6 ms·
Isn't SF an earthquake area?
by sogen 9y ago
Isn't SF an earthquake area?
- Moshe_Silnorin 9y agoI agree; an off-the-charts earthquake is the only practical solution to bay-area NIMBYism.
- sogen 9y agoYeah, I've heard SF is mostly 3-story buildings "so flimsy walls don't kill you in the event of an earthquake ".
- kofejnik 9y agowhat's so wrong with NIMBYism?
- davidw 9y agoBecause it hurts people - and mostly those who are poorer or middle class: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/how-anti-growth-sentiment-reflected-in-zoning-laws-thwarts-equality.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/how-anti-growth-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/10/why-cities-need-to-care-more-about-works-in-them-not-just-who-lives-in-them/?utm_term=.468a99556d40 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/10/why-c...
- kofejnik 9y agoit hurts some people (those who want to live in SF), but it helps other people (those who already live there), pretty much like any other resource with finite availability
- davidw 9y agoYes, a bunch of rich people get richer, and the poor get poorer because they can't access jobs in one of the most productive, wealthy parts of the country. All because we don't allow the market to function properly. Seems like a failure to me. Here's Ed Glaeser: "Reforming local land use controls is one of those rare areas in which the libertarian and the progressive agree. The current system restricts the freedom of the property owner, and also makes life harder for poorer Americans. The politics of zoning reform may be hard, but our land use regulations are badly in need of rethinking." https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-land-use-regulations/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-land-use-regula...
- kofejnik 9y agoTo the contrary, this is market functioning properly - people have something which they are reluctant to share with other people, so they don't. Do you suggest to force them? This will not be a "proper functioning market", you know. Next, somebody will say that having rich people is bad altogether so let's just share money equally.
- davidw 9y ago> so they don't That would be the case if we were talking about their own property, but they're using rules and regulations to force other people to not do what they want with their property. In a healthy market, yeah, some people would not sell out and change would be gradual as the city built up incrementally. That's how things should be, but we do not allow that.
- Danihan 9y agoYou mean they are doing that via democratically elected political representation? The horror. How dare people elect politicians to represent their own interests, rather than the interests of the allegedly marginalized.
- jmanderley 9y agoSo what? Doesn't mean we aren't allowed to criticize them representing their "own interest"/rent seeking.
- Danihan 9y agoSure, you can criticize and they can ignore it. Worry about making your own city nice, not theirs. That's the whole point of having localized governments.
- davidw 9y agoZoning - in some places - got a start because people didn't want - to be blunt about it - "the wrong colored people" in their neighborhoods. Absolute majority rule has some serious downsides.
- francisofascii 9y agoWell, you could argue it is being selfish, i.e immoral.
- kofejnik 9y agoI ate a burger for lunch, was it selfish and immoral? I'm pretty sure some other guy would've liked that burger, too
- francisofascii 9y agoLet's say you ate two burgers, when you could have easily gotten by with just one. Or even worse, you threw the 2nd burger in trash. You only took it just in case. The guy behind you was left with none.
- Moshe_Silnorin 9y agoNo. It's more like you took a burger that someone else owned and prevented him from doing what he wants with it. It is an encroachment on the rights of others.
- carapace 9y agoIt's more like you prevented a lactose-intolerant person from drinking a bunch of milk because you're both in the same unventilated room and you can't leave or open a window and you really don't want to smell their farts. "NIMBY"
- mcguire 9y agoDijkstra may have been right about the lack of rigour to reasoning-by-analogy, but damn, it is entertaining.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- lookscorrect 9y agoBecause Tokyo definitely doesn't have tall buildings.
- Larrikin 9y agoTokyo most likely has better building codes and the city is not averse to tearing down buildings and replacing them with completely brand new buildings using the latest materials.
- davidw 9y agoEvery single time there is one of these posts about housing and SF, someone mentions earthquakes. * The skyscrapers in SF did not have problems during the last big one. * Tokyo has earthquakes too, and manages to house a lot of people at 'reasonable' rates.
- 0x4f3759df 9y agoJapan has amazing zoning laws. "How an Average Family in Tokyo Can Buy a New Home" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGbC5j4pG9w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGbC5j4pG9w
- panglott 9y agowas about to quip that Japan also has 100-year mortgages, until I saw this: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/1061951895900047 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/10619518959...
- chrisseaton 9y agoI'm from Europe and I don't understand why 'brand new' would ever be a desirable thing in buying a home. Both the video and you said it as if it was - is that common in the US and Japan? Where I live in England you want a house that's as old as possible in most cases. Older houses are usually in more desirable locations, with better space around them, and far more character.
- 0x4f3759df 9y agoNew homes are generally more desirable in the US, unless you live somewhere interesting like Boston, NYC, SF, then the old buildings might be much more expensive, due to location and heritage. I think Japan's zoning laws are great because in the US, generally you cannot walk to anything interesting (bar, coffeeshop, restaurant), because nowhere near your home is zoned for commercial, there are exceptions in the big cities obviously, but much of the population lives in non-walkable suburban layouts. I sometimes wonder if the Europeans know how good they have it... So many beautiful walk-able cities and only a train ride away. I'm in Minnesota so there's basically nothing interesting for 1000 miles.