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Anti-NIMBY movement is winning with a simple message

213 points by inostia 9y ago

khuey 9y ago
If you live in San Francisco you should consider supporting Sonja's campaign for the Board of Supervisors (City Council) http://www.sonja2018.org/ http://www.sonja2018.org/
- zt 9y ago
  And feel free to support the campaign financially even if you don't live in SF!
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- nowarninglabel 9y ago
  Note, District 6.
- ag56 9y ago
  “I’m committed to ... preserving the Tenderloin as SF's most economically diverse neighborhood.” Re Tenderloin: I understand it’s part of District 6 and her campaign website needs to say something, but that sounds like an anti-gentrification line, which in SF is usually used as an argument against new homes. Is Sonja anti-development in the Tenderloin? The area is rife with homeless and drug use. It feels to me like an area that would greatly benefit from some gentrification. (I.e. add some rich techies demanding cleaner streets and more policing, and the existing low income residents gain.) Yet I’ve heard more than once that to change the planning rules there is politically “untouchable”. Can anyone explain why?
  - incadenza 9y ago
    Gentrification does not benefit lower income earners and native residents in any long term / meaningful way. You can argue that building new high rises in the tenderloin will help meet market demand, but nobody can seriously argue that it's going to help the local homeless / underemployed population. If this were true, San Francisco would be a shiny utopia at this point, but income disparity and hyper inflated cost of living have made it just miserable for most people except whatever CTO of the day is moving in.
  - bkcreate 9y ago
    The city "pushes" a large part of the homeless population into the Tenderloin. They seem to be quite happy with this set up and don't want to have the homeless spread out throughout the city. It may be altruistic in that it is easier to help them out when you know where they live or a cynical approach to a problem but there isn't much interest in changing the status quo
  - notyourday 9y ago
    > “I’m committed to ... preserving the Tenderloin as SF's most economically diverse neighborhood.” Translation: "I would like dumps to remain dumps"
  - closeparen 9y ago
    The Tenderloin is already made of medium to high density affordable housing; to convert it to luxury housing or “clean it up” would be the opposite of what YIMBYism is about. The people living there have nowhere else to go, so it’d also be pretty cruel. We want currently exclusive low-rise areas to become mid-to-high-rise and less exclusive.
- product50 9y ago
  To everyone looking at this, please visit the site to make up your mind. There are no details on how she is going to do what she wants apart from using catchy phrases such as "more housing for homeless" and "taking away cars away from roads". Also, this is irrelevant to the topic.
Clanan 9y ago
Can someone "explain like I'm 5": why does this need government intervention? My gut reaction is that if these people can't afford to live in/near San Fran, a massive, amenities-filled city, they should find jobs elsewhere? If enough people take that approach, maybe the jobs will move elsewhere too? My family wanted to move to a big city but we saw the cost and decided not to. I don't want to assume it's an entitlement thing, but it sure reads like it.
- MBlume 9y ago
  It doesn't need government intervention. The government is intervening to keep the city expensive and they're trying to get it to stop.
  - danans 9y ago
    In particular, the state government is stepping in to prevent local governments from passing rules that artificially restrict housing supply. As an example, in Dec 2016, the state of California issued a memorandum [1] that explicitly forbade cities from passing rules that outlaw the construction of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU), which are rental units people build on their own land adjacent to their existing house. Previously, cities had a lot of latitude to prevent these sorts of infill developments outright. Now they can't. [1] http://www.hcd.ca.gov/policy-research/docs/2016-12-12-ADU-TA-Memo.docx.pdf http://www.hcd.ca.gov/policy-research/docs/2016-12-12-ADU-TA...
    - dman 9y ago
      Is there some guide that explains the division of responsibilities between different levels of government in the US? I have lived in the US and have always been aware of my lack of knowledge in this area. (In this specific instance I am unsure whether the City / State is responsible for urban planning / transportation capacity that might possibly be impacted by sudden changes in inventory.)
      - azernik 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
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raldi 9y ago
In San Francisco, I think the real story is what YIMBYs are looking to do on the 2018 ballot: An initiative (https://yimbyaction.org/prop/ https://yimbyaction.org/prop/) to allow affordable housing and teacher housing to be built "by right" -- which is wonky terminology for "The architect will be told the rules (zoning, etc) in advance, and as long as they design something that complies with all of them, a permit will be issued easy peasy". Under current law, even if you abide by all the rules that were stated in advance, you still have to wait years and might be denied in the end anyway. The reason I think this is such a key move is that until now, the landlords and homeowners who reap all the benefits from the status quo have somehow been able to dupe the housing have-nots who suffer from it (low-income renters, etc) into thinking that blocking housing construction will somehow keep their rents low or stem evictions. But anyone who stands against this measure won't be able to pretend they're doing so in the interest of the less-fortunate. They'll have to admit that they're really just looking to protect their view / parking space / skyrocketing property values.
- ProAm 9y ago
  > the landlords and homeowners who reap all the benefits from the status quo have somehow been able to dupe the housing have-nots who suffer from it And by that you mean the people who worked and saved to invest in something wisely to have that take out from under them? I cannot stand people who think home owners and landlords as evil people just because people who come after them cannot have it easy. It was never easy for anyone. It's not the have and have not's, it's the market and hardwork, sure some people are born into wealth but most the time it's just hard work.
  - raldi 9y ago
    When did I say they were evil? My point is that yes, they're acting in their own self-interest (which is fine), but crucially, they've somehow convinced the housing-have-nots that artificially restricting the supply of new housing is somehow in their interest, too. I think this proposition will break that spell, and in a democracy, when the housing-haves vote their self-interest, and the have-nots vote theirs, the latter will win in a landslide.
jpatokal 9y ago
Is there any actual evidence of "winning" outside the headline? The best the article can muster is a single pending lawsuit that, if successful, would allow the construction of one (1) home in Sausalito.
- santaclaus 9y ago
  > Is there any actual evidence of "winning" outside the headline? The legislation that Scott Wiener was able to recently get through the state government, for one.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- raldi 9y ago
  The SF Chronicle editorial board thinks so: http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Progress-at-last-on-California-housing-12201964.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editor...
- jkimmel 9y ago
  There were several bills in the CA Leg this year that passed thanks in large part to YIMBY support. See: SB2 - Subsidized housing bond SB35 - Streamlining construction SB167 - Housing Accountability Act enforcement, written with help from YIBMY affiliate CARLA (carlaef.org) http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article176152771.html http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert...
notliketherest 9y ago
I've met these "YIMBY" members personally, and only about 20% of them are actual home owners. The rest are renters. So first of all, it's not their backyard to say yes to. Secondly, these people are promoting the Hong Kong-ification of small cities such as Palo Alto and Mountain View. Yes to 20 story apartment complexes along the 101? Vote with YIMBY!
