5 ms·

Maybe not everyone wants to be packed in areas and have their cities turn into an ugly hate-filled clone of new York City?

kristopolous 9y ago
That's fine! Mendocino is gorgeous and Ashland Oregon is positively stunning. Grass Valley, Bodega Bay, Eureka, Crescent City, Klamath... there's lots of profoundly wonderful low density affordable places to live. Tens of Thousands of them, the vast majority of the world in fact. But SOMA and Manhatten isn't on that list.
- boulos 9y ago
  While I agree, your argument doesn’t hold water with affordable housing advocates. There are currently people living in the Tenderloin and SOMA who couldn’t afford it if we let developers simply build only at-market buildings. Now what?
  - ajmurmann 9y ago
    So it's our responsibility to make sure they can stay put in a highly desirable place? I'm more then happy to contribute to make sure people have a roof over their head, are well fed and educated. I'm not willing to support people staying put where they are. That's regardless of the case being like her someone blocking potential prime real estate or like elsewhere people staying in dying communities where there are no opportunities.
    - boulos 9y ago
      I'm not espousing this view. I'm simply pointing out that the folks that are actually active in submitting their opinions to the planning department and planning commission mainly block new development by making this argument. There was a lot of panic when the city supervisors started tweaking the required percentage of below market rate (BMR) housing, and even suggested they might no longer allow the fee payment mechanism (instead of having 20% of units as BMR, contribute a similar dollar amount to an affordable housing fund). I personally think the microhousing projects (funded by those payments) have the most promise, but I worry that it's a repeat of The Projects from the 50s and 60s.
      - closeparen 9y ago
        I think the BMR percentage scheme is a perfectly reasonable compromise. But now the focus needs to be on maximizing volume, and even with percentages set, the affordable housing people are still trying to minimize it.
  - kristopolous 9y ago
    Yes, both "do nothing" and "free market anarchy" are bad ideas. Urban planning is a proper field of academic study with scholarly journals, university departments, doctoral programs, etc. MIT has a department awarding PHDs to people trying to tackle that problem. So there isn't some simple bold brash bumper sticker sized solution here and thinking there is is part of the problem.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Didn’t SOMA go pretty much directly from commercial space to tech worker housing? My understanding is that this is why so much development was allowed: no one to gentrify. Regardless, as long as the pace of housing development is held below the pace of job growth and migration, the region will continue to get less and less affordable for everyone.

kristopolous 9y ago

That's fine! Mendocino is gorgeous and Ashland Oregon is positively stunning. Grass Valley, Bodega Bay, Eureka, Crescent City, Klamath... there's lots of profoundly wonderful low density affordable places to live. Tens of Thousands of them, the vast majority of the world in fact. But SOMA and Manhatten isn't on that list.

boulos 9y ago
While I agree, your argument doesn’t hold water with affordable housing advocates. There are currently people living in the Tenderloin and SOMA who couldn’t afford it if we let developers simply build only at-market buildings. Now what?
- ajmurmann 9y ago
  So it's our responsibility to make sure they can stay put in a highly desirable place? I'm more then happy to contribute to make sure people have a roof over their head, are well fed and educated. I'm not willing to support people staying put where they are. That's regardless of the case being like her someone blocking potential prime real estate or like elsewhere people staying in dying communities where there are no opportunities.
  - boulos 9y ago
    I'm not espousing this view. I'm simply pointing out that the folks that are actually active in submitting their opinions to the planning department and planning commission mainly block new development by making this argument. There was a lot of panic when the city supervisors started tweaking the required percentage of below market rate (BMR) housing, and even suggested they might no longer allow the fee payment mechanism (instead of having 20% of units as BMR, contribute a similar dollar amount to an affordable housing fund). I personally think the microhousing projects (funded by those payments) have the most promise, but I worry that it's a repeat of The Projects from the 50s and 60s.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      I think the BMR percentage scheme is a perfectly reasonable compromise. But now the focus needs to be on maximizing volume, and even with percentages set, the affordable housing people are still trying to minimize it.
- kristopolous 9y ago
  Yes, both "do nothing" and "free market anarchy" are bad ideas. Urban planning is a proper field of academic study with scholarly journals, university departments, doctoral programs, etc. MIT has a department awarding PHDs to people trying to tackle that problem. So there isn't some simple bold brash bumper sticker sized solution here and thinking there is is part of the problem.
- closeparen 9y ago
  Didn’t SOMA go pretty much directly from commercial space to tech worker housing? My understanding is that this is why so much development was allowed: no one to gentrify. Regardless, as long as the pace of housing development is held below the pace of job growth and migration, the region will continue to get less and less affordable for everyone.