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I've recently (as of four weeks ago) moved to silicon valley. I am amazed at how much wasted land there is here used as car parks, or sprawling one and two stor

by erentz 10y ago

I've recently (as of four weeks ago) moved to silicon valley. I am amazed at how much wasted land there is here used as car parks, or sprawling one and two store buildings, or just flat out vacant. (There is a lot of vacant land.) I am also pleasantly surprised by the potential I see all around here for in-fill, and intensifying neighborhoods, or just outright building entirely new towns on top of that sprawl of car parks and office parks. The solution to housing costs is not rent control. It is better urban planning, and building more houses. Sadly half of the examples of intensification I see here are miserable, soul crushing places, huge monolithic superblocks of mid-rise cookie cutter apartments on-top of parking that you only access by driving into your building and driving out of your building. South bay could practically be a utopia if it pulled it's head out of its car loving ass.

pascalxus 10y ago
The housing problem in the bay area has nothing to do with space. There's plenty of space in most places, or at least enough room for greater density. Even as far out as Fairfield, you can see miles and miles of empty space, and yet all the stupid little houses are bunched up into a tiny little lot, surrounded by nothing but land. The problem, as you said, is land use policy and regulations. All these rent control rules drive up the cost of building more housing, further constraining supply, causing even greater rent control... It's a downward spiral of epic proportions. The true root of the problem is a lack of basic economic education. I've been viewing my voter election material, and there are countless politicians who freely admit that they've been "preserving open spaces", "preventing new construction and building" and even bragging about it! This tells you something about the general public: they don't understand (or believe in) the first thing about supply and demand. They just don't understand that more regulation leads to less supply, which leads to even higher housing prices.
- johan_larson 10y ago
  > They just don't understand that more regulation leads to less supply, which leads to even higher housing prices. Maybe. Or maybe they understand it just fine and don't care. Prosperous anti-growth types want a) their houses to grow more valuable and b) their neighborhoods to stay the way they are. Some of the leftier ones also don't want poor people to be forced out of their homes. All of these are reasonable things to want. It's just that making them happen has nasty consequences.
m0llusk 10y ago
While highest and best use is indeed rare, much of what appears to be vacant is so for important reasons such as utility rights of way, contaminated sites, watershed protection, or geologically unstable land. What is needed are dense clusters of development like we used to build before cars and the green city movement.

by erentz 10y ago

pascalxus 10y ago

The housing problem in the bay area has nothing to do with space. There's plenty of space in most places, or at least enough room for greater density. Even as far out as Fairfield, you can see miles and miles of empty space, and yet all the stupid little houses are bunched up into a tiny little lot, surrounded by nothing but land. The problem, as you said, is land use policy and regulations. All these rent control rules drive up the cost of building more housing, further constraining supply, causing even greater rent control... It's a downward spiral of epic proportions. The true root of the problem is a lack of basic economic education. I've been viewing my voter election material, and there are countless politicians who freely admit that they've been "preserving open spaces", "preventing new construction and building" and even bragging about it! This tells you something about the general public: they don't understand (or believe in) the first thing about supply and demand. They just don't understand that more regulation leads to less supply, which leads to even higher housing prices.

johan_larson 10y ago
> They just don't understand that more regulation leads to less supply, which leads to even higher housing prices. Maybe. Or maybe they understand it just fine and don't care. Prosperous anti-growth types want a) their houses to grow more valuable and b) their neighborhoods to stay the way they are. Some of the leftier ones also don't want poor people to be forced out of their homes. All of these are reasonable things to want. It's just that making them happen has nasty consequences.

m0llusk 10y ago

While highest and best use is indeed rare, much of what appears to be vacant is so for important reasons such as utility rights of way, contaminated sites, watershed protection, or geologically unstable land. What is needed are dense clusters of development like we used to build before cars and the green city movement.