- jaibot 9y ago
  "Renters should have no say in what people are allowed to build - only the landed gentry have that right!"
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    The slogan is "Yes in my backyard." But the people saying it don't have a backyard. They should not be coercing people with backyards and imposing their will.
    - twblalock 9y ago
      That's an overly literal interpretation.
    - raldi 9y ago
      Addressed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15683970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15683970
    - chiaro 9y ago
      It's more conversationally natural for me to refer to the yard adjoining my property as 'my backyard' than my landlord to (who likely has a yard of his own for which that is more semantically assonant).
      - dingo_bat 9y ago
        That's technically wrong, the worst kind of wrong. If you rent a house, the backyard is owned by your landlord. Sure in casual conversation you will say "my backyard", but we're talking about ownership here.
dingo_bat 9y ago
Classic case of over-regulation. "Let's solve it with more regulation!" I'm a millennial, and I apologize for my generation's stupidity.
- mtpn 9y ago
  > Classic case of over-regulation. "Let's solve it with more regulation!" I find this to be a fairly feeble argument. Regulation, to me, is a necessary evil. Most especially when it comes to protecting the common good, or interests of those who do not have other forms of power to get a seat at the table. I’m also a millennial and I’d be just thrilled if you’d hold off on apologizing on my behalf. Regulation is not some bogeyman. It can be effective or ineffective in relation to particular goals.
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    I know regulation is necessary and I know it's not a bogeyman. That's why I addressed this specific problem and this specific proposed solution. Less housing available in SF because of too much regulation. That's why the market is not able to satisfy demand. The correct solution is not "more rules" and "government-built housing". This is a typical case of trying to solve an issue caused by over-regulation with more regulation. So will you address my point or just pick up some other strawman again?
    - mtpn 9y ago
      My point is that “too much regulation” is an insufficient criticism. It means nothing, except that it suggests you think regulation itself is the problem. If you do indeed believe regulation is necessary, then we both accept that. It then becomes about what kind of regulation best addresses the complicated problem of housing in high-demand cities. I’d address your point but I don’t know what it is, beyond what I’ve already said.
    - nedwin 9y ago
      The YIMBYs have been trying to reduce regulation for a long time at the local government level. Unfortunately entrenched players don’t want to build more housing. In response the YIMBYs have taken it to the State level to enact a regulation which effectively reduces local power (and regulation) over housing.
pcmaffey 9y ago
They’re not winning in Boulder. 4 of 5 seats on the city council were just won by Nimby supporters. And no wonder... the largest contingent here is wealthy boomers who moved to Boulder because its Boulder. Why would they want that to change? I’m not one of them by the way. But I do think that increasing supply in crazy high demand markets is a linear solution to a logarithmic problem.
- tmh79 9y ago
  1) O(linear) > O(logarithmic), I'm going to assume you mean polynomial instead of logarithmic. Soooo I'm going to address that. Increasing density in markets with large amounts of single family zoning is not a linear solution. Yimby is about turning 2-dimensional single family neighborhoods into 3 dimensional multi family zoned neighborhoods by adding a heigh dimension to the equation. It is by definition a polynomial solution.
- retailbuyout 9y ago
  Got a link to read more about boulder?
- underwoodley 9y ago
  Is it possible that Boulder and San Francisco are actually quite different places?
acconrad 9y ago
As much as I support what YIMBY is trying to do for San Francisco, I think this is trying to solve the symptom of a greater problem: that our economy has shifted to not needing (yet still somehow requiring) our workers to work in a physical office. I recently became a remote worker and I cannot imagine going back. If this became the norm in the US I think this would do a lot for fixing the housing problems. We have enough space to house everyone, the problem is we believe we need to house them close to where the "jobs are." But if employers allowed their workers to work from anywhere, then not everyone would need to live in NY, SF, LA, Boston, et al. The cities that experienced the worst emigration (e.g. Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee) could stabilize. Housing prices would normalize as a result of everyone not being forced to live within a 2-hr commute of the country's biggest employers. And those same employers could pay less for talent because they wouldn't have to give them a salary to afford places where the average starter home is over $1mm. And yet, we see articles in the NYT how big companies like IBM are already rescinding their offers for giving people more flexibility. We're not moving in the right direction.
- twblalock 9y ago
  Companies would love to encourage remote work if it would work out well for them. They would save tons of money by reducing their office space, and they could lower their salaries because they wouldn't need to support the big-city cost of living. So, why don't more companies encourage remote work, and why are some companies rolling back remote-work policies? Because they learned from experience that it doesn't work out well. Maybe some of them are just being stupid, but others are well-established companies that have been very good at running their businesses. I've worked at a company that had very flexible working hours and a generous work-from-home policy, and now I work somewhere that doesn't. I much prefer the situation I'm in now -- my coworkers are much more responsive when there is a problem, it's easier to schedule and conduct meetings, there are far fewer slackers, etc. Ever worked at a company that has office locations across the country (or the world), and tried to conduct important meetings with people in those other offices over Skype or the phone, or even expensive telepresence equipment? It kinda sucks. Imagine that every meeting, and every interaction with your coworkers, and every "whiteboarding" session was like that. That's not a world in which business is easy to conduct -- in fact, it's so difficult that companies are willing to forgo the massive cost savings they could realize by encouraging remote work.
umanwizard 9y ago
I'm not sure the evidence suggests that building a lot of high-density housing will reduce rents. Compare New York (very high density, very expensive) to Tucson (low density, very cheap). Building more housing may just induce demand: more people will decide to move to SF but rents will remain the same.
- raldi 9y ago
  NYC’s demand for housing is more than an order of magnitude greater than Tucson. If you want to argue that increasing supply doesn’t matter, you need to compare two examples with similar demand.
  - umanwizard 9y ago
    That is exactly my point. I don't see why we should expect San Francisco to turn out differently from New York. Building more housing will allow more people to move there, which will drive growth, which will in turn attract even more people...
    - raldi 9y ago
      We could debate how this works, but since neither of us is an economist, that would be as silly as a couple of non-scientists arguing about climate change -- when the overwhelming majority of scientists are all saying the same thing, just listen to the scientists. In this case, an overwhelming majority of economists are saying that increasing the supply of housing in our cities would bring prices down. SF's Chief Economist: http://www.sfhac.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Ted-Egan-Presentation.pdf http://www.sfhac.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Ted-Egan-Pre... California's legislative analyst's office: http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finance/housing-costs/housing-costs.pdf http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finance/housing-costs/hou... The Obama White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/Housing_Development_Toolkit%20f.2.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images... Even if they're all wrong, and we increase the supply of housing by 100,000 units and prices stay the same, that's 100,000 fewer families that get displaced.
