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Maybe the restrictions on building created the growth? The Bay Area is an awfully nice place to live if you have money. Every other American city, except for
by narrator 10y ago
Maybe the restrictions on building created the growth? The Bay Area is an awfully nice place to live if you have money. Every other American city, except for maybe New York City, is endless chain store filled sprawl which requires a car to do anything in. Even New York requires a minimum two hour drive to get to some decent natural scenery while with San Francisco you don't have to go very far to get to be in a great natural environment.
- coldtea 10y ago>Every other American city, except for maybe New York City, is endless chain store filled sprawl which requires a car to do anything in. Ever been to Chicago, New Orleans, Austin, San Diego, Denver, Santa Fe, Boston, Providence, Miami etc?
- ch4s3 10y agoI agree about Chicago and Boston, and I've never been to New Orleans. However, you can't walk anywhere in Austin.
- ghaff 10y agoThose are probably the only two cities on that list which would be (relatively) doable without cars. Pretty good public transit and significant areas that are fairly dense. Not New Orleans. Like any city, you can identify areas where you might live and work without a car but you're going to have pretty limited mobility. Public transit is somewhat better than it used to be but it's still fairly limited--now a variety of streetcars but no subway for obvious reasons.
- dfinninger 10y agoI mean, if you live and work downtown it's pretty alright. But then you don't really have easy walkable access to Burnet, East Side, SoCo, etc. I mean, you get 6th. Maybe Rainey depending on where you live downtown. But yeah, I lived halfway to Bee Cave and worked on 360. That made me much happier than being directly downtown.
- dionidium 10y agoI went to a CocoaConf in Austin two years ago. I snapped a lot of desire path photos, because my daily walk from my hotel to the conference was mostly devoid of pedestrian facilities, including even sidewalks. http://m.imgur.com/a/NhaYH http://m.imgur.com/a/NhaYH Clearly, people are walking there, but the city doesn't seem to give a shit.
- jacobush 10y agoTIL desire path
- wybiral 10y agoI live in Austin (central, Hyde Park area) and walk, bike, or bus everywhere.
- angersock 10y ago~ fly-over country ~
- coldtea 10y agoChicago, Denver, Austin and, say, Santa Fe are "fly-over country"? I think you misunderstood the term, it's loosely geographical, and more geopolitical.
- angersock 10y agoHN is, as always, not the perfect avenue for sarcasm. And yes, I've heard people refer to the Midwest as "fly-over" country, ignoring specifically Chicago, Denver, Austin, Houston, and Dallas.
- dionidium 10y agoEvery large U.S. city has one or two more or less walkable neighborhoods. My last two apartments in St. Louis had walkscores of 84 and 93, respectively. But St. Louis is not walkable in any general sense and neither are most of the cities you listed.
- dpark 10y agoNeither is most of the Bay Area.
- throwthisawayt 10y agothe restrictions aren't on the green areas. The city can keep all of our parks and nature and be fine. The restriction are on the building heights and number of units on vast areas of the city that are already developed. For example, the west portala Sherwood Forest area is essentially a suburb within the city. There are huge lots that are 5000 sq ft when next door neighborhoods you have 1600sq ft lots with 2-3 units. Essentially you have suburb neighborhoods right next to others that have 10x the density. A developer would love to buy units in those areas and convert to duplexes but is literally impossible to do this. So again, it's not a question of preserving our parks but a question of preserving our suburbs within the city so rich people get to live in a suburb within the city and watch their property prices skyrocket instead of allowing the city to expand and accommodate the middle class.
- DMac87 10y agoAlso, the city allows buyers to take what used to be a family home (e.g. 4-5 bedrooms), tear it down and put up a 1-2 bedroom house (more modern, more amenities, e.g. garage, sauna, etc). Why policymakers allow this if they believe there's a supply problem is beyond me - on my block the number of bedrooms has gone down by about a quarter in the last few years as a result...
