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While there's no denying there's a strong bias towards property owners, it doesn't have to be this way. Renters can and should vote to change policies to favor
by ProfessorLayton 8y ago
While there's no denying there's a strong bias towards property owners, it doesn't have to be this way. Renters can and should vote to change policies to favor them. SF is 63% renters!
It is unfortunate that the most disenfranchised demographics are the ones least likely to vote/organize.
- ajross 8y agoThat's true, but potentially not enough. The fraction of the population that is renting now is still (by definition in the case of a hot market!) much smaller than the fraction of the demographic that wants to move to the area and needs to be served by a just housing policy.
- bluGill 8y agoThe renters - if they would vote (they typically don't) however have it in there interest to have more development: more places to rent places downward pressure on rent prices and thus limits their costs. Unlike homeowners (who benefit form prop 13), a renter faces the potential of their costs increasing yearly. If the large group that wants to move in can find a a place without having to displace someone else that limits landlords ability to raise rent. Renters now have to take rent increases because if they don't someone else will, but if the renter can respond by moving elsewhere instead... Of course this assumes renters actually vote. As noted before, most do not. Thus the tyranny of the minority situation.
- rspeer 8y agoIt sounds like you may have missed one of the GP's points when you're blaming renters for not voting. I'll reiterate it with a specific example, although I am on the east coast. Lots of people want to live in Cambridge, MA. Cambridge is lovely, walkable, and bursting with jobs. But not everyone who wants to can live in Cambridge, because Cambridge has large areas of inappropriately low density that homeowners fight to preserve. Many people who work in Cambridge live in Everett. Everett is kinda shitty. It doesn't even have good transit to and from Cambridge. People who live in Everett and want to live in Cambridge can't vote on Cambridge housing policy. They can only vote in Everett. Local control of zoning sounds so democratic, but it's a tool of rent-seeking, exclusion, and discrimination.
- bluGill 8y agoGP made the claim that 63% of SF is renters. While you are correct that there are those who wish they had a vote who cannot, the power is actually in the hands of current renters if they would vote. This assumes that the claim that 63% of SF is renters is correct. I don't know the truth of that.
- kelnos 8y agoAs a renter who has lived in the bay area for 14 years (last 8 in SF), my interests absolutely align with those of the newcomers who want to move into the area or city. I would love for more supply which would lower the rent I pay, and also make it more financially safe for me to purchase property.
- cbhl 8y ago63% of SF is renters, but are 63% of those eligible to vote in SF renters? If even a quarter of those people are immigrants, that tips the scales quite a bit.
- sampo 8y agoBtw, European Union lets every resident vote in local (city and town) elections. Only for the parliamentary and presidential elections, you need to be a citizen to vote.
- sjsjxhhc 8y agoA large portion of those renters have rent control, so they are insulated from the crisis.
- nerfhammer 8y ago72% of renters have rent control and thereby have the primary reason to care removed
- ojbyrne 8y agoThat seems unlikely - would love to see a citation.
- nerfhammer 8y agohttps://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-San-Francisco-apartments-are-under-rent-control https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-San-Francisco-apart...