nodesocket 9y ago
Here is the problem, the bay area is filled with hypocrites. After all, they are having formal galas for affordable housing. Let me explain. Most of the same people who are pro-affordable housing and homeless rights are making 200K a year plus and living comfortably in their $4,000 a month rent apartments. I fully expect this won't be a popular opinion, but I don't have a horse in this race anymore. I'm moving to Nashville Tennessee next month, but I believe in free markets. If you want to live in the bay area, then you're going to pay bay area prices. It really comes down to basic economics.
- azernik 9y ago
  Why exactly is being rich and pro-affordable-housing hypocrisy? Generally the ballot measures they vote for involve spending their own tax dollars on the policies they advocate for.
  - nodesocket 9y ago
    > Why exactly is being rich and pro-affordable-housing hypocrisy? Because some would claim they are the reason there is an affordable housing problem... I'm not one of these people though. Again, I believe markets set prices.
    - azernik 9y ago
      "I'm not one of those people" - yet you still call hypocrisy? The organizations in the article, backed by wealthy supporters of affordable housing, do believe that the market sets rents; the policies that they advocate are a) allow low-income people to get housing outside of the market, and b) to change market rules to encourage higher supply and lower market prices.
    - chillacy 9y ago
      Markets set prices within their power, but housing is far from a free market. Bay area prices are largely a result of regulatory capture.
chiaro 9y ago
If your political opinions are little more complex than "does this involve government intervention", it'd be wise to avail yourself over whether the proposed alternative actually entails more state intervention or less.
starik36 9y ago
The big elephant in the room that no one wants to touch is the massive immigration to San Francisco Bay Area from all over the world. The population stands at 7.68 million. Just in 2010 it was 7.1 mil. And in 2000, it was 6.7 million. So you essentially have an extra million people living in what was already pretty densely populated area. I doubt NIMBY or anti-NIMBY is going to solve any problems.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  As someone living here: this place is one of the least dense cities I have ever lived in. It’s insane how low density it is for a major city. It’s only high density in comparison to the usual CA sprawl.
- ajmurmann 9y ago
  How so? There are huge parts even of SF proper that have extremely low density. Just look at the vast area that's the avenues. Is there even anything at all with more than four stories? What keeps us from theoretically filling that space in with 80 floor skyscrapers if demand is that high?
- ladberg 9y ago
  Anti-NIMBY will definitely solve a lot of problems. A lot of the South Bay and peninsula are incredibly under-developed for the amount of people working in the area, and simply allowing taller buildings to be built (among other things) would substantially decrease the average commute and rent of many residents.
- edmccard 9y ago
  >The population stands at 7.68 million ... in 2000, it was 6.7 million. So that's about a 14% growth rate since 2000, compared to Houston's 35% growth in the same time period (3.4 to 4.6 million). And I've heard that Houston even before Harvey had one of the more affordable big-city housing markets in the country.
buss 9y ago
If you live in the Mission district of San Francisco and want to get involved, come to the Mission YIMBY general meeting at the end of November. I'm one of the organizers and we're looking to grow our membership base! https://www.facebook.com/events/771212863081381 https://www.facebook.com/events/771212863081381
- rsync 9y ago
  "If you live in the Mission district of San Francisco and want to get involved, come to the Mission YIMBY general meeting at the end of November." I am genuinely interested in what it means to be a Mission district YIMBY. The recent history of housing politics in the Mission have pitted left-liberal progressives against housing development on the assumption that: new development will be market rate, this will bring "tech workers" and gentrification, ergo: new housing will (paradoxically) force more existing mission residents out of housing. So it has been left-liberal, progressive, tenants-rights NIMBYs vs. gentrifying developers (and sometimes, very explicitly, "tech-bus-riders")[1][2][3]. BUT, the YIMBY movement in general seems to present itself as a left-liberal, progressive response to incumbent property owners. Given that context, what kind of reception does "Mission YIMBY" receive and where does it fall in the politics of what is the Mission district in 2017 ? [1] https://48hills.org/2015/02/11/teachers-protested-google-buses/ https://48hills.org/2015/02/11/teachers-protested-google-bus... [2] https://48hills.org/2016/01/25/problem-google-bus-program/ https://48hills.org/2016/01/25/problem-google-bus-program/ [3] https://48hills.org/2015/04/24/thebattle-over-sf-bus-stops/ https://48hills.org/2015/04/24/thebattle-over-sf-bus-stops/
  - nshepperd 9y ago
    Who says there can only be one left-liberal progressive side? Let alone only one that claims to be left-liberal progressive?
  - santaclaus 9y ago
    Most of the opposition to housing I've seen in the Mission has been to infill. Look at the controversy over development at the 16th street mission BART station. This would be dense housing in an urban core literally on top of public transit. It would displace a... Burger King. I find it hard to swallow that Burger King is a core component of a sustainable, progressive urban landscape, while high density housing with easy access to public transit is not.
davidf18 9y ago
The reason for the high cost of housing is because of Artificial scarcity of land made by regressive zoning density restrictions which creates market inefficiencies or market failures. The economic term is called rent-seeking and the market failures are bad for the economy. Instead of creating more wealth for everyone the instead allow the wealthy landlords to steal wealth from others. Fir example, these laws benefit President Trump to the detriment of the working class and middle-income class. Many liberals claim to hate Trump and favor the working person but they are typically behind movements to transfer wealth from workers to President Trump and other wealthy landlords. The fix is simply to overturn the regressive laws.
sjg007 9y ago
San Diego seems to be keeping up with new housing demand. It's still California and on the beach.. Probably the best place to get in now.. Tech companies will develop there.
- goodoldboys 9y ago
  I recently looked at San Diego's housing market and was surprised to see how much more affordable it was than LA. Seeing that they're building enough units to meet demand is probably one of the reasons why it's still affordable. Because it's certainly a desirable location to live.
natecavanaugh 9y ago
I'm very much a pro YIMBY kind of guy, but I feel like there's a hard pro-urbanization, anti-expansion aspect to this. And the reason that gets to me now is that, while I totally get the pros and cons of both urban and suburban settings, but this debate always seems to be binary, when in reality, it's like every other socioeconomic factor, and is just a matter of tradeoffs. I'm saying this as a guy who has done the 2+ hour commute each direction, but who also is fortunate enough to live in a suburb and my commute is a whopping 4 minutes, so I obviously am prejudiced here. But I really think that expanding development into further areas brings with it economic advantages for those outlying communities (and yes, gentrification as well), and we have far more space right now by going out rather than up. Why not use it?
- TulliusCicero 9y ago
