15 ms·

Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

156 points by krausejj 9y ago

taheca 9y ago
Those of us who grew up in less desirable environments (where they have real winter) are perfectly content with living out farther, and commuting in on the BART. I personally live out by the Delta surrounded by fresh air, fresh fruit, and nice people (we have a strong community and frequently see people we know out and about, it's great). My commute into SF is about 90 min one way, and it is the easiest, least stressful commute I have had in my life.
- Johnny555 9y ago
  With 3 hours/day spent commuting plus a full day of work, when do you have time to see your neighbors? I live in a Peninsula community with a 10 minute bike ride to work and that is the easiest least stressful commute I've had in my life.
  - taheca 9y ago
    I see my neighbors on the weekend. My wife, who stays at home with our kids, sees them all the time. I'd love a 10 min bike ride commute, but my career is non technical therefore I don't have the same amount of opportunities as others on here may. No complaints out of me though. My commute may be long, but my life is rich (and I am not talking about money).
- alkonaut 9y ago
  I hope you work during your commute so you don't have to be away from family for 3 + 8 (Or more) hours. That means basically working the whole day all week, seeing your family only on weekends. I can't imagine what kind of comp someone would want for that (effectively permanent 55 hour weeks).
  - taheca 9y ago
    Easy to make a statement like this. My wife has never worked because she did not have a career established when we decided to have kids. Allowing her to stay home is one of my proudest accomplishments (and it has done wonders for our kids). I am home every night to spend a few hours with my kids, and I read to them every night before bed. I spend all day on the weekends with them. Sure I would love a shorter commute, as I said, I am in a non technical, and not in as high demand profession as many on here. This is what a regular person goes through Hackernews. Keep that in consideration the next time you feel like complaining.
    - alkonaut 9y ago
      I don't mean to say you are making poor choices, I meant to say I hope you are well compensated for it. And it saddens me that we still have to be making this (11-12h workday) as a perhaps rational choice. It's a failure in infrastructure, city planning, labor laws, ... People fought really hard to get to 5 day/40h work weeks. Seems we lost a bit of momentum after that.
0xB31B1B 9y ago
If these things interest you, consider learning more about the yimby party (sfyimby.com). We’re a group advocating for these policies at a local and state level. DM me for more details.
- krausejj 9y ago
  I'm definitely interested. The part that I'm curious about though is that your brand is "SF Yimby." Your content looks Bay Area focused though. Have you thought of broadening the scope to be more regional?
  - fourstar 9y ago
    All politics start local.
  - tmh79 9y ago
    There are plenty of ally/partner organizations. "East Bay For Everyone" is the east bay one, and there are a few budding orgs in silicon valley (http://www.sjyimby.org/ http://www.sjyimby.org/). We all work on local issues, and partner on big projects. For instance, I live in SF but I have traveled to mountain view to advocate for the north bayshore development. SFYIMBY is the "mothership", is the most mature and has the most power to drive votes at the state level.
  - epistasis 9y ago
    There's even a Santa Cruz Yimby. Local organizations are necessary to deal with local issues, and going to local planning meetings, and local city council meetings. And on the regional level, the YIMBY movement has been very successful this year with several state legislative initiatives that hold cities accountable for meeting their planned housing goals, and for increasing funding for affordable housing.
- deleted 9y ago
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santaclaus 9y ago
> In the Bay Area, you’re unlikely to have easy access to San Francisco at all if you’re not in San Francisco proper. Eh? It is pretty easy to get to San Francisco from Oakland or Berkeley. Hell, its easier to get to fidi or soma from Oakland than from parts of San Francisco. Edit: For the downvoters, I’m genuinely curious how BART from Oakland to San Fran is considerd hard? I was simply contesting the point that there is nowhere in the bay with easy access to San Francisco! Now San Jose to San Francisco? Maybe not.
- deleted 9y ago
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- ryguytilidie 9y ago
  Yeah, this is bizarre. I used to live near MacArthur BART and my commute into the city took ~20 mins. I could EASILY get to: the ballpark, anywhere along market, anywhere in the mission, SFO. I now live in El Cerrito, which makes people go "Oh god, how long is your commute?". 31 minutes. That's it. People seem to think it's a different planet, but I can't even get through a full podcast on the ride home. Totally agree with you on the last part. It's WAY easier to get to FiDi/SOMA/The Mission/Embarcadero or the Ballpark area from Oakland on BART than it would be to get there from: The Presidio, Sunset, Richmond district, etc.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - aphextron 9y ago
    >I now live in El Cerrito, which makes people go "Oh god, how long is your commute?". 31 minutes. That's it. People seem to think it's a different planet, but I can't even get through a full podcast on the ride home Shhhhhhh... don't let people know about El Cerrito ;)
  - martian 9y ago
    I don't disagree with the sentiment here, but want to add a few comments: If you have to walk once you get off of Bart (and let's be honest, the Bart stops are pretty well spaced out), your commute goes up. SF transit (the 38 Geary, the N) might seem slower, but you typically don't have to walk as far when you get off. Also, depending on time of day, Muni runs more frequently than the specific Bart lines. Compared with NY Metro (or most other major cities), Bart stops are spread thin. And quick nit on the Presidio: it's a lovely place to live and if you live there, there is a free shuttle to downtown called the Presidigo that's easy and efficient.
jaredcwhite 9y ago
So much here resonates with me. I’m sitting in a train right now taking me from a suburb into downtown Portland, OR...an easy commute...only $5 a day gets you unlimited transportation across all of the regional transit services (all part of the excellent TriMet system). I moved here from the Bay Area mainly due to affordability and sane public transit. The Bay Area is an amazing place but it’s imploding under the weight of its own popularity and lack of appropriate regional infrastructure response.
- cullenking 9y ago
  "I moved here from the Bay Area..." At the risk of sounding xenophobic, Portland is going to turn into San Francisco soon enough if people/companies keep immigrating from California and New York, and elected officials keep proposing policies modeled after the Bay Area. I'm not saying "stay away" as I enjoy much of the growth PDX has seen over the last few years, especially the fact we have a much easier time finding good developers these days. I'm just concerned that many of our newcomers had it so bad in regard to traffic and costs of living, that their tolerance for those things will, generally speaking, lift up the floor here in Portland. So, welcome, but please please please push back against freeway expansions, push for more alternative transit, push for more walkable communities, and all that jazz. PDX can't stay small and easy going forever, but maybe we can avoid some of the pitfalls that have befallen other large metro areas.
  - muninn_ 9y ago
    It's not xenophobic, it's common sense. Space and resource are finite.
  - jaredcwhite 9y ago
    Fair points. I'm happy to push for all the things you just mentioned, and I certainly don't want to contribute to messing up the good thing you have going. :)
  - cvwright 9y ago
    > At the risk of sounding xenophobic, Portland is going to turn into San Francisco soon enough ... It is already in the process of doing so. > please please please push back against freeway expansions ... And this attitude is the reason. I don't know why people think that adopting the same anti-growth, anti-construction, anti-roads attitude that has made San Francisco so unaffordable for regular people will have a different outcome here.
