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The problem with the supply of Bay Area housing isn't that there's not enough money involved. Adding more money to the situation will just make costs go higher.

The problem with the supply of Bay Area housing isn't that there's not enough money involved. Adding more money to the situation will just make costs go higher. It's like healthcare or education. The problem is that big tech companies have practically unlimited money at their disposal, but are surrounded by communities that like their low density housing, open space lifestyle, think the traffic is terrible already, and aren't really interested in giving it up for any amount of money. The reason the big tech companies are there is because these communities are really nice and venture capital people, CEOs and top engineers want to live in these nice neighborhoods. If it was just a cost issue, they'd be located in Fresno. Of course real estate developers are hungry to build new rental apartments because the rents are so high and frame it as some sort of populist issue. It's really just rich people vs other rich people. There is no way they're ever going to build enough for prices to come down. Every tech company would move their entire workforce here if they could do so affordably. The best solution, IMHO, is to improve public transit, which would have all other sorts of beneficial side effects. The downside is that it would bring poor people into the area which would cause quality of life issues as far as the existing residents are concerned.

kevinburke 9y ago
> are surrounded by communities that like their low density housing This is changing; Facebook is sponsoring 1500 units, 300 affordable, in Menlo Park, Mountain View also becoming more welcoming of new housing, they recently approved 10,000 units in the North Bayshore area. Cupertino (where Apple is located) continues to distinguish itself in a bad way; they approved 11,000 new office spaces for Apple without any corresponding increase in housing, and routinely send people to San Jose city council meetings in an attempt to block housing on San Jose land. > The best solution, IMHO, is to improve public transit Again, there are promising developments here. Facebook sponsored a Dumbarton Corridor study, and all of the tech companies are throwing their money behind a new bridge tax ballot measure that would raise money for public transit. http://www.greencaltrain.com/2017/08/dumbarton-corridor-study-needs-review-august-meetings/ http://www.greencaltrain.com/2017/08/dumbarton-corridor-stud...
- londons_explore 9y ago
  All those numbers seem very small... Wouldn't we be needing something more like 1 Million new units to fully satisfy demand for housing and bring prices back to levels similar to the rest of the USA? A 30x30 grid of 100 story residential towers with 10 apartments per floor would nicely solve your issue...
  - kevinburke 9y ago
    Yes, they are, but they're better than doing nothing, which is what has been happening for a while.
  - bb611 9y ago
    There are only ~20 buildings of 100+ stories in the world. The tallest building in the Bay Area is the Salesforce Tower at 61 stories, and there are only ~50 buildings in SF that hit 400 feet, which is about 1/3 the height required to hit 100 stories. *All stats from wikipedia So in theory they would solve the issue, it's just that your solution dwarfs the number of humanity's 100 story buildings by a factor of almost 50.
  - ThrustVectoring 9y ago
    You don't need 100 story residential towers. Put in 3 or 4 floor rowhouses up against the sidewalk and there's more than enough room. The issue is zoning regulations that make cheap enough and dense enough housing illegal.
cynicalkane 9y ago
The problem is that there is not enough supply to meet demand, and it's politically trendy to blame demand. Squeezing supply is a surefire way to make sure only Google engineers can afford apartments, and that's a bad thing, but the typical anti-housing activist doesn't think this far ahead. They want to blame wealthy tech people for everything, but don't understand they're creating a world where only wealthy tech people can compete with existing property owners for housing. Increased supply would boost the American economy and make everyone happy except the NIMBYs. But the NIMBYs have the political power.

kevinburke 9y ago

> are surrounded by communities that like their low density housing This is changing; Facebook is sponsoring 1500 units, 300 affordable, in Menlo Park, Mountain View also becoming more welcoming of new housing, they recently approved 10,000 units in the North Bayshore area. Cupertino (where Apple is located) continues to distinguish itself in a bad way; they approved 11,000 new office spaces for Apple without any corresponding increase in housing, and routinely send people to San Jose city council meetings in an attempt to block housing on San Jose land. > The best solution, IMHO, is to improve public transit Again, there are promising developments here. Facebook sponsored a Dumbarton Corridor study, and all of the tech companies are throwing their money behind a new bridge tax ballot measure that would raise money for public transit. http://www.greencaltrain.com/2017/08/dumbarton-corridor-study-needs-review-august-meetings/ http://www.greencaltrain.com/2017/08/dumbarton-corridor-stud...

londons_explore 9y ago
All those numbers seem very small... Wouldn't we be needing something more like 1 Million new units to fully satisfy demand for housing and bring prices back to levels similar to the rest of the USA? A 30x30 grid of 100 story residential towers with 10 apartments per floor would nicely solve your issue...
- kevinburke 9y ago
  Yes, they are, but they're better than doing nothing, which is what has been happening for a while.
- bb611 9y ago
  There are only ~20 buildings of 100+ stories in the world. The tallest building in the Bay Area is the Salesforce Tower at 61 stories, and there are only ~50 buildings in SF that hit 400 feet, which is about 1/3 the height required to hit 100 stories. *All stats from wikipedia So in theory they would solve the issue, it's just that your solution dwarfs the number of humanity's 100 story buildings by a factor of almost 50.
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  You don't need 100 story residential towers. Put in 3 or 4 floor rowhouses up against the sidewalk and there's more than enough room. The issue is zoning regulations that make cheap enough and dense enough housing illegal.

cynicalkane 9y ago

The problem is that there is not enough supply to meet demand, and it's politically trendy to blame demand. Squeezing supply is a surefire way to make sure only Google engineers can afford apartments, and that's a bad thing, but the typical anti-housing activist doesn't think this far ahead. They want to blame wealthy tech people for everything, but don't understand they're creating a world where only wealthy tech people can compete with existing property owners for housing. Increased supply would boost the American economy and make everyone happy except the NIMBYs. But the NIMBYs have the political power.