  That's a complicated question to answer. Suburban sprawl certainly can work to get low or lower housing prices, but it has its own set of downsides. Suburban sprawl tends to cement car-dominant infrastructure in an area, and eventually leads to a situation where more people are commuting by car into the principal city than the roads can handle, but mass transit is not a feasible solution because most of the area has too low density to support the stations (and the people who live out there are now set in a car-only way and won't support his change). This also helps make people fat as hell. Suburban sprawl is less environmentally friendly: takes more energy as a lifestyle, and necessarily means cutting more into nature to build homes. Suburban sprawl tends to be financially unsustainable. The Strong Towns blog goes into this more if you're interested, but the gist of it is that sprawly development means more miles of road, power lines, water lines, etc. per person, without a commensurate increase in tax revenue. It works okay at first, but then thirty, forty, fifty years down the line when things need to be replaced, there's not enough money to do so.
  - natecavanaugh 9y ago
    I don't disagree about many of those trade-offs, because they do happen. However, car dominant southern California is also a very big chunk of economic activity and also has much of that infrastructure that is actually updated (though, yeah, not very often, but there is a separate debate about whether it's an inept state legislature that manages an extremely large land mass or whether it's sprawl itself). I feel like much of that could be improved by businesses at that point though. Why not set up shop in one of those suburbs (which I've seen many a company do over the years) and use that as a way to not only build up that area, but also bring with it people who are skilled in different fields and reduce general congestion? I grant that that's a little pie in the sky, but I have seen it done, and even from startup levels. Maybe this is something academia could lead in, as I've seen a lot of colleges that are setup in non-urban settings, and they could be the initial hub of activity and a talent pool for businesses to draw from. I'm not saying you won't have the downsides of not having a large concentrated talent pool, and it for sure makes recruiting more time consuming, but if you're looking to build a company that is sustainable long term, employee satisfaction and happiness can be greatly improved by a dramatically shortened commute and affordable housing, at least in California. The recruiting constraint also gives you a chance to explore alternative paths of hiring, such as hiring people with non-traditional backgrounds but who are uniquely gifted for what you're needing. I know we have found some of our best developers in people who graduated with a wide array of degrees that wouldn't make sense on paper.
matt_wulfeck 9y ago
I am wish even people who owned houses could improve on them. I own a home in the Bay Area. If I could extend it out near the sidewalk I could probably double my living space and get rid of a dead yard, but he setback rules make reasonable expansion impossible.
junkscience2017 9y ago
As a Bay area home owner, I will stop being NIMBY when I see housing advocates accept that schools, parks, roads and retail must see consistent investment also. So far I see a lot of advocacy for housing density but no concerns for quality of life. More units will just mean more new residents...developers have no obligation to build to serve existing residents. If we build 100k new units now, that is just another 100k new residents who will suffer abysmal traffic.
- santaclaus 9y ago
  > So far I see a lot of advocacy for housing density but no concerns for quality of life. I see density as correlated with quality of life. I want to be able to live near work (so no car needed), with easy access to restaurants, bars, music venues, easy access to cultural opportunities, farmers markets, grocery stores, etc. Neighborhoods with these things are an absolute joy to live in.
  - junkscience2017 9y ago
    What you want are frankly the typical goals of those derided as NIMBYs. They tend to want amenities balanced with housing.
    - santaclaus 9y ago
      Without density you can't have these in a walkable neighborhood. It takes X number of customers to support a grocery store (or a bodega, or a restaurant, etc). If you want one nearby, you need more people in a smaller geographic area. Besides, it is not one or the other. Ground level retail, upper level residential, and you get both.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      The amenities he wants stem from “more neighbors, closer to me” and the amenities NIMBYs want are the opposite. One is cooperative (cities get better as they grow, new residents and businesses and buildings add to the energy) and the other is exclusionary (once too many people live somewhere, it’s ruined).
anovikov 9y ago
That is all good, but what will they do with transportation? When the supply of the housing is increased, it will attract a ton of people who now simply can't afford (as many not-so-top, but still good coders - i know a ton of people who would move in, but can't afford the Valley rent). Can you imaging the traffic then?
- tobylane 9y ago
  Good planning laws should require the developers pay for some of the transport and government services used by the new residents. The UK's section 106 does this, I've seen it build or improve roundabouts, junctions, roads, GPs offices (PCP offices), train stations, bus stations, schools, community centres, water and sewage links. Or the plan by South Korea to build a city where cars aren't needed.
  - anovikov 9y ago
    I think it will stop without starting because any real planning will come to conclusion that fitting any more people in comfortably is simply not possible, or at least not until Musk's Boring Company delivers.
- closeparen 9y ago
  The simple answer is to concentrate development around transit stations and to increase frequency and length of trains on existing service. For example, by-right authority to build towers, but only within half a mile of a BART station.
  - raldi 9y ago
    We don't even need towers; six-story apartment buildings would do. See http://tinyurl.com/6storySF http://tinyurl.com/6storySF
    - closeparen 9y ago
      The land near BART that’s available for development in the near and medium term is the parking. Six story apartments on all BART parking is what, a couple thousand units? That’s a drop in the bucket. To replace enough SFHs to make a difference with buildings of that height, we would need eminent domain seizures of entire tracts. Not gonna happen. It’s true that an entire city built out of six story apartments could work, but realistically development needs to squeeze in the gaps (infill). A mere six stories is a huge waste of a gap. Path dependence is weird like that.
neilwilson 9y ago
Eventually they'll work out that land cannot ever be a functional market - because they don't make it any more. A far more useful regulation would be to require those business owners funding these lobbying operations to release their own massive pads, demolish them and build high rise, high density accommodation for millennials. Then they get to feel the cost of over centralisation personally. If you want to make a fortune out of this, buy land in the bubble areas and just sit on it. It's a one way bet.
- raldi 9y ago
  There are already lots of people who voluntarily want to demolish the house they own to build apartments; why not allow them to do so first, before we start talking about making people do it against their will?
  - neilwilson 9y ago
    Well it's about allocating the cost. Surely the cost of intensification should be paid by those needlessly intensifying. Certainly amongst technology firms there is little need to be in a particular place. That requirement is largely down to a power play and lack of management and organisational skill
    - raldi 9y ago
      I think adding more people to a city is a benefit, not a cost. Most people moving to urban areas do so because they like all the good things that come with high population density. It's only a problem when you artificially restrict the supply of new housing and create a shortage.
tabtab 9y ago
Does California really want or need more people? If it's so hard to get housing, then move out. The rust belt has really good deals on housing. It just needs something to jump-start its economy. Something is out of whack.
- kerbalspacepro 9y ago
  If companies are hiring there... yes? Like, it is an objective "yes, California needs more people."