pnathan 9y ago
I've long thought that having a regional government be the governing authority for the Tacoma-Everett-Kirkland region would be the proper system to have: turn the cities into bouroughs and have a Puget Sound Metropolis Government (that encompasses Seattle). This would politically solve many intractable problems that are being naturally caused by local tribes sparring. I think it's likely the proper solution to the urban/suburban donut problem we have in many regions in the US.
Veelox 9y ago
The idea of having a Bay Area "Mayor" sounds like an idea that could have solve a lot of the problems in the Bay Area. The issue would be trying to make that transition happen, seems almost impossible.
- bradleyjg 9y ago
  California has a initiative right? Couldn't it be done through a statewide ballot measure?
  - junkscience2017 9y ago
    No, you cannot just vote to delete a city you don't reside in, even in California
    - bradleyjg 9y ago
      Why not? The subdivisions of California are creatures of state law, either statutory or constitutional. An initiative can modify statues or the constitution. There are three limitations on them (Art. II, section 8, (d), (e), and (f)) but I don't see how any of them would apply here. Do you see a federal constitutional or statutory doctrine that would prevent it from doing so?
      - junkscience2017 9y ago
        If you move the goalposts to modifying the State Constitution, sure, you can do anything that doesn't conflict with the Federal Constitution. The votes would never materialize. In Palo Alto or Los Gatos you couldn't even get 2% of voters willing to surrender their right to local governance. Why not turn this around...SF can agree to become part of San Jose. Are you still interested?
        bradleyjg 9y ago
        I live all the way on the other side of the country. I don't have a dog in the fight. I just suggested that the Bay Area could be reorganized into a single municipality through the initiative process if the voters of California decided to do that. Whether or not you could actually get the votes is something I'm not equipped to answer. A big part of it would depend on what people in Southern California think of the idea given that it contains over half the state's population.
polskibus 9y ago
Is it beneficial for the rest of US to save SF? Won't its demise actually improve the lives in the rest of the country/world as businesses spread out after workers or allow remote work?
- krausejj 9y ago
  Interesting you mention this - did you see Richard Florida's recent article that says the same thing? https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/10/the-flip-side-of-nimby-zoning/543930/?utm_source=nl__link3_102617&silverid=NDA2MzQyMzkzOTg1S0 https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/10/the-flip-side-of-nimb... My opinion, however, is that we should do everything we can to encourage prosperity in all our cities, including our superstar cities. If that means more concentrated urbanization in a few places, that's simply a continuation of a trend since 1870 that has resulted in tremendous growth and prosperity for this country and many others.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    >If that means more concentrated urbanization in a few places, that's simply a continuation of a trend since 1870 that has resulted in tremendous growth That's not universally true. Even leaving aside cities with fairly big problems like Detroit, many of the current destination cities saw significant outflow over the course of a number of decades. The current trend for a fair number of (mostly) college-educated millennials to desperately desire living in certain dense urban cores is a relatively recent phenomenon. (Which is part of the reason it's way outpaced things like mass transit infrastructure.)
- cowsandmilk 9y ago
  That assumes people can be equally productive no matter their location. Concentration of industry and specialization of regions increases productivity.
  - polskibus 9y ago
    Side effects of this productivity increase (which is hard to measure anyway), can completely negate the benefits when looking at the big picture. You create concentration in one area and create a bubble instead of betting on a more organic approach.
habosa 9y ago
This article really gets it. It's all about transportation. It will never be possible for everyone who wants to be in San Francisco to live downtown, or even adjacent to downtown. Just like the article said, Manhattan is much denser but no more affordable. But we make it so hard for people to get around. You can take a bus for 45m or take the BART which is overcrowded, unreliable, and has trains that can be as much as 20m apart. Plus using transit around here requires way too much knowledge. There are so many different major transit agencies that don't make any effort to connect (Caltrain, Muni bus, Muni metro, BART, etc) and they all have different pricing schemes (flat rate, monthly passes, pay by distance, etc). Living 10 miles from your job shouldn't mean you live an hour from your job. NYC gets that. SF Bay Area does not.
- archagon 9y ago
  Transport in the Bay is so, so hilariously bad. I'm in St. Petersburg, Russia right now and the subway here doesn't actually have a schedule. Instead, there's a clock on the wall. If the next train doesn't arrive within 2 minutes and reset the counter, something's not right. The stations cover basically the entire city, and as a result, venturing 5 miles across town feels about the same as going down a set of escalators and then coming right back up on the other side. This sort of thing is par for the course in Europe. (NY too, for that matter.) How did one of the richest areas in the world go so catastrophically wrong in this regard?
  - majormajor 9y ago
    Much of the infrastructure was built when (1) the country was so rich that most of the people with any influence at all had cars and (2) the country was less populated so traffic and parking were less severe problems. Everybody builds the infrastructure that the then-state-of-the-art calls for. That was roads and freeways for most of the US. It's an accident of history, not an idiotic mistake. Not doing anything about it for the past ten years is the possible mistake, but from the perspective of the people who already live somewhere, and like having relatively lower density, they have just as much right to doing things how they want as the new tech crowd interlopers do.
compiler-guy 9y ago
"Someone else should make the sacrifice." There's the problem right there. From the article: "Brisbane ... is currently blocking a large housing development for local reasons." "And we also probably don’t want high rise condos on the edge of Golden Gate Park. San Francisco isn’t New York." I've voted in favor of every housing initiative available to me, but you can't make your favorite part of the Bay Area sacred and expect everyone else to give up theirs.
- mc32 9y ago
  Faulting Brisbane is myopic. Brisbane could add maybe a few thousand units. San Francisco could add a hundred thousand units, if they really wanted to, but no, instead they blame a town of 3,500 for their problems. It shows how non introspective they are and how willing to blame others they are.
  - epistasis 9y ago
    We can fault Brisbane just as we can fault every municipality in the Bay Area. That's not short sighted, it's necessary.
    - mc32 9y ago
      They are not a "city" and they are not attracting talent and or companies' which create the demand. San Francisco is but, while they advertise themselves as a city, promote growth, grant tax breaks for cachet employers, etc., they do very little, in terms of creating and building housing for those workers. They demand others do what they themselves are unwilling to do. Now, imagine the opposite, Brisbane demanding San Francisco become more suburban because San Francisco is to city-like for their liking.
      - tomkarlo 9y ago
        They are in fact planning to do just that - put more office space in that zone, which will create demand for housing in SF (the nearest major residential area) rather than adding housing. And in the past, they've blocked a proposal that would have added 70K residential units. http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-small-city-controls-big-housing-project-20170728-story.html http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-small-city-control... The attitude is essentially, "I've got mine, let's pull the ladder up after me and deny anyone else affordable housing."