- throwthisawayt 10y agoWhat's the regulation that allows you to do that ? From what I understood, you aren't legally allowed to reduce the number of units that a property is zoned for.
- scythe 10y agoUnits =/= bedrooms. People are replacing units with 3-4 bedrooms with 2-bedroom units that have larger rooms.
- fourthark 10y agoNever understand why everyone on HN is all "build baby build" all the time. They pulled out all the stops in Brooklyn (or most of them) and let me tell you it is not pleasant. Unless you like "modern" looking condos that fall apart in five years. But I guess people don't move to SF for the sturdy quaint old houses. Apparently there's not much love for an urban-looking Brooklyn either. Generic rules.
- who_is_firing 10y agoI guess I would sacrifice the look of my city so that normal middle class people like teachers, policemen, firemen, artists, and minorities could live beside myself and fellow engineers and doctors. The whole "we need to preserve the architecture of my city" is a first world problem. What comes before that is the ability for the middle and lower class to survive in the city. Cities are living dynamic entities and should be capable of change.
- fourthark 10y agoIt's also unclear that building more luxury housing (because that is what will be built, there as here) stabilizes rental prices for everyone else. I can see why it's tempting to think about it as a supply and demand problem. But be realistic about the motivations of developers, too. And it's not like "affordable housing" requirements work, either, when those are defined relative to average income.
- CydeWeys 10y agoLuxury housing becomes more affordable with time. There are plenty of buildings in New York that were targeted upscale at the time they were built, but are no longer upscale and thus rent to people lower down the income spectrum now versus then.
- CydeWeys 10y agoFellow New Yorker here. Thanks to all of that construction, rents here have actually decreased over the past year: https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-new-york-rent-trends/ https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-new-york-rent-tre... That's why we're all "build baby build": Increase supply enough to meet demand and you can get prices to drop. It's worth it in order to help maintain the existence of affordable housing.
- kabes 10y agoI'm living in the bay area right now and I find it one of the most ugly and boring places I've ever seen. Can't wait till I'm out of here. San Fransisco is less boring and ugly, but at night it's crawling with homeless junks and the weather sucks. Silicon Valley is also this endless chain store thing you describe and there's almost no nightlife.
- tonydiv 10y agoI stopped reading at "The weather sucks"
- kabes 10y agoI stopped reading at "I stopped reading"
- acchow 10y agoIt's pretty divisive. Some people dream of living a place where they can wear a light jacket all the time. Other people love intense heat. But it's hard to argue against an average of 1 day of precipitation per month in June, July, August and September...And if you live in the right neighborhood, it's also sunny from 10-4 every day in that period as well...
- majormajor 10y ago> But it's hard to argue against an average of 1 day of precipitation per month in June, July, August and September...And if you live in the right neighborhood, it's also sunny from 10-4 every day in that period as well... Nah, it's easy to argue against that, you just have to had lived in SoCal where it's sunnier and a nice comfortable bit warmer :p
- alasdair_ 10y agoSeattle is an extremely walkable/bikeable city and has plenty of nature right outside. It also has a very sizable tech population with excellent salaries, especially considering the lack of income tax sucking 10% out of every paycheck.
- conanbatt 10y agoMaybe if you live downtown, but i visited and couldnt go anywhere without a car. Theres basically no public transport.
- timothycrosley 10y agoYes, exactly, don't come here! No public transit. No massive collection of rapid rides[0], no growing light rail system[1], and no bus usage just below San Fran and growing [2]. And certainly no huge and growing collection of bike trails [3]. Really there's just rain and coffee here. At least it's some good coffee. [0] http://metro.kingcounty.gov/travel-options/bus/rapidride/ http://metro.kingcounty.gov/travel-options/bus/rapidride/ [1] http://soundtransit3.org/map#map http://soundtransit3.org/map#map [2] http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-sees-biggest-jump-in-bus-riders-of-any-us-city/ http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-sees-b... [3] http://stb-wp.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/09173123/Regional-Bike-Trail-Subway-Map-V2-01.png http://stb-wp.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/09...