213 points by inostia 9y ago

If you live in San Francisco you should consider supporting Sonja's campaign for the Board of Supervisors (City Council) http://www.sonja2018.org/ http://www.sonja2018.org/

zt 9y ago
And feel free to support the campaign financially even if you don't live in SF!
- deleted 9y ago
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nowarninglabel 9y ago
Note, District 6.
ag56 9y ago
“I’m committed to ... preserving the Tenderloin as SF's most economically diverse neighborhood.” Re Tenderloin: I understand it’s part of District 6 and her campaign website needs to say something, but that sounds like an anti-gentrification line, which in SF is usually used as an argument against new homes. Is Sonja anti-development in the Tenderloin? The area is rife with homeless and drug use. It feels to me like an area that would greatly benefit from some gentrification. (I.e. add some rich techies demanding cleaner streets and more policing, and the existing low income residents gain.) Yet I’ve heard more than once that to change the planning rules there is politically “untouchable”. Can anyone explain why?
- incadenza 9y ago
  Gentrification does not benefit lower income earners and native residents in any long term / meaningful way. You can argue that building new high rises in the tenderloin will help meet market demand, but nobody can seriously argue that it's going to help the local homeless / underemployed population. If this were true, San Francisco would be a shiny utopia at this point, but income disparity and hyper inflated cost of living have made it just miserable for most people except whatever CTO of the day is moving in.
- bkcreate 9y ago
  The city "pushes" a large part of the homeless population into the Tenderloin. They seem to be quite happy with this set up and don't want to have the homeless spread out throughout the city. It may be altruistic in that it is easier to help them out when you know where they live or a cynical approach to a problem but there isn't much interest in changing the status quo
- notyourday 9y ago
  > “I’m committed to ... preserving the Tenderloin as SF's most economically diverse neighborhood.” Translation: "I would like dumps to remain dumps"
- closeparen 9y ago
  The Tenderloin is already made of medium to high density affordable housing; to convert it to luxury housing or “clean it up” would be the opposite of what YIMBYism is about. The people living there have nowhere else to go, so it’d also be pretty cruel. We want currently exclusive low-rise areas to become mid-to-high-rise and less exclusive.
product50 9y ago
To everyone looking at this, please visit the site to make up your mind. There are no details on how she is going to do what she wants apart from using catchy phrases such as "more housing for homeless" and "taking away cars away from roads". Also, this is irrelevant to the topic.

Clanan 9y ago

Can someone "explain like I'm 5": why does this need government intervention? My gut reaction is that if these people can't afford to live in/near San Fran, a massive, amenities-filled city, they should find jobs elsewhere? If enough people take that approach, maybe the jobs will move elsewhere too? My family wanted to move to a big city but we saw the cost and decided not to. I don't want to assume it's an entitlement thing, but it sure reads like it.

MBlume 9y ago
It doesn't need government intervention. The government is intervening to keep the city expensive and they're trying to get it to stop.
- danans 9y ago
  In particular, the state government is stepping in to prevent local governments from passing rules that artificially restrict housing supply. As an example, in Dec 2016, the state of California issued a memorandum [1] that explicitly forbade cities from passing rules that outlaw the construction of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU), which are rental units people build on their own land adjacent to their existing house. Previously, cities had a lot of latitude to prevent these sorts of infill developments outright. Now they can't. [1] http://www.hcd.ca.gov/policy-research/docs/2016-12-12-ADU-TA-Memo.docx.pdf http://www.hcd.ca.gov/policy-research/docs/2016-12-12-ADU-TA...
  - dman 9y ago
    Is there some guide that explains the division of responsibilities between different levels of government in the US? I have lived in the US and have always been aware of my lack of knowledge in this area. (In this specific instance I am unsure whether the City / State is responsible for urban planning / transportation capacity that might possibly be impacted by sudden changes in inventory.)
    - azernik 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

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raldi 9y ago

In San Francisco, I think the real story is what YIMBYs are looking to do on the 2018 ballot: An initiative (https://yimbyaction.org/prop/ https://yimbyaction.org/prop/) to allow affordable housing and teacher housing to be built "by right" -- which is wonky terminology for "The architect will be told the rules (zoning, etc) in advance, and as long as they design something that complies with all of them, a permit will be issued easy peasy". Under current law, even if you abide by all the rules that were stated in advance, you still have to wait years and might be denied in the end anyway. The reason I think this is such a key move is that until now, the landlords and homeowners who reap all the benefits from the status quo have somehow been able to dupe the housing have-nots who suffer from it (low-income renters, etc) into thinking that blocking housing construction will somehow keep their rents low or stem evictions. But anyone who stands against this measure won't be able to pretend they're doing so in the interest of the less-fortunate. They'll have to admit that they're really just looking to protect their view / parking space / skyrocketing property values.

ProAm 9y ago
> the landlords and homeowners who reap all the benefits from the status quo have somehow been able to dupe the housing have-nots who suffer from it And by that you mean the people who worked and saved to invest in something wisely to have that take out from under them? I cannot stand people who think home owners and landlords as evil people just because people who come after them cannot have it easy. It was never easy for anyone. It's not the have and have not's, it's the market and hardwork, sure some people are born into wealth but most the time it's just hard work.
- raldi 9y ago
  When did I say they were evil? My point is that yes, they're acting in their own self-interest (which is fine), but crucially, they've somehow convinced the housing-have-nots that artificially restricting the supply of new housing is somehow in their interest, too. I think this proposition will break that spell, and in a democracy, when the housing-haves vote their self-interest, and the have-nots vote theirs, the latter will win in a landslide.

jpatokal 9y ago

Is there any actual evidence of "winning" outside the headline? The best the article can muster is a single pending lawsuit that, if successful, would allow the construction of one (1) home in Sausalito.

santaclaus 9y ago
> Is there any actual evidence of "winning" outside the headline? The legislation that Scott Wiener was able to recently get through the state government, for one.
- deleted 9y ago
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raldi 9y ago
The SF Chronicle editorial board thinks so: http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Progress-at-last-on-California-housing-12201964.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editor...
jkimmel 9y ago
There were several bills in the CA Leg this year that passed thanks in large part to YIMBY support. See: SB2 - Subsidized housing bond SB35 - Streamlining construction SB167 - Housing Accountability Act enforcement, written with help from YIBMY affiliate CARLA (carlaef.org) http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article176152771.html http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert...

notliketherest 9y ago

I've met these "YIMBY" members personally, and only about 20% of them are actual home owners. The rest are renters. So first of all, it's not their backyard to say yes to. Secondly, these people are promoting the Hong Kong-ification of small cities such as Palo Alto and Mountain View. Yes to 20 story apartment complexes along the 101? Vote with YIMBY!