cmontella 9y ago
I used to live in the dead center of the city, in the Ashbury Heights neighborhood. It took me literally 1 hour to get to work, down town taking muni (fastest time recorded is 40 minutes without any delays and essentially running the "last mile"). This was the longest commute of my life, and I lived 3 miles from work. It would take me just a little more time to walk there. Biking was faster, but more dangerous -- I got hit once (by another cyclist running a light) and that was it for me. That, plus people assaulting my wife on the street, plus $3000 rent for a 1 bedroom, and I had it with the city. I loved it, it was a great experience, but I just couldn't take it anymore. Now I work from home in the central valley, where I can afford to rent a 3000 sq. ft. home (not because I'm paid much, but because housing is so cheap), and my commute is 1 minute. I'm much happier out here, yet I find when I tell people from SF where I live, some (not all, most people ask "Where the heck is that?") wrinkle their noses. I say, if you're tired of the city, give it a shot -- you might be happier.
- tomkarlo 9y ago
  That's great, but it seems kind of orthogonal and non-scalable to the problem of the Bay Area housing crisis. Are you proposing that everyone in SF move to places like the Central Valley (driving up price) and start driving around cars (increasing traffic and pollution)? What about folks who don't have the luxury of jobs where they can work remotely?
  - cmontella 9y ago
    > kind of orthogonal and non-scalable to the problem of the Bay Area housing crisis. The problem can be attacked from two angles. Either ramp up housing development to take care of the population influx, or slow down the population influx to match the rate of housing development. Obviously, the people of the area have a vested interest in keeping the area attractive; but for the rest of us, I think it's important to remember there are other places to live and you can be just as happy or happier elsewhere. I'm someone who could have used that reminder a year ago. There's a lot of justification that goes into paying $3000 per month to live in a one bedroom apartment. You have to recoup that value elsewhere. A lot of it has to do with the job opportunities available to tech workers. That's undeniable. But some of the other justifications I used were more or less lies I started telling myself about why I had to stay. > Are you proposing that everyone in SF move to places like the Central Valley (driving up price) It's already happening, so maybe we should embrace it as a valid option. The town I'm living in has become sort of a telecommuter town, precisely because of rents in SF. > and start driving around cars (increasing traffic and pollution)? I actually went about 8 months without a car in SF. I took Uber, bike, and muni as my get around. Between me and my wife, we were spending $700 per month on transportation, so we ended up buying a car to get around -- it was just more convenient. Out in the valley, we actually put fewer miles on it, because it's easier to bike out here, and things are actually closer to us than they were in the city (both in miles and minutes).
closure 9y ago
After 8 years in SF I have been seriously considering moving to NYC, largely over my commute to South Bay, but also for the substantial increase in density which brings with it a manifold increase in cultural opportunities and activities. The weather is a drawback (in probably 200+ days in NYC over 10 years I can remember a single week of what I would consider nice weather). I have realized that crappy climate is a poor reason to avoid the move. My one main concern is finding a job with similar pay and interesting work. 90+% of the job listings I see are for Java enterpise-type work paying a third of what my (admittedly more than comfortable) current total pay is.
- cmontella 9y ago
  > I have realized that crappy climate is a poor reason to avoid the move. I'd be interested to hear your reasons. For me, I'm the exact opposite. In the 3 years I've lived in CA, I haven't had bronchitis once, which used to happen almost every year on the east coast. Not having to deal with 14 degree weather and snow is one of the main reasons I moved away. For me, so much happiness flows this simple fact.
  - closure 9y ago
    All I really mean is that on balance I think it’s worth the trade-off (due to the other pluses). I wouldn’t trade SF for say an inexpensive area with no culture and bad weather, but I think I am willing to put up with the heat & humidity along with cold & snow given all the rest NYC has to offer.
    - airstrike 9y ago
      The secret is to move to Chicago first for a couple years, then come to NY like I did. You will feel blessed to live in NY weather.
- hendzen 9y ago
  What kind of work do you do - and what qualifies as interesting work? I assure you a talented software developer can earn as much if not more in NYC than SF.
apendleton 9y ago
Generally great. I live in DC and we suffer from similar troubles because of lack of regional planning integration (multiple states rather than just multiple cities, so in some ways it's worse). That said: > And we also probably don’t want high rise condos on the edge of Golden Gate Park. San Francisco isn’t New York. Probably going to have to get over this objection for a plan like this to work. Transit and accessibility are great places to start, but transit-oriented development requires density to succeed. If people are going to be getting around via transit lines instead of by car, you need a lot of people to live within easy walking distance of each residential transit stop, and you need a lot of the places people are trying to get to (work, leisure, etc.) to be within easy walking distance of the stop on the other end of their trip. High transit ridership and neighborhoods comprised of single-family homes don't work well together, and while part of what makes the Bushwick example work well is the better transit, the density is a big part of the calculus as well (again, on both ends).
pascalxus 9y ago
How can he sit there and deny the benefits of larger supply? Obviously, if supply increases vastly enough the prices will come down. Sure, maybe not in the first thousand units, but you've gotta build baby build! It'll probably take 10s of thousand of units or even 100s of thousands of units, but it's gotta be done. And sure, it won't be as cheap as the suburbs, but if we get rid of regulations and allow SV to innovate enough, we can automate the building of these tall buildings and allow the price to come down to levels never before seen. Allowing commuters to cover even longer distances is just another bandaid. One that will just add more environmental damage. The least environmentally damaging commute is the one that happens on foot. Increasing supply to reduce costs to where EVERYONE can afford the city is the ultimate solution we should strive for, not more lotteries for a tiny percentage.
chrismealy 9y ago
If nice places for people are too expensive, make more nice places for people. But instead we make more nice places for cars.
- SirZimzim 9y ago
  Parking lot to parking lot, home computer to cubicle.
pfarnsworth 9y ago
The real solution is for companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, etc to have the COURAGE to create large work epicenters outside of the Bay Area. Create headquarters for tens of thousands of workers in more remote areas with a strong infrastructure, with great benefits for working families. Do what Amazon wants to do with a second HQ, and create demand outside of the Bay Area. If Google created a new HQ in Kansas City, with it's fiber links, and low cost of living, and added really great benefits like free day care, etc, then won't software engineers move there, especially those that are ready to start a family? I bet you they would. I definitely would. Then it would create a new ecosystem of economic prosperity there, and then it would take a lot of pressure off the Bay Area.
- jra_samba 9y ago
