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> SF for example prevents buildings over 4 stories in the downtown area. The thing to understand in my comment is that I meant it very literally: the only way
by Analemma_ 8y ago
> SF for example prevents buildings over 4 stories in the downtown area.
The thing to understand in my comment is that I meant it very literally: the only way to halt these trends if you won't build tons of new housing is to literally forbid people from moving in; i.e. passing a law that blocks outsiders from becoming residents. What San Francisco is doing by preventing high-rise apartments is a lousy proxy for that which is making the situation worse: they think they're keeping people from moving to SF, but the people just move in anyway and price out the existing residents.
Anyway, my question was mostly rhetorical. Even the most strident anti-gentrification advocates usually stop short of claiming that people shouldn't be allowed to move in - hence why I asked it, to try and force people to confront the real issue. And if you did pass such a law, I'm almost positive it would be thrown out in court. This is not China; you shouldn't need the government's permission to move to a new house.
- sp332 8y agoWell not in so many words. But since prices are going up, you could provide some kind of subsidy for people who are contributing to the kind of city you want. It could even be as crude as a seniority system. It's not that different from an income-based housing benefit system.
- lovich 8y agoIf you don't constrain the prices or increase as well then the prices will go up forever and your subsidies will get higher and higher. Student loans work like this currently. There is not enough housing for everyone who wants to live in SF to live in SF. Some people are going to lose. If it's left to market forces then the losers are going to be the people with the least money. If you do it randomly it's going to be arbitrary. If you let the government pick and choose who gets in your going to get discrimination as people's biases sneak in. Every approach has advantages and disadvantages so SF is going to have to pick which trade-off it wants unless it builds more housing
- sp332 8y agoWell, instead of companies paying employees money which goes to rent, the city could tax those companies to subsidize the housing instead. That would make similar amounts of money available but the city would have more control over who gets the rent money. Unforeseen consequences abound, I'm just pointing out that rent doesn't have to go up forever.
- lovich 8y agoI don't see how that will prevent rent from going up forever unless you put a cap on prices. Salaries in SF keep going up because rent is going up. The subsidy would have to continue to grow forever. If you are looking to just have certain groups of people to live there without concern for rising rents, just mandate rent control instead of the layers of indirection
- sp332 8y agoYeah just speaking mathematically, that rent has to come out of a new employee's paycheck. And if the companies are being taxed to pay the subsidy to a different employee, that puts a cap on how high rent can be. Assuming people are coming to the city to work and not buying a 10th home as a "pied-a-terre" using money earned elsewhere.
- lovich 8y agoTheoretically there is a cap on rent through the forces you are describing, but we have no idea where that cap is and have yet to see it in reality. If its arbitrarily high it may as well be infinite for how it affects budgeting. Rent control will achieve the same pros and cons as your system but with a known value that people can plan around instead of seeing just how much money is going to be passed around in tax