jaibot 9y ago
"Renters should have no say in what people are allowed to build - only the landed gentry have that right!"
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  The slogan is "Yes in my backyard." But the people saying it don't have a backyard. They should not be coercing people with backyards and imposing their will.
  - twblalock 9y ago
    That's an overly literal interpretation.
  - raldi 9y ago
    Addressed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15683970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15683970
  - chiaro 9y ago
    It's more conversationally natural for me to refer to the yard adjoining my property as 'my backyard' than my landlord to (who likely has a yard of his own for which that is more semantically assonant).
    - dingo_bat 9y ago
      That's technically wrong, the worst kind of wrong. If you rent a house, the backyard is owned by your landlord. Sure in casual conversation you will say "my backyard", but we're talking about ownership here.

dingo_bat 9y ago

Classic case of over-regulation. "Let's solve it with more regulation!" I'm a millennial, and I apologize for my generation's stupidity.

mtpn 9y ago
> Classic case of over-regulation. "Let's solve it with more regulation!" I find this to be a fairly feeble argument. Regulation, to me, is a necessary evil. Most especially when it comes to protecting the common good, or interests of those who do not have other forms of power to get a seat at the table. I’m also a millennial and I’d be just thrilled if you’d hold off on apologizing on my behalf. Regulation is not some bogeyman. It can be effective or ineffective in relation to particular goals.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  I know regulation is necessary and I know it's not a bogeyman. That's why I addressed this specific problem and this specific proposed solution. Less housing available in SF because of too much regulation. That's why the market is not able to satisfy demand. The correct solution is not "more rules" and "government-built housing". This is a typical case of trying to solve an issue caused by over-regulation with more regulation. So will you address my point or just pick up some other strawman again?
  - mtpn 9y ago
    My point is that “too much regulation” is an insufficient criticism. It means nothing, except that it suggests you think regulation itself is the problem. If you do indeed believe regulation is necessary, then we both accept that. It then becomes about what kind of regulation best addresses the complicated problem of housing in high-demand cities. I’d address your point but I don’t know what it is, beyond what I’ve already said.
  - nedwin 9y ago
    The YIMBYs have been trying to reduce regulation for a long time at the local government level. Unfortunately entrenched players don’t want to build more housing. In response the YIMBYs have taken it to the State level to enact a regulation which effectively reduces local power (and regulation) over housing.

pcmaffey 9y ago

They’re not winning in Boulder. 4 of 5 seats on the city council were just won by Nimby supporters. And no wonder... the largest contingent here is wealthy boomers who moved to Boulder because its Boulder. Why would they want that to change? I’m not one of them by the way. But I do think that increasing supply in crazy high demand markets is a linear solution to a logarithmic problem.

tmh79 9y ago
1) O(linear) > O(logarithmic), I'm going to assume you mean polynomial instead of logarithmic. Soooo I'm going to address that. Increasing density in markets with large amounts of single family zoning is not a linear solution. Yimby is about turning 2-dimensional single family neighborhoods into 3 dimensional multi family zoned neighborhoods by adding a heigh dimension to the equation. It is by definition a polynomial solution.
retailbuyout 9y ago
Got a link to read more about boulder?
underwoodley 9y ago
Is it possible that Boulder and San Francisco are actually quite different places?

acconrad 9y ago

As much as I support what YIMBY is trying to do for San Francisco, I think this is trying to solve the symptom of a greater problem: that our economy has shifted to not needing (yet still somehow requiring) our workers to work in a physical office. I recently became a remote worker and I cannot imagine going back. If this became the norm in the US I think this would do a lot for fixing the housing problems. We have enough space to house everyone, the problem is we believe we need to house them close to where the "jobs are." But if employers allowed their workers to work from anywhere, then not everyone would need to live in NY, SF, LA, Boston, et al. The cities that experienced the worst emigration (e.g. Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee) could stabilize. Housing prices would normalize as a result of everyone not being forced to live within a 2-hr commute of the country's biggest employers. And those same employers could pay less for talent because they wouldn't have to give them a salary to afford places where the average starter home is over $1mm. And yet, we see articles in the NYT how big companies like IBM are already rescinding their offers for giving people more flexibility. We're not moving in the right direction.

twblalock 9y ago
Companies would love to encourage remote work if it would work out well for them. They would save tons of money by reducing their office space, and they could lower their salaries because they wouldn't need to support the big-city cost of living. So, why don't more companies encourage remote work, and why are some companies rolling back remote-work policies? Because they learned from experience that it doesn't work out well. Maybe some of them are just being stupid, but others are well-established companies that have been very good at running their businesses. I've worked at a company that had very flexible working hours and a generous work-from-home policy, and now I work somewhere that doesn't. I much prefer the situation I'm in now -- my coworkers are much more responsive when there is a problem, it's easier to schedule and conduct meetings, there are far fewer slackers, etc. Ever worked at a company that has office locations across the country (or the world), and tried to conduct important meetings with people in those other offices over Skype or the phone, or even expensive telepresence equipment? It kinda sucks. Imagine that every meeting, and every interaction with your coworkers, and every "whiteboarding" session was like that. That's not a world in which business is easy to conduct -- in fact, it's so difficult that companies are willing to forgo the massive cost savings they could realize by encouraging remote work.

umanwizard 9y ago

I'm not sure the evidence suggests that building a lot of high-density housing will reduce rents. Compare New York (very high density, very expensive) to Tucson (low density, very cheap). Building more housing may just induce demand: more people will decide to move to SF but rents will remain the same.

raldi 9y ago
NYC’s demand for housing is more than an order of magnitude greater than Tucson. If you want to argue that increasing supply doesn’t matter, you need to compare two examples with similar demand.
- umanwizard 9y ago
  That is exactly my point. I don't see why we should expect San Francisco to turn out differently from New York. Building more housing will allow more people to move there, which will drive growth, which will in turn attract even more people...
  - raldi 9y ago
    We could debate how this works, but since neither of us is an economist, that would be as silly as a couple of non-scientists arguing about climate change -- when the overwhelming majority of scientists are all saying the same thing, just listen to the scientists. In this case, an overwhelming majority of economists are saying that increasing the supply of housing in our cities would bring prices down. SF's Chief Economist: http://www.sfhac.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Ted-Egan-Presentation.pdf http://www.sfhac.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Ted-Egan-Pre... California's legislative analyst's office: http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finance/housing-costs/housing-costs.pdf http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finance/housing-costs/hou... The Obama White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/Housing_Development_Toolkit%20f.2.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images... Even if they're all wrong, and we increase the supply of housing by 100,000 units and prices stay the same, that's 100,000 fewer families that get displaced.