  In its heyday HP did this. Look at places like Roseville and Fort Collins. Essentially company towns. And while the going is good, and the quarterly numbers keep going up, everything is great. But eventually the bad times come, and the employees living in these places are cast off like so many worn shoes, along with their families. I've seen this. I'm never moving out of the SF Bay Area until well after retirement (and maybe not even then :-). Going to a Kansas City HQ is a gamble that whatever company will always do well. Do you want to gamble your future on that ? Do you want to gamble your family on that ?
  - pfarnsworth 9y ago
    Risk vs return. That's okay that you prefer the Bay Area. I would have no problems if I knew that Google were committing to a permanent HQ in Kansas City. If they close down, they close down. I have no control over that, but I do have control over saving money and still maintaining a high quality of life because I'm not obsessing over property prices, private school for my kids because the public schools are so terrible, etc.
    - s73ver_ 9y ago
      You don't think Google moving to KC would have a huge effect on property prices? Not to mention, if they close down, you'll likely have a harder time finding another job than you would somewhere with a lot of tech places.
abecedarius 9y ago
Would you bet on the rail network being greatly improved before robocars greatly improve the experience on the road network? That’d be good, but I wouldn’t.
purplezooey 9y ago
Great article! I like the call for bold strokes. We seem helpless in the face of our big problems.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kcorbitt 9y ago
I agree with everything that the article writes. That said, if you work in SF and are looking for a concrete way to improve your commute today without adding another car to the road, consider purchasing an electric bike or scooter. I've been commuting from San Bruno to SOMA (14 miles each way) for the last 3 months on an electric bike and I vastly prefer the experience to the available alternatives. If you live closer in, it's even more of a no-brainer.
RestlessMind 9y ago
> Do we want to be a white-washed Disneyland for software developers, or do we want to be a vibrant, diverse, integrated (and bigger) city? What if people actually prefer the former? I mean, sure, their "stated preference" can be later but the "revealed preference" can actually be a myopic selfish one; which is not that abnormal and totally in line with basic human nature (claims of "being progressive" notwithstanding!)
- Apocryphon 9y ago
  Social causes aside, do a majority of software developers really want to live only with software devs? What happened to monocultures being bad? It might come with being a local, but I always feel alarmed when people contrast to places like NY or LA, which have a dominant industry but isn't as dominated by it, and have costs of living that allow those outside of the high-paying industry to survive. Having a one-industry region is trouble both economically, and culturally. (Doesn't it get tiring to only meet people who are in tech? Doesn't it create bubbles cut off from the larger world?)
- bluthru 9y ago
  >Do we want to be a white-washed Disneyland People spend $100 a day to experience this.
ringaroundthetx 9y ago
Finally, empirical evidence that San Francisco sucks without just coming off as a pretentious New Yorker. SF masquerades as a world class city because there is literally nothing else for Northern California to compare it to.
abalone 9y ago
tl;dr Uses excellent maps to visualize just how dramatically worse our regional mass transit is vs. New York. Makes the point that Manhattan is very dense but still not affordable. What makes New York more affordable is the accessibility of less expensive boroughs. Wackier highlights: calls for politically reorganizing the bay area into a metropolitan government, and confuses regional work commutes with "diversity and inclusion."
atcole 9y ago
His proposal is two-fold, for those who want a summary. 1) Build better transit to connect areas that are affordable (or areas at all i.e. San Jose / Oakland) to central business districts 2) To accomplish this by creating a centralized governing authority for the whole Bay Area. I wonder if this kind of consolidation has ever happened before. Did New York City absorb areas that it now controls as it evolved, or did the parties agree afterward to some symbiotic relationship?
- vosper 9y ago
  I'd argue Oakland is fairly well connected to the SF CBD. A lot of people in Oakland live within (at most) a 15-20 minute walk of a BART station, and then it's ~20 minutes to downtown SF, with only a handful of stops. What surprises me is that there aren't more startups headquartered in Oakland. Sure, it's a bit more hassle for people in SF to get out there, but you're going against the flow of traffic, so the commute is pleasant. And my suspicion is there are a lot of senior people living in the East Bay (or even further out). People who've moved on from small apartments and roommates and and have their own places, or have a family, or want cheaper rent... whatever it is. I suspect there's enough of those people who'd love to be getting on and off at 19th St Oakland and working down near Lake Merritt, rather than commuting into the city. I have a senior engineer friend, living in Berkeley, who said he'd take a $20k pay cut not to have to commute into SF. And that's not even a bad commute. If I was starting up, looking to save some money, and wanting to hire experienced developers, I would definitely be setting up in Oakland.
samlevine 9y ago
San Francisco's population density: 18,573/sq mi Manhattan's: 71,998.9/sq mi It's difficult to look at this without thinking that the initial problem to be solved is density in the urban core. Eventually, yes, you need much better transit to outlying areas. This will take decades even with iron clad political will, which isn't happening short of a takeover by house of Bourbon.
- timr 9y ago
  That's not how it works. You don't build housing first and the infrastructure to get to it later. Nobody rational would build a skyscraper in the outer sunset (even if they could), because they know that the demand isn't there. Commuting to the outer sunset from downtown is painfully inconvenient. This is why rents are substantially lower on the west side of SF, despite the lower density. Build effective transit, and dense housing automatically happens, because people will organically demand it -- the story plays out identically in nearly every city that builds a light rail line. The YIMBY activists in SF don't seem to understand this, despite lots of rhetoric about supply and demand. The truth is, YIMBY folks in SF are myopically focused on a few core neighborhoods that are already pretty dense (i.e. the Mission), and completely ignoring the driving forces behind the demand. This is largely because they're being supported by people who want to re-develop already expensive neighborhoods, which is a quick way to make a buck in the short term, and a dubious way of responding to a housing crunch. An effective movement to increase housing density in SF should focus on better transit corridors, and leave the housing policy to happen of its own accord. In other words: if you want density in SF, run a subway line down Geary.
methodover 9y ago
Better transit and a unified representative government is a great idea. It's also never going to happen. Or if it will, it's decades away. I've become convinced that if we want real change, it needs to be done by technology. Lyft for example could solve the transit problem if they figure out how to lower the cost of a ride, perhaps with automated drivers. Then you wouldn't need to build too much more infrastructure -- no need to get the entire bay rallied around a hundred billion dollar public transit system that's just going to get outdated again. We might need to make another bridge though... Housing is another problem though. I've been wondering if technology can help there too but I haven't come up with any good ideas yet.
- whamlastxmas 9y ago
  AirBnB arguably has the potential to help with housing. Some would argue it also winds up hurting it though.
  - methodover 9y ago
    The best idea I've heard is a system that helps people pool their money together to buy expensive single family homes, then split the lot into multiple homes or into a condo.
kapauldo 9y ago
Is SF out of buildings to renovate? If I were to move to SF it would be to build housing. Seems like a sure bet.