- adjkant 10y agoCan you please cite your source for the good coffee? I hate when people don't give evidence in their posts here. Seriously, this community is going to hell.
- timothycrosley 10y agoWell I didn't cite because we don't have any. I mean really we have basically no Coffee [1]. I mean, TBH, we are a boring bland place with only big box shops - no record stores or anything unique [2]. You should really just drive through and pay no attention. [1] - https://www.bustle.com/articles/155686-which-us-city-has-the-most-coffee-shops-these-are-the-best-places-for-coffee-lovers https://www.bustle.com/articles/155686-which-us-city-has-the... [2] - http://www.infogroup.com/defining-the-hippest-us-cities http://www.infogroup.com/defining-the-hippest-us-cities
- jaaron 10y agoI agree with coldtea that this view doesn't match reality. I live in Santa Monica and while there is sprawl in Los Angeles county, I can walk or bike to everything I need, including my work or the beach. The trails of the Santa Monica mountains are close, let alone a couple hour drive to San Gabriel mountains or the Joshua Tree desert.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- skewart 10y agoThe building regulations in SF have done more to encourage suburban sprawl than to discourage it. Of course if density weren't outlawed SF would look different, but it would still be a very appealing place to live. You could triple the number of housing units in SF and it would be a city of low apartment buildings and townhouses with great views. You could increase the housing supply 10-fold and it would be a city of midrise apartment buildings with a fantastic climate and beautiful parks just outside the city.
- hx87 10y agoYep, replacing the rowhouses in Richmond & Sunset with 5-story walkups would probably triple the housing supply by itself.
- hexane360 10y agoI don't really know much about SF or local utilities. I know agriculture takes up most of California's water supply. But even though a relatively small amount is consumed directly, would there be enough water to substantially house 2x-3x the current population? How much would price spike?
- skewart 10y agoWell, a lot of the people who can't afford to live in SF, but would like to, still live in California, consuming California water. They just live farther out in the north, east, or south bays. Of course, if SF actually had 3, 5, or 10 times the population it does today then there would probably have to be a lot of infrastructure changes too. But the limit probably wouldn't be available water for residents.
- CydeWeys 10y agoHousehold water usage, especially for dense housing like apartments that lack yards, is such a small percentage of overall water usage that it's a rounding error. Agriculture and then industry are the main users of water.
- dcposch 10y agoI made a zoning map of SF yesterday. A lot of our city is sprawl, too: one house, one driveway, one garage per lot. https://dcpos.ch/yimby/zoning https://dcpos.ch/yimby/zoning We can get two birds with a stone by building housing: make our city more walkable and beautiful, and also alleviate the housing shortage . Want to support infill, upzoning, and want to beat the NIMBYs? Consider joining SF Yimby. It's a small group of ppl who care a lot about this, they're smart and effective, and many of these local issues are right on the bubble around 50% support in low turnout elections. This means, with a bit of activism, you can swing the outcome.
- who_is_firing 10y agoThis is awesome. I'd like to support yimby efforts. Do you have a link where I can see how I can contribute as developer?
- cwsmith17 10y agoTheir website is SFYIMBY.org. I work for another organization that does similar work called the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition. There are plenty of pro-housing organizers in San Francisco if you're willing to get plugged in and volunteer.
- schrodinger 10y agoClickable: https://sfyimby.org https://sfyimby.org
- dcposch 10y ago@who_is_firing what's your Github?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- foggyeyes69 10y agoHow do you join?
- hx87 10y agoIt might just be me, but a neighborhood of 5-story apartment buildings isn't less nice to live in than one of 2-story rowhouses.
- rhino369 10y agoRestrictions on building probably makes SF more sprawling, not less. Imagine if you allowed people to buy up a block in Sunset District and build 40 story apartment buildings. People wouldn't have to live in Livermoore anymore.