward-thinking of local governments to create these parks and open spaces back when the there was no demand for the land.

AncoraImparo 10y ago

New York is dead though. Forget it. It had its day and failed. Its all about SF and Austin now.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
milesokeefe 10y ago
Why/how has it failed?
O_doyle 10y ago
Fuck San Francisco. Orbiting satellites are where it's at.

karma_vaccum123 10y ago

Going up is one thing, but to expand out, SF would need to start swallowing adjacent municipalities, which is not going to happen. All of the upscale towns surrounding San Jose (Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino) were approached to be absorbed numerous times over the past few decades...none regret their decision.

dragonwriter 10y ago
San Francisco has no adjacent municipalities that aren't separate counties, since the city and county boundaries have been identical since 1856.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  Is that an issue in California? Plenty of cities straddle counties in Texas, and NYC is actually five counties. On the other hand, I don't think cities can generally straddle counties in Florida (at least, I know of none that did).
  - honkhonkpants 10y ago
    California law prohibits a city spanning counties. However school districts and other special districts can do so.
    - vonmoltke 10y ago
      Interesting. Texas is the opposite: cities can span counties, but school districts cannot. Dallas actually touches five different counties and seven (I think) school districts.

ngrilly 10y ago

Sounds like the author is confusing correlation with causation. The fact that the biggest cities have enjoyed growth during the last few years doesn't necessarily imply that making them even bigger will produce even more growth in the future.

timr 10y ago
Worse, the whole argument is circular: cities are growing because jobs are moving there! Why are jobs moving there? Because that's where the people are! The whole SF housing debate -- both sides of it -- is completely irrational. One side believes that unrestricted building will solve everything, despite ample evidence to the contrary. The other believes that nothing should be built unless it's 100% affordable, despite clear evidence that this won't work, either. Meanwhile, SF continues to encourage tech companies to relocate to the city by offering substantial tax incentives. If only we could do something to reduce the severity of the crisis...
- aninhumer 10y ago
  >One side believes that unrestricted building will solve everything, despite ample evidence to the contrary. What evidence?
  - timr 10y ago
    For starters, read this, and then read everything it links to: http://cityobservatory.org/what-filtering-can-and-cant-do/ http://cityobservatory.org/what-filtering-can-and-cant-do/ The economics are clear and intuitive: the "filtering" effect of new construction happens on a decades-long basis. Building today won't have a downward impact on prices on any timeframe relevant to the people involved in this discussion. So fine, build more...but don't expect it to solve your problems. Considering that the current housing crunch began in ~2012, it's far more likely that we can impact prices on a timeframe that matters by discouraging the (acute) crisis in demand. We can start by reversing the ill-conceived tax incentives we give tech companies to move to San Francisco.

swagv 10y ago

Favelas for you and you and you...

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

Let's call this what it is: a real estate crisis. Real estate is a bigger and harder problem then people give credit for. Us "hackers" can make the world prosperous and inexpensive through innovations like self-driving cars, 3D printers, and so on, but the cost of real estate is baked into EVERYTHING: the cost of food in the store or warehouse, the cost of your haircut, the cost of your dwelling, the cost of your office, and by extension, the opportunity cost of you compared to outsourced labor from somewhere cheaper. A lot of this is our own fault: we want neighborhoods with "character." We introduce regulations that slaughter high-density living like requiring all bedrooms have windows (to protect us from actual, fire-style slaughter). We require nearly all living spaces to have full kitchens, even if the people living there almost entirely eat out (the ancient Romans didn't have a kitchen in every home, but they did have plenty of eateries). Housing and real estate cannot be "innovated" away. It cannot be "disrupted." It can only be solved with a lot of hard work and sacrifice for a way of life we are lead to believe is the only way forward.

yarrel 10y ago

Here comes Mega City One, or the BAMA.

greghendershott 10y ago

Although the "death of distance" hasn't happened as fast as expected/hoped, maybe it's too soon to give up on it. Trying to kill distance might be crazy. But is it crazier than trying to cram even more jobs, people, and housing into a tiny % of the available area? Geographical income inequality exists. Maybe it always will, and maybe we can't make it much better. But why should we try to make it even worse? Seems to me this equation has a couple "V" variables -- VR and VC -- to which small adjustments might make a large difference.

AncoraImparo 10y ago

New York is dead though. Forget it. It had its day and failed. Its all about SF and Austin now.