156 points by krausejj 9y ago

Those of us who grew up in less desirable environments (where they have real winter) are perfectly content with living out farther, and commuting in on the BART. I personally live out by the Delta surrounded by fresh air, fresh fruit, and nice people (we have a strong community and frequently see people we know out and about, it's great). My commute into SF is about 90 min one way, and it is the easiest, least stressful commute I have had in my life.

Johnny555 9y ago
With 3 hours/day spent commuting plus a full day of work, when do you have time to see your neighbors? I live in a Peninsula community with a 10 minute bike ride to work and that is the easiest least stressful commute I've had in my life.
- taheca 9y ago
  I see my neighbors on the weekend. My wife, who stays at home with our kids, sees them all the time. I'd love a 10 min bike ride commute, but my career is non technical therefore I don't have the same amount of opportunities as others on here may. No complaints out of me though. My commute may be long, but my life is rich (and I am not talking about money).
alkonaut 9y ago
I hope you work during your commute so you don't have to be away from family for 3 + 8 (Or more) hours. That means basically working the whole day all week, seeing your family only on weekends. I can't imagine what kind of comp someone would want for that (effectively permanent 55 hour weeks).
- taheca 9y ago
  Easy to make a statement like this. My wife has never worked because she did not have a career established when we decided to have kids. Allowing her to stay home is one of my proudest accomplishments (and it has done wonders for our kids). I am home every night to spend a few hours with my kids, and I read to them every night before bed. I spend all day on the weekends with them. Sure I would love a shorter commute, as I said, I am in a non technical, and not in as high demand profession as many on here. This is what a regular person goes through Hackernews. Keep that in consideration the next time you feel like complaining.
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    I don't mean to say you are making poor choices, I meant to say I hope you are well compensated for it. And it saddens me that we still have to be making this (11-12h workday) as a perhaps rational choice. It's a failure in infrastructure, city planning, labor laws, ... People fought really hard to get to 5 day/40h work weeks. Seems we lost a bit of momentum after that.

0xB31B1B 9y ago

If these things interest you, consider learning more about the yimby party (sfyimby.com). We’re a group advocating for these policies at a local and state level. DM me for more details.

krausejj 9y ago
I'm definitely interested. The part that I'm curious about though is that your brand is "SF Yimby." Your content looks Bay Area focused though. Have you thought of broadening the scope to be more regional?
- fourstar 9y ago
  All politics start local.
- tmh79 9y ago
  There are plenty of ally/partner organizations. "East Bay For Everyone" is the east bay one, and there are a few budding orgs in silicon valley (http://www.sjyimby.org/ http://www.sjyimby.org/). We all work on local issues, and partner on big projects. For instance, I live in SF but I have traveled to mountain view to advocate for the north bayshore development. SFYIMBY is the "mothership", is the most mature and has the most power to drive votes at the state level.
- epistasis 9y ago
  There's even a Santa Cruz Yimby. Local organizations are necessary to deal with local issues, and going to local planning meetings, and local city council meetings. And on the regional level, the YIMBY movement has been very successful this year with several state legislative initiatives that hold cities accountable for meeting their planned housing goals, and for increasing funding for affordable housing.
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santaclaus 9y ago

> In the Bay Area, you’re unlikely to have easy access to San Francisco at all if you’re not in San Francisco proper. Eh? It is pretty easy to get to San Francisco from Oakland or Berkeley. Hell, its easier to get to fidi or soma from Oakland than from parts of San Francisco. Edit: For the downvoters, I’m genuinely curious how BART from Oakland to San Fran is considerd hard? I was simply contesting the point that there is nowhere in the bay with easy access to San Francisco! Now San Jose to San Francisco? Maybe not.

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ryguytilidie 9y ago
Yeah, this is bizarre. I used to live near MacArthur BART and my commute into the city took ~20 mins. I could EASILY get to: the ballpark, anywhere along market, anywhere in the mission, SFO. I now live in El Cerrito, which makes people go "Oh god, how long is your commute?". 31 minutes. That's it. People seem to think it's a different planet, but I can't even get through a full podcast on the ride home. Totally agree with you on the last part. It's WAY easier to get to FiDi/SOMA/The Mission/Embarcadero or the Ballpark area from Oakland on BART than it would be to get there from: The Presidio, Sunset, Richmond district, etc.
- deleted 9y ago
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- aphextron 9y ago
  >I now live in El Cerrito, which makes people go "Oh god, how long is your commute?". 31 minutes. That's it. People seem to think it's a different planet, but I can't even get through a full podcast on the ride home Shhhhhhh... don't let people know about El Cerrito ;)
- martian 9y ago
  I don't disagree with the sentiment here, but want to add a few comments: If you have to walk once you get off of Bart (and let's be honest, the Bart stops are pretty well spaced out), your commute goes up. SF transit (the 38 Geary, the N) might seem slower, but you typically don't have to walk as far when you get off. Also, depending on time of day, Muni runs more frequently than the specific Bart lines. Compared with NY Metro (or most other major cities), Bart stops are spread thin. And quick nit on the Presidio: it's a lovely place to live and if you live there, there is a free shuttle to downtown called the Presidigo that's easy and efficient.

jaredcwhite 9y ago

So much here resonates with me. I’m sitting in a train right now taking me from a suburb into downtown Portland, OR...an easy commute...only $5 a day gets you unlimited transportation across all of the regional transit services (all part of the excellent TriMet system). I moved here from the Bay Area mainly due to affordability and sane public transit. The Bay Area is an amazing place but it’s imploding under the weight of its own popularity and lack of appropriate regional infrastructure response.

cullenking 9y ago
"I moved here from the Bay Area..." At the risk of sounding xenophobic, Portland is going to turn into San Francisco soon enough if people/companies keep immigrating from California and New York, and elected officials keep proposing policies modeled after the Bay Area. I'm not saying "stay away" as I enjoy much of the growth PDX has seen over the last few years, especially the fact we have a much easier time finding good developers these days. I'm just concerned that many of our newcomers had it so bad in regard to traffic and costs of living, that their tolerance for those things will, generally speaking, lift up the floor here in Portland. So, welcome, but please please please push back against freeway expansions, push for more alternative transit, push for more walkable communities, and all that jazz. PDX can't stay small and easy going forever, but maybe we can avoid some of the pitfalls that have befallen other large metro areas.
- muninn_ 9y ago
  It's not xenophobic, it's common sense. Space and resource are finite.
- jaredcwhite 9y ago
  Fair points. I'm happy to push for all the things you just mentioned, and I certainly don't want to contribute to messing up the good thing you have going. :)
- cvwright 9y ago
  > At the risk of sounding xenophobic, Portland is going to turn into San Francisco soon enough ... It is already in the process of doing so. > please please please push back against freeway expansions ... And this attitude is the reason. I don't know why people think that adopting the same anti-growth, anti-construction, anti-roads attitude that has made San Francisco so unaffordable for regular people will have a different outcome here.

pnathan 9y ago

I've long thought that having a regional government be the governing authority for the Tacoma-Everett-Kirkland region would be the proper system to have: turn the cities into bouroughs and have a Puget Sound Metropolis Government (that encompasses Seattle). This would politically solve many intractable problems that are being naturally caused by local tribes sparring. I think it's likely the proper solution to the urban/suburban donut problem we have in many regions in the US.