nodesocket 9y ago

Here is the problem, the bay area is filled with hypocrites. After all, they are having formal galas for affordable housing. Let me explain. Most of the same people who are pro-affordable housing and homeless rights are making 200K a year plus and living comfortably in their $4,000 a month rent apartments. I fully expect this won't be a popular opinion, but I don't have a horse in this race anymore. I'm moving to Nashville Tennessee next month, but I believe in free markets. If you want to live in the bay area, then you're going to pay bay area prices. It really comes down to basic economics.

azernik 9y ago
Why exactly is being rich and pro-affordable-housing hypocrisy? Generally the ballot measures they vote for involve spending their own tax dollars on the policies they advocate for.
- nodesocket 9y ago
  > Why exactly is being rich and pro-affordable-housing hypocrisy? Because some would claim they are the reason there is an affordable housing problem... I'm not one of these people though. Again, I believe markets set prices.
  - azernik 9y ago
    "I'm not one of those people" - yet you still call hypocrisy? The organizations in the article, backed by wealthy supporters of affordable housing, do believe that the market sets rents; the policies that they advocate are a) allow low-income people to get housing outside of the market, and b) to change market rules to encourage higher supply and lower market prices.
  - chillacy 9y ago
    Markets set prices within their power, but housing is far from a free market. Bay area prices are largely a result of regulatory capture.

chiaro 9y ago

If your political opinions are little more complex than "does this involve government intervention", it'd be wise to avail yourself over whether the proposed alternative actually entails more state intervention or less.

starik36 9y ago

The big elephant in the room that no one wants to touch is the massive immigration to San Francisco Bay Area from all over the world. The population stands at 7.68 million. Just in 2010 it was 7.1 mil. And in 2000, it was 6.7 million. So you essentially have an extra million people living in what was already pretty densely populated area. I doubt NIMBY or anti-NIMBY is going to solve any problems.

deleted 9y ago
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abritinthebay 9y ago
As someone living here: this place is one of the least dense cities I have ever lived in. It’s insane how low density it is for a major city. It’s only high density in comparison to the usual CA sprawl.
ajmurmann 9y ago
How so? There are huge parts even of SF proper that have extremely low density. Just look at the vast area that's the avenues. Is there even anything at all with more than four stories? What keeps us from theoretically filling that space in with 80 floor skyscrapers if demand is that high?
ladberg 9y ago
Anti-NIMBY will definitely solve a lot of problems. A lot of the South Bay and peninsula are incredibly under-developed for the amount of people working in the area, and simply allowing taller buildings to be built (among other things) would substantially decrease the average commute and rent of many residents.
edmccard 9y ago
>The population stands at 7.68 million ... in 2000, it was 6.7 million. So that's about a 14% growth rate since 2000, compared to Houston's 35% growth in the same time period (3.4 to 4.6 million). And I've heard that Houston even before Harvey had one of the more affordable big-city housing markets in the country.

buss 9y ago

If you live in the Mission district of San Francisco and want to get involved, come to the Mission YIMBY general meeting at the end of November. I'm one of the organizers and we're looking to grow our membership base! https://www.facebook.com/events/771212863081381 https://www.facebook.com/events/771212863081381

rsync 9y ago
"If you live in the Mission district of San Francisco and want to get involved, come to the Mission YIMBY general meeting at the end of November." I am genuinely interested in what it means to be a Mission district YIMBY. The recent history of housing politics in the Mission have pitted left-liberal progressives against housing development on the assumption that: new development will be market rate, this will bring "tech workers" and gentrification, ergo: new housing will (paradoxically) force more existing mission residents out of housing. So it has been left-liberal, progressive, tenants-rights NIMBYs vs. gentrifying developers (and sometimes, very explicitly, "tech-bus-riders")[1][2][3]. BUT, the YIMBY movement in general seems to present itself as a left-liberal, progressive response to incumbent property owners. Given that context, what kind of reception does "Mission YIMBY" receive and where does it fall in the politics of what is the Mission district in 2017 ? [1] https://48hills.org/2015/02/11/teachers-protested-google-buses/ https://48hills.org/2015/02/11/teachers-protested-google-bus... [2] https://48hills.org/2016/01/25/problem-google-bus-program/ https://48hills.org/2016/01/25/problem-google-bus-program/ [3] https://48hills.org/2015/04/24/thebattle-over-sf-bus-stops/ https://48hills.org/2015/04/24/thebattle-over-sf-bus-stops/
- nshepperd 9y ago
  Who says there can only be one left-liberal progressive side? Let alone only one that claims to be left-liberal progressive?
- santaclaus 9y ago
  Most of the opposition to housing I've seen in the Mission has been to infill. Look at the controversy over development at the 16th street mission BART station. This would be dense housing in an urban core literally on top of public transit. It would displace a... Burger King. I find it hard to swallow that Burger King is a core component of a sustainable, progressive urban landscape, while high density housing with easy access to public transit is not.

davidf18 9y ago

The reason for the high cost of housing is because of Artificial scarcity of land made by regressive zoning density restrictions which creates market inefficiencies or market failures. The economic term is called rent-seeking and the market failures are bad for the economy. Instead of creating more wealth for everyone the instead allow the wealthy landlords to steal wealth from others. Fir example, these laws benefit President Trump to the detriment of the working class and middle-income class. Many liberals claim to hate Trump and favor the working person but they are typically behind movements to transfer wealth from workers to President Trump and other wealthy landlords. The fix is simply to overturn the regressive laws.

sjg007 9y ago

San Diego seems to be keeping up with new housing demand. It's still California and on the beach.. Probably the best place to get in now.. Tech companies will develop there.

goodoldboys 9y ago
I recently looked at San Diego's housing market and was surprised to see how much more affordable it was than LA. Seeing that they're building enough units to meet demand is probably one of the reasons why it's still affordable. Because it's certainly a desirable location to live.

natecavanaugh 9y ago

I'm very much a pro YIMBY kind of guy, but I feel like there's a hard pro-urbanization, anti-expansion aspect to this. And the reason that gets to me now is that, while I totally get the pros and cons of both urban and suburban settings, but this debate always seems to be binary, when in reality, it's like every other socioeconomic factor, and is just a matter of tradeoffs. I'm saying this as a guy who has done the 2+ hour commute each direction, but who also is fortunate enough to live in a suburb and my commute is a whopping 4 minutes, so I obviously am prejudiced here. But I really think that expanding development into further areas brings with it economic advantages for those outlying communities (and yes, gentrification as well), and we have far more space right now by going out rather than up. Why not use it?

