6 ms·

You can't fill a city entirely with bankers, tech workers, and other professionals. What about teachers? Police? Those in the restaurant industry? I don't thin

You can't fill a city entirely with bankers, tech workers, and other professionals. What about teachers? Police? Those in the restaurant industry? I don't think anyone is claiming that everyone should have a "human right" to live in SF. But when looking at the city as a systems problem, creating a sustainable system may require these kinds of measures to allow the right mix of people to live in the city.

Apocryphon 8y ago
It's sort of like when the subject of human rights gets brought in the discussion of taxation. There are pragmatic concerns being brought up here for social order. Arguing about rights distracts from practical needs to ensure the public good.
jbob2000 8y ago
Affordable Rent policies block the free market from increasing wages in the city. Instead of paying workers more, we've asked landlords to make up the difference between a living wage and a poverty one.
- setpatchaddress 8y ago
  is this sarcasm? If not, do you have a reference? The usual argument is that sf needs more housing supply to meet demand, period, let alone affordable housing. Edit: see zkms, below.
  - losteric 8y ago
    I think they're referring to rent controlled apartment... not sure why they think landlords "make up the difference", the landlord simply charges other renters more. I'm not aware of any studies, but it does seem logical from a system perspective... The relatively fixed supply of rent-controlled apartments is a random cost-of-living subsidy for low-income workers. Those that "win" can accept lower wages, while the "losers" are forced to compete despite higher cost-of-living (commute or rent). The latter group will get a little more, but not as much as if there was no rent-control. On the employment side, employers may hold jobs open longer hoping for a rent-controlled applicant that will accept lower wages. Ideally we would have no rent-controlled apartments or enough for everyone that needs it, but anywhere in between is a distorted market that hurts consumers and employees. Eliminating rent control would be my preference, it seems more efficient than subsidizing everyone that needs it (as individuals can choose how to spend their higher wages, whereas rent subsidies always go to rent).
    - DrScump 8y ago
      The relatively fixed supply of rent-controlled apartments is a random cost-of-living subsidy for low-income workers Rent-controlled units are generally not preferentially occupied by low-income workers. They are generally first-come-first-served or are obtained via "connections".
kofejnik 8y ago
> measures to allow the right mix of people to live in the city. So, human engineering, with totally good intentions. Can you define 'right mix of people' in a non-totalitarian way?
- travmatt 8y ago
  The people who work in that city shouldn’t be forced to commute 3 hours in and out?
  - kofejnik 8y ago
    Nobody's forcing them, if their wages do not justify the commute time, they are totally free to stop commuting. Market pressure will do the rest.
    - travmatt 8y ago
      You’re completely missing the point, the market pressures are broken by restrictive zoning laws which artificially restrict supply. That’s why you have 6,580 people who are bidding on 95 affordably priced homes. The fact that you have 70 people applying per home is what we’d call a signal that those homes are in demand, the problem preventing more supply coming on line to meet that demand is the zoning laws, again.
      - xref 8y ago
        > 70 people applying per home is what we’d call a signal that those homes are in demand uh, well sure I mean there is probably a ton of demand for $100 4Runners too
        travmatt 8y ago
        Car companies frequently introduce smaller and more affordable options when they notice strong sales in baseline models - Honda introduced the HRV because people wanted a cheaper CRV. The tone of your comment suggests you disbelieve my remark but then you made an analogy that supports my comment so I’m not really what point your point is? Unless your idea is that companies shouldn’t take steps to meet demand and instead try to artificially restrict supply?
trav4225 8y ago
What a perfectly rational explanation. Thank you for not instantly appealing to vague notions of social justice. Dishearteningly, however, people still do this. When people demand affordable rent but do not get it, many still cry "injustice!". This seems to me to be counterproductive as it causes others to wonder what, if anything, such people do not consider to be a human right. edit: accidentally left out "not" in first paragraph
- azemetre 8y ago
  uhh they are directly appealing to social justice. Class issues are social issues. I'm curious why you think otherwise.
  - trav4225 8y ago
    Hmm. I read the comment as addressing the goal of healthy, functioning cities rather than the goal of artificially leveling playing fields.
- bad_alloc 8y ago
  > When people demand affordable rent but do not get it, many still cry "injustice!". Well, it can be interpreted as an injustice. If you have a society that can realistically provide housing and food for everybody, is it not injust to deny handing these things out? The answer depends on what society you're going for. The optimum path is probably neither the extreme of the state providing everybody with everything he needs , nor a dog-eat-dog world in which the idividual gets nothing, no matter his situation.
  - trav4225 8y ago
    I hear ya. We probably differ on semantics. To me, the modern notion of "justice" seems to be concerned with the answer to the question "What does my fellow man owe me?". The answer to that question is always "nothing". On the other hand, the answer to the question "How ought my fellow man show compassion to me?" is a different question altogether (to me at least). :)
rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
That’s a reasonable answer, although I think the better solution for those people would be to pay them more. Increase taxes and prices. I read the other day on the nytimes that a fire chief in the Bay Area makes $500k. Doesn’t it make more sense to pay people better than to create separate classes of people who either pay real world prices or those who get subsidized.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
Also, artists et cetera are fun to have around. Look up the history of the Hotel Chelsea, originally sold as luxury long-stay rooms where wealthy folk could mingle with artists staying in subsidised apartments. The model is coming back into favour in New York.
- ImSkeptical 8y ago
  So get a place where you live next to artists if that's important. The idea that rent needs to be subsidized so the rich can have entertaining neighbors strikes me as facile and kind of sick.
Retric 8y ago
> teachers? Police? Those in the restaurant industry? If they can't afford to live in the city then you could not fill the jobs without increasing wages. It's a self balancing problem. Further, higher wages increases the costs of restaurants etc which feeds back into pay. Planned economies don't work because economies are ridiculously complex. Yet people always want to say 'just this once we need subsidies' for say corn production while ignoring the huge negatives associated with such choices.
- boulos 8y ago
  I asked this of Ed Lee directly at an event at work and he hemmed and hawed and said "how can you be against teachers?". At which I reiterated, "Your new affordability test would allow a new college grad software engineer at Google to get below-market rent; why can't we just pay specific people, say teachers and firefighters with families more?". He had no answer. My conclusion is that most of our policies are driven by a combination of people not thinking through the consequences and people giving handouts to developers. Sometimes those are the same people :).
  - skybrian 8y ago
    It's expensive and all the money ends up in landlords' bank accounts. Not sure taxpayers are into that? (If the funding came out of property taxes, then at least the money would be both coming and going to land owners, but Prop 13 prevents that.)
    - Retric 8y ago
      It's still ends up in federal taxes, and considering social security benefits are based on income it would directly help workers long term. It would also act as downward pressure on rents as people left the city for better opportunities elsewhere.
segmondy 8y ago
Yes you can. If you fill an entire city with bankers and tech workers, then guess what? They will leave when they have no police, teachers or janitors. OR they will start paying those police, teachers & janitors an appropriate amount.