Veelox 9y ago

The idea of having a Bay Area "Mayor" sounds like an idea that could have solve a lot of the problems in the Bay Area. The issue would be trying to make that transition happen, seems almost impossible.

bradleyjg 9y ago
California has a initiative right? Couldn't it be done through a statewide ballot measure?
- junkscience2017 9y ago
  No, you cannot just vote to delete a city you don't reside in, even in California
  - bradleyjg 9y ago
    Why not? The subdivisions of California are creatures of state law, either statutory or constitutional. An initiative can modify statues or the constitution. There are three limitations on them (Art. II, section 8, (d), (e), and (f)) but I don't see how any of them would apply here. Do you see a federal constitutional or statutory doctrine that would prevent it from doing so?
    - junkscience2017 9y ago
      If you move the goalposts to modifying the State Constitution, sure, you can do anything that doesn't conflict with the Federal Constitution. The votes would never materialize. In Palo Alto or Los Gatos you couldn't even get 2% of voters willing to surrender their right to local governance. Why not turn this around...SF can agree to become part of San Jose. Are you still interested?
      - bradleyjg 9y ago
        I live all the way on the other side of the country. I don't have a dog in the fight. I just suggested that the Bay Area could be reorganized into a single municipality through the initiative process if the voters of California decided to do that. Whether or not you could actually get the votes is something I'm not equipped to answer. A big part of it would depend on what people in Southern California think of the idea given that it contains over half the state's population.

polskibus 9y ago

Is it beneficial for the rest of US to save SF? Won't its demise actually improve the lives in the rest of the country/world as businesses spread out after workers or allow remote work?

krausejj 9y ago
Interesting you mention this - did you see Richard Florida's recent article that says the same thing? https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/10/the-flip-side-of-nimby-zoning/543930/?utm_source=nl__link3_102617&silverid=NDA2MzQyMzkzOTg1S0 https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/10/the-flip-side-of-nimb... My opinion, however, is that we should do everything we can to encourage prosperity in all our cities, including our superstar cities. If that means more concentrated urbanization in a few places, that's simply a continuation of a trend since 1870 that has resulted in tremendous growth and prosperity for this country and many others.
- ghaff 9y ago
  >If that means more concentrated urbanization in a few places, that's simply a continuation of a trend since 1870 that has resulted in tremendous growth That's not universally true. Even leaving aside cities with fairly big problems like Detroit, many of the current destination cities saw significant outflow over the course of a number of decades. The current trend for a fair number of (mostly) college-educated millennials to desperately desire living in certain dense urban cores is a relatively recent phenomenon. (Which is part of the reason it's way outpaced things like mass transit infrastructure.)
cowsandmilk 9y ago
That assumes people can be equally productive no matter their location. Concentration of industry and specialization of regions increases productivity.
- polskibus 9y ago
  Side effects of this productivity increase (which is hard to measure anyway), can completely negate the benefits when looking at the big picture. You create concentration in one area and create a bubble instead of betting on a more organic approach.

habosa 9y ago

This article really gets it. It's all about transportation. It will never be possible for everyone who wants to be in San Francisco to live downtown, or even adjacent to downtown. Just like the article said, Manhattan is much denser but no more affordable. But we make it so hard for people to get around. You can take a bus for 45m or take the BART which is overcrowded, unreliable, and has trains that can be as much as 20m apart. Plus using transit around here requires way too much knowledge. There are so many different major transit agencies that don't make any effort to connect (Caltrain, Muni bus, Muni metro, BART, etc) and they all have different pricing schemes (flat rate, monthly passes, pay by distance, etc). Living 10 miles from your job shouldn't mean you live an hour from your job. NYC gets that. SF Bay Area does not.

archagon 9y ago
Transport in the Bay is so, so hilariously bad. I'm in St. Petersburg, Russia right now and the subway here doesn't actually have a schedule. Instead, there's a clock on the wall. If the next train doesn't arrive within 2 minutes and reset the counter, something's not right. The stations cover basically the entire city, and as a result, venturing 5 miles across town feels about the same as going down a set of escalators and then coming right back up on the other side. This sort of thing is par for the course in Europe. (NY too, for that matter.) How did one of the richest areas in the world go so catastrophically wrong in this regard?
- majormajor 9y ago
  Much of the infrastructure was built when (1) the country was so rich that most of the people with any influence at all had cars and (2) the country was less populated so traffic and parking were less severe problems. Everybody builds the infrastructure that the then-state-of-the-art calls for. That was roads and freeways for most of the US. It's an accident of history, not an idiotic mistake. Not doing anything about it for the past ten years is the possible mistake, but from the perspective of the people who already live somewhere, and like having relatively lower density, they have just as much right to doing things how they want as the new tech crowd interlopers do.

compiler-guy 9y ago

"Someone else should make the sacrifice." There's the problem right there. From the article: "Brisbane ... is currently blocking a large housing development for local reasons." "And we also probably don’t want high rise condos on the edge of Golden Gate Park. San Francisco isn’t New York." I've voted in favor of every housing initiative available to me, but you can't make your favorite part of the Bay Area sacred and expect everyone else to give up theirs.

mc32 9y ago
Faulting Brisbane is myopic. Brisbane could add maybe a few thousand units. San Francisco could add a hundred thousand units, if they really wanted to, but no, instead they blame a town of 3,500 for their problems. It shows how non introspective they are and how willing to blame others they are.
- epistasis 9y ago
  We can fault Brisbane just as we can fault every municipality in the Bay Area. That's not short sighted, it's necessary.
  - mc32 9y ago
    They are not a "city" and they are not attracting talent and or companies' which create the demand. San Francisco is but, while they advertise themselves as a city, promote growth, grant tax breaks for cachet employers, etc., they do very little, in terms of creating and building housing for those workers. They demand others do what they themselves are unwilling to do. Now, imagine the opposite, Brisbane demanding San Francisco become more suburban because San Francisco is to city-like for their liking.
    - tomkarlo 9y ago
      They are in fact planning to do just that - put more office space in that zone, which will create demand for housing in SF (the nearest major residential area) rather than adding housing. And in the past, they've blocked a proposal that would have added 70K residential units. http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-small-city-controls-big-housing-project-20170728-story.html http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-small-city-control... The attitude is essentially, "I've got mine, let's pull the ladder up after me and deny anyone else affordable housing."