TulliusCicero 9y ago
That's a complicated question to answer. Suburban sprawl certainly can work to get low or lower housing prices, but it has its own set of downsides. Suburban sprawl tends to cement car-dominant infrastructure in an area, and eventually leads to a situation where more people are commuting by car into the principal city than the roads can handle, but mass transit is not a feasible solution because most of the area has too low density to support the stations (and the people who live out there are now set in a car-only way and won't support his change). This also helps make people fat as hell. Suburban sprawl is less environmentally friendly: takes more energy as a lifestyle, and necessarily means cutting more into nature to build homes. Suburban sprawl tends to be financially unsustainable. The Strong Towns blog goes into this more if you're interested, but the gist of it is that sprawly development means more miles of road, power lines, water lines, etc. per person, without a commensurate increase in tax revenue. It works okay at first, but then thirty, forty, fifty years down the line when things need to be replaced, there's not enough money to do so.
- natecavanaugh 9y ago
  I don't disagree about many of those trade-offs, because they do happen. However, car dominant southern California is also a very big chunk of economic activity and also has much of that infrastructure that is actually updated (though, yeah, not very often, but there is a separate debate about whether it's an inept state legislature that manages an extremely large land mass or whether it's sprawl itself). I feel like much of that could be improved by businesses at that point though. Why not set up shop in one of those suburbs (which I've seen many a company do over the years) and use that as a way to not only build up that area, but also bring with it people who are skilled in different fields and reduce general congestion? I grant that that's a little pie in the sky, but I have seen it done, and even from startup levels. Maybe this is something academia could lead in, as I've seen a lot of colleges that are setup in non-urban settings, and they could be the initial hub of activity and a talent pool for businesses to draw from. I'm not saying you won't have the downsides of not having a large concentrated talent pool, and it for sure makes recruiting more time consuming, but if you're looking to build a company that is sustainable long term, employee satisfaction and happiness can be greatly improved by a dramatically shortened commute and affordable housing, at least in California. The recruiting constraint also gives you a chance to explore alternative paths of hiring, such as hiring people with non-traditional backgrounds but who are uniquely gifted for what you're needing. I know we have found some of our best developers in people who graduated with a wide array of degrees that wouldn't make sense on paper.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago

I am wish even people who owned houses could improve on them. I own a home in the Bay Area. If I could extend it out near the sidewalk I could probably double my living space and get rid of a dead yard, but he setback rules make reasonable expansion impossible.

junkscience2017 9y ago

As a Bay area home owner, I will stop being NIMBY when I see housing advocates accept that schools, parks, roads and retail must see consistent investment also. So far I see a lot of advocacy for housing density but no concerns for quality of life. More units will just mean more new residents...developers have no obligation to build to serve existing residents. If we build 100k new units now, that is just another 100k new residents who will suffer abysmal traffic.

santaclaus 9y ago
> So far I see a lot of advocacy for housing density but no concerns for quality of life. I see density as correlated with quality of life. I want to be able to live near work (so no car needed), with easy access to restaurants, bars, music venues, easy access to cultural opportunities, farmers markets, grocery stores, etc. Neighborhoods with these things are an absolute joy to live in.
- junkscience2017 9y ago
  What you want are frankly the typical goals of those derided as NIMBYs. They tend to want amenities balanced with housing.
  - santaclaus 9y ago
    Without density you can't have these in a walkable neighborhood. It takes X number of customers to support a grocery store (or a bodega, or a restaurant, etc). If you want one nearby, you need more people in a smaller geographic area. Besides, it is not one or the other. Ground level retail, upper level residential, and you get both.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    The amenities he wants stem from “more neighbors, closer to me” and the amenities NIMBYs want are the opposite. One is cooperative (cities get better as they grow, new residents and businesses and buildings add to the energy) and the other is exclusionary (once too many people live somewhere, it’s ruined).

anovikov 9y ago

That is all good, but what will they do with transportation? When the supply of the housing is increased, it will attract a ton of people who now simply can't afford (as many not-so-top, but still good coders - i know a ton of people who would move in, but can't afford the Valley rent). Can you imaging the traffic then?

tobylane 9y ago
Good planning laws should require the developers pay for some of the transport and government services used by the new residents. The UK's section 106 does this, I've seen it build or improve roundabouts, junctions, roads, GPs offices (PCP offices), train stations, bus stations, schools, community centres, water and sewage links. Or the plan by South Korea to build a city where cars aren't needed.
- anovikov 9y ago
  I think it will stop without starting because any real planning will come to conclusion that fitting any more people in comfortably is simply not possible, or at least not until Musk's Boring Company delivers.
closeparen 9y ago
The simple answer is to concentrate development around transit stations and to increase frequency and length of trains on existing service. For example, by-right authority to build towers, but only within half a mile of a BART station.
- raldi 9y ago
  We don't even need towers; six-story apartment buildings would do. See http://tinyurl.com/6storySF http://tinyurl.com/6storySF
  - closeparen 9y ago
    The land near BART that’s available for development in the near and medium term is the parking. Six story apartments on all BART parking is what, a couple thousand units? That’s a drop in the bucket. To replace enough SFHs to make a difference with buildings of that height, we would need eminent domain seizures of entire tracts. Not gonna happen. It’s true that an entire city built out of six story apartments could work, but realistically development needs to squeeze in the gaps (infill). A mere six stories is a huge waste of a gap. Path dependence is weird like that.

neilwilson 9y ago

Eventually they'll work out that land cannot ever be a functional market - because they don't make it any more. A far more useful regulation would be to require those business owners funding these lobbying operations to release their own massive pads, demolish them and build high rise, high density accommodation for millennials. Then they get to feel the cost of over centralisation personally. If you want to make a fortune out of this, buy land in the bubble areas and just sit on it. It's a one way bet.

raldi 9y ago
There are already lots of people who voluntarily want to demolish the house they own to build apartments; why not allow them to do so first, before we start talking about making people do it against their will?
- neilwilson 9y ago
  Well it's about allocating the cost. Surely the cost of intensification should be paid by those needlessly intensifying. Certainly amongst technology firms there is little need to be in a particular place. That requirement is largely down to a power play and lack of management and organisational skill
  - raldi 9y ago
    I think adding more people to a city is a benefit, not a cost. Most people moving to urban areas do so because they like all the good things that come with high population density. It's only a problem when you artificially restrict the supply of new housing and create a shortage.

tabtab 9y ago

Does California really want or need more people? If it's so hard to get housing, then move out. The rust belt has really good deals on housing. It just needs something to jump-start its economy. Something is out of whack.

kerbalspacepro 9y ago
If companies are hiring there... yes? Like, it is an objective "yes, California needs more people."