Apocryphon 8y ago

It's sort of like when the subject of human rights gets brought in the discussion of taxation. There are pragmatic concerns being brought up here for social order. Arguing about rights distracts from practical needs to ensure the public good.

jbob2000 8y ago

Affordable Rent policies block the free market from increasing wages in the city. Instead of paying workers more, we've asked landlords to make up the difference between a living wage and a poverty one.

setpatchaddress 8y ago
is this sarcasm? If not, do you have a reference? The usual argument is that sf needs more housing supply to meet demand, period, let alone affordable housing. Edit: see zkms, below.
- losteric 8y ago
  I think they're referring to rent controlled apartment... not sure why they think landlords "make up the difference", the landlord simply charges other renters more. I'm not aware of any studies, but it does seem logical from a system perspective... The relatively fixed supply of rent-controlled apartments is a random cost-of-living subsidy for low-income workers. Those that "win" can accept lower wages, while the "losers" are forced to compete despite higher cost-of-living (commute or rent). The latter group will get a little more, but not as much as if there was no rent-control. On the employment side, employers may hold jobs open longer hoping for a rent-controlled applicant that will accept lower wages. Ideally we would have no rent-controlled apartments or enough for everyone that needs it, but anywhere in between is a distorted market that hurts consumers and employees. Eliminating rent control would be my preference, it seems more efficient than subsidizing everyone that needs it (as individuals can choose how to spend their higher wages, whereas rent subsidies always go to rent).
  - DrScump 8y ago
    The relatively fixed supply of rent-controlled apartments is a random cost-of-living subsidy for low-income workers Rent-controlled units are generally not preferentially occupied by low-income workers. They are generally first-come-first-served or are obtained via "connections".

kofejnik 8y ago

> measures to allow the right mix of people to live in the city. So, human engineering, with totally good intentions. Can you define 'right mix of people' in a non-totalitarian way?