cmontella 9y ago

I used to live in the dead center of the city, in the Ashbury Heights neighborhood. It took me literally 1 hour to get to work, down town taking muni (fastest time recorded is 40 minutes without any delays and essentially running the "last mile"). This was the longest commute of my life, and I lived 3 miles from work. It would take me just a little more time to walk there. Biking was faster, but more dangerous -- I got hit once (by another cyclist running a light) and that was it for me. That, plus people assaulting my wife on the street, plus $3000 rent for a 1 bedroom, and I had it with the city. I loved it, it was a great experience, but I just couldn't take it anymore. Now I work from home in the central valley, where I can afford to rent a 3000 sq. ft. home (not because I'm paid much, but because housing is so cheap), and my commute is 1 minute. I'm much happier out here, yet I find when I tell people from SF where I live, some (not all, most people ask "Where the heck is that?") wrinkle their noses. I say, if you're tired of the city, give it a shot -- you might be happier.

tomkarlo 9y ago
That's great, but it seems kind of orthogonal and non-scalable to the problem of the Bay Area housing crisis. Are you proposing that everyone in SF move to places like the Central Valley (driving up price) and start driving around cars (increasing traffic and pollution)? What about folks who don't have the luxury of jobs where they can work remotely?
- cmontella 9y ago
  > kind of orthogonal and non-scalable to the problem of the Bay Area housing crisis. The problem can be attacked from two angles. Either ramp up housing development to take care of the population influx, or slow down the population influx to match the rate of housing development. Obviously, the people of the area have a vested interest in keeping the area attractive; but for the rest of us, I think it's important to remember there are other places to live and you can be just as happy or happier elsewhere. I'm someone who could have used that reminder a year ago. There's a lot of justification that goes into paying $3000 per month to live in a one bedroom apartment. You have to recoup that value elsewhere. A lot of it has to do with the job opportunities available to tech workers. That's undeniable. But some of the other justifications I used were more or less lies I started telling myself about why I had to stay. > Are you proposing that everyone in SF move to places like the Central Valley (driving up price) It's already happening, so maybe we should embrace it as a valid option. The town I'm living in has become sort of a telecommuter town, precisely because of rents in SF. > and start driving around cars (increasing traffic and pollution)? I actually went about 8 months without a car in SF. I took Uber, bike, and muni as my get around. Between me and my wife, we were spending $700 per month on transportation, so we ended up buying a car to get around -- it was just more convenient. Out in the valley, we actually put fewer miles on it, because it's easier to bike out here, and things are actually closer to us than they were in the city (both in miles and minutes).

closure 9y ago

After 8 years in SF I have been seriously considering moving to NYC, largely over my commute to South Bay, but also for the substantial increase in density which brings with it a manifold increase in cultural opportunities and activities. The weather is a drawback (in probably 200+ days in NYC over 10 years I can remember a single week of what I would consider nice weather). I have realized that crappy climate is a poor reason to avoid the move. My one main concern is finding a job with similar pay and interesting work. 90+% of the job listings I see are for Java enterpise-type work paying a third of what my (admittedly more than comfortable) current total pay is.

cmontella 9y ago
> I have realized that crappy climate is a poor reason to avoid the move. I'd be interested to hear your reasons. For me, I'm the exact opposite. In the 3 years I've lived in CA, I haven't had bronchitis once, which used to happen almost every year on the east coast. Not having to deal with 14 degree weather and snow is one of the main reasons I moved away. For me, so much happiness flows this simple fact.
- closure 9y ago
  All I really mean is that on balance I think it’s worth the trade-off (due to the other pluses). I wouldn’t trade SF for say an inexpensive area with no culture and bad weather, but I think I am willing to put up with the heat & humidity along with cold & snow given all the rest NYC has to offer.
  - airstrike 9y ago
    The secret is to move to Chicago first for a couple years, then come to NY like I did. You will feel blessed to live in NY weather.
hendzen 9y ago
What kind of work do you do - and what qualifies as interesting work? I assure you a talented software developer can earn as much if not more in NYC than SF.

apendleton 9y ago

Generally great. I live in DC and we suffer from similar troubles because of lack of regional planning integration (multiple states rather than just multiple cities, so in some ways it's worse). That said: > And we also probably don’t want high rise condos on the edge of Golden Gate Park. San Francisco isn’t New York. Probably going to have to get over this objection for a plan like this to work. Transit and accessibility are great places to start, but transit-oriented development requires density to succeed. If people are going to be getting around via transit lines instead of by car, you need a lot of people to live within easy walking distance of each residential transit stop, and you need a lot of the places people are trying to get to (work, leisure, etc.) to be within easy walking distance of the stop on the other end of their trip. High transit ridership and neighborhoods comprised of single-family homes don't work well together, and while part of what makes the Bushwick example work well is the better transit, the density is a big part of the calculus as well (again, on both ends).

pascalxus 9y ago

How can he sit there and deny the benefits of larger supply? Obviously, if supply increases vastly enough the prices will come down. Sure, maybe not in the first thousand units, but you've gotta build baby build! It'll probably take 10s of thousand of units or even 100s of thousands of units, but it's gotta be done. And sure, it won't be as cheap as the suburbs, but if we get rid of regulations and allow SV to innovate enough, we can automate the building of these tall buildings and allow the price to come down to levels never before seen. Allowing commuters to cover even longer distances is just another bandaid. One that will just add more environmental damage. The least environmentally damaging commute is the one that happens on foot. Increasing supply to reduce costs to where EVERYONE can afford the city is the ultimate solution we should strive for, not more lotteries for a tiny percentage.

chrismealy 9y ago

If nice places for people are too expensive, make more nice places for people. But instead we make more nice places for cars.

SirZimzim 9y ago
Parking lot to parking lot, home computer to cubicle.

pfarnsworth 9y ago

The real solution is for companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, etc to have the COURAGE to create large work epicenters outside of the Bay Area. Create headquarters for tens of thousands of workers in more remote areas with a strong infrastructure, with great benefits for working families. Do what Amazon wants to do with a second HQ, and create demand outside of the Bay Area. If Google created a new HQ in Kansas City, with it's fiber links, and low cost of living, and added really great benefits like free day care, etc, then won't software engineers move there, especially those that are ready to start a family? I bet you they would. I definitely would. Then it would create a new ecosystem of economic prosperity there, and then it would take a lot of pressure off the Bay Area.

jra_samba 9y ago
In its heyday HP did this. Look at places like Roseville and Fort Collins. Essentially company towns. And while the going is good, and the quarterly numbers keep going up, everything is great. But eventually the bad times come, and the employees living in these places are cast off like so many worn shoes, along with their families. I've seen this. I'm never moving out of the SF Bay Area until well after retirement (and maybe not even then :-). Going to a Kansas City HQ is a gamble that whatever company will always do well. Do you want to gamble your future on that ? Do you want to gamble your family on that ?
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  Risk vs return. That's okay that you prefer the Bay Area. I would have no problems if I knew that Google were committing to a permanent HQ in Kansas City. If they close down, they close down. I have no control over that, but I do have control over saving money and still maintaining a high quality of life because I'm not obsessing over property prices, private school for my kids because the public schools are so terrible, etc.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    You don't think Google moving to KC would have a huge effect on property prices? Not to mention, if they close down, you'll likely have a harder time finding another job than you would somewhere with a lot of tech places.

abecedarius 9y ago

Would you bet on the rail network being greatly improved before robocars greatly improve the experience on the road network? That’d be good, but I wouldn’t.

purplezooey 9y ago

Great article! I like the call for bold strokes. We seem helpless in the face of our big problems.

deleted 9y ago

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kcorbitt 9y ago

I agree with everything that the article writes. That said, if you work in SF and are looking for a concrete way to improve your commute today without adding another car to the road, consider purchasing an electric bike or scooter. I've been commuting from San Bruno to SOMA (14 miles each way) for the last 3 months on an electric bike and I vastly prefer the experience to the available alternatives. If you live closer in, it's even more of a no-brainer.

RestlessMind 9y ago

> Do we want to be a white-washed Disneyland for software developers, or do we want to be a vibrant, diverse, integrated (and bigger) city? What if people actually prefer the former? I mean, sure, their "stated preference" can be later but the "revealed preference" can actually be a myopic selfish one; which is not that abnormal and totally in line with basic human nature (claims of "being progressive" notwithstanding!)

Apocryphon 9y ago
Social causes aside, do a majority of software developers really want to live only with software devs? What happened to monocultures being bad? It might come with being a local, but I always feel alarmed when people contrast to places like NY or LA, which have a dominant industry but isn't as dominated by it, and have costs of living that allow those outside of the high-paying industry to survive. Having a one-industry region is trouble both economically, and culturally. (Doesn't it get tiring to only meet people who are in tech? Doesn't it create bubbles cut off from the larger world?)
bluthru 9y ago
>Do we want to be a white-washed Disneyland People spend $100 a day to experience this.

ringaroundthetx 9y ago

Finally, empirical evidence that San Francisco sucks without just coming off as a pretentious New Yorker. SF masquerades as a world class city because there is literally nothing else for Northern California to compare it to.

abalone 9y ago

tl;dr Uses excellent maps to visualize just how dramatically worse our regional mass transit is vs. New York. Makes the point that Manhattan is very dense but still not affordable. What makes New York more affordable is the accessibility of less expensive boroughs. Wackier highlights: calls for politically reorganizing the bay area into a metropolitan government, and confuses regional work commutes with "diversity and inclusion."

atcole 9y ago

His proposal is two-fold, for those who want a summary. 1) Build better transit to connect areas that are affordable (or areas at all i.e. San Jose / Oakland) to central business districts 2) To accomplish this by creating a centralized governing authority for the whole Bay Area. I wonder if this kind of consolidation has ever happened before. Did New York City absorb areas that it now controls as it evolved, or did the parties agree afterward to some symbiotic relationship?

vosper 9y ago
I'd argue Oakland is fairly well connected to the SF CBD. A lot of people in Oakland live within (at most) a 15-20 minute walk of a BART station, and then it's ~20 minutes to downtown SF, with only a handful of stops. What surprises me is that there aren't more startups headquartered in Oakland. Sure, it's a bit more hassle for people in SF to get out there, but you're going against the flow of traffic, so the commute is pleasant. And my suspicion is there are a lot of senior people living in the East Bay (or even further out). People who've moved on from small apartments and roommates and and have their own places, or have a family, or want cheaper rent... whatever it is. I suspect there's enough of those people who'd love to be getting on and off at 19th St Oakland and working down near Lake Merritt, rather than commuting into the city. I have a senior engineer friend, living in Berkeley, who said he'd take a $20k pay cut not to have to commute into SF. And that's not even a bad commute. If I was starting up, looking to save some money, and wanting to hire experienced developers, I would definitely be setting up in Oakland.

samlevine 9y ago

San Francisco's population density: 18,573/sq mi Manhattan's: 71,998.9/sq mi It's difficult to look at this without thinking that the initial problem to be solved is density in the urban core. Eventually, yes, you need much better transit to outlying areas. This will take decades even with iron clad political will, which isn't happening short of a takeover by house of Bourbon.

timr 9y ago
That's not how it works. You don't build housing first and the infrastructure to get to it later. Nobody rational would build a skyscraper in the outer sunset (even if they could), because they know that the demand isn't there. Commuting to the outer sunset from downtown is painfully inconvenient. This is why rents are substantially lower on the west side of SF, despite the lower density. Build effective transit, and dense housing automatically happens, because people will organically demand it -- the story plays out identically in nearly every city that builds a light rail line. The YIMBY activists in SF don't seem to understand this, despite lots of rhetoric about supply and demand. The truth is, YIMBY folks in SF are myopically focused on a few core neighborhoods that are already pretty dense (i.e. the Mission), and completely ignoring the driving forces behind the demand. This is largely because they're being supported by people who want to re-develop already expensive neighborhoods, which is a quick way to make a buck in the short term, and a dubious way of responding to a housing crunch. An effective movement to increase housing density in SF should focus on better transit corridors, and leave the housing policy to happen of its own accord. In other words: if you want density in SF, run a subway line down Geary.

methodover 9y ago

Better transit and a unified representative government is a great idea. It's also never going to happen. Or if it will, it's decades away. I've become convinced that if we want real change, it needs to be done by technology. Lyft for example could solve the transit problem if they figure out how to lower the cost of a ride, perhaps with automated drivers. Then you wouldn't need to build too much more infrastructure -- no need to get the entire bay rallied around a hundred billion dollar public transit system that's just going to get outdated again. We might need to make another bridge though... Housing is another problem though. I've been wondering if technology can help there too but I haven't come up with any good ideas yet.

whamlastxmas 9y ago
AirBnB arguably has the potential to help with housing. Some would argue it also winds up hurting it though.
- methodover 9y ago
  The best idea I've heard is a system that helps people pool their money together to buy expensive single family homes, then split the lot into multiple homes or into a condo.

kapauldo 9y ago

Is SF out of buildings to renovate? If I were to move to SF it would be to build housing. Seems like a sure bet.