travmatt 8y ago
The people who work in that city shouldn’t be forced to commute 3 hours in and out?
- kofejnik 8y ago
  Nobody's forcing them, if their wages do not justify the commute time, they are totally free to stop commuting. Market pressure will do the rest.
  - travmatt 8y ago
    You’re completely missing the point, the market pressures are broken by restrictive zoning laws which artificially restrict supply. That’s why you have 6,580 people who are bidding on 95 affordably priced homes. The fact that you have 70 people applying per home is what we’d call a signal that those homes are in demand, the problem preventing more supply coming on line to meet that demand is the zoning laws, again.
    - xref 8y ago
      > 70 people applying per home is what we’d call a signal that those homes are in demand uh, well sure I mean there is probably a ton of demand for $100 4Runners too
      - travmatt 8y ago
        Car companies frequently introduce smaller and more affordable options when they notice strong sales in baseline models - Honda introduced the HRV because people wanted a cheaper CRV. The tone of your comment suggests you disbelieve my remark but then you made an analogy that supports my comment so I’m not really what point your point is? Unless your idea is that companies shouldn’t take steps to meet demand and instead try to artificially restrict supply?

trav4225 8y ago

What a perfectly rational explanation. Thank you for not instantly appealing to vague notions of social justice. Dishearteningly, however, people still do this. When people demand affordable rent but do not get it, many still cry "injustice!". This seems to me to be counterproductive as it causes others to wonder what, if anything, such people do not consider to be a human right. edit: accidentally left out "not" in first paragraph

azemetre 8y ago
uhh they are directly appealing to social justice. Class issues are social issues. I'm curious why you think otherwise.
- trav4225 8y ago
  Hmm. I read the comment as addressing the goal of healthy, functioning cities rather than the goal of artificially leveling playing fields.
bad_alloc 8y ago
> When people demand affordable rent but do not get it, many still cry "injustice!". Well, it can be interpreted as an injustice. If you have a society that can realistically provide housing and food for everybody, is it not injust to deny handing these things out? The answer depends on what society you're going for. The optimum path is probably neither the extreme of the state providing everybody with everything he needs , nor a dog-eat-dog world in which the idividual gets nothing, no matter his situation.
- trav4225 8y ago
  I hear ya. We probably differ on semantics. To me, the modern notion of "justice" seems to be concerned with the answer to the question "What does my fellow man owe me?". The answer to that question is always "nothing". On the other hand, the answer to the question "How ought my fellow man show compassion to me?" is a different question altogether (to me at least). :)

rm_-rf_slash 8y ago

That’s a reasonable answer, although I think the better solution for those people would be to pay them more. Increase taxes and prices. I read the other day on the nytimes that a fire chief in the Bay Area makes $500k. Doesn’t it make more sense to pay people better than to create separate classes of people who either pay real world prices or those who get subsidized.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

Also, artists et cetera are fun to have around. Look up the history of the Hotel Chelsea, originally sold as luxury long-stay rooms where wealthy folk could mingle with artists staying in subsidised apartments. The model is coming back into favour in New York.

ImSkeptical 8y ago
So get a place where you live next to artists if that's important. The idea that rent needs to be subsidized so the rich can have entertaining neighbors strikes me as facile and kind of sick.

Retric 8y ago

> teachers? Police? Those in the restaurant industry? If they can't afford to live in the city then you could not fill the jobs without increasing wages. It's a self balancing problem. Further, higher wages increases the costs of restaurants etc which feeds back into pay. Planned economies don't work because economies are ridiculously complex. Yet people always want to say 'just this once we need subsidies' for say corn production while ignoring the huge negatives associated with such choices.

boulos 8y ago
I asked this of Ed Lee directly at an event at work and he hemmed and hawed and said "how can you be against teachers?". At which I reiterated, "Your new affordability test would allow a new college grad software engineer at Google to get below-market rent; why can't we just pay specific people, say teachers and firefighters with families more?". He had no answer. My conclusion is that most of our policies are driven by a combination of people not thinking through the consequences and people giving handouts to developers. Sometimes those are the same people :).
- skybrian 8y ago
  It's expensive and all the money ends up in landlords' bank accounts. Not sure taxpayers are into that? (If the funding came out of property taxes, then at least the money would be both coming and going to land owners, but Prop 13 prevents that.)
  - Retric 8y ago
    It's still ends up in federal taxes, and considering social security benefits are based on income it would directly help workers long term. It would also act as downward pressure on rents as people left the city for better opportunities elsewhere.

segmondy 8y ago

Yes you can. If you fill an entire city with bankers and tech workers, then guess what? They will leave when they have no police, teachers or janitors. OR they will start paying those police, teachers & janitors an appropriate amount.