4 ms·

Where does San Francisco get its water supply and how secure is in the present/project climate?

Aloha 8y ago
Hetch Hetchy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetch_Hetchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetch_Hetchy
TulliusCicero 8y ago
Is that really relevant to a housing discussion? California has water issues, but they're largely caused by agriculture, not residents.
- throwaway5752 8y ago
  Yes, you shouldn't zone/permit for residential construction unless roads, utilities, and education systems can accommodate the increased load. I really didn't know the answer, and appreciate Aloha's response. edit: I left unsaid that my understanding is that a lot of CA water is snowcap melt, and that there is some degree of uncertainty about how the changing climate will impact that.
  - Jamerson 8y ago
    The people who want to increase housing don't ever bring up either the infrastructure of the city or the effect of urban density on communities. They just want to live close to work. Soon, I'm sure, the capacity will increase and in 20 years all of the articles will be about how to move tech companies to a nicer, less urban city.
    - closeparen 8y ago
      Living close to work has a drastically smaller infrastructure footprint than living far from work. Arguing against an urban development on traffic grounds is essentially always in bad faith: if the potential residents can’t take up space in your neighborhood, they will take up space on your freeway. Neighborhoods can scale; roads can’t. Every third sentence out of the YIMBY camp is about the effect of urban density in communities: how complete streets, walkable businesses, public space, etc. bring us both physically and socially closer together, walking back the hyperatomization of drive-alone commuting and automobile-scaled environments.
      - throwaway5752 8y ago
        I'm not the tone police, but I don't see how that is a de facto bad faith point. I think your "potential residents .. will take up space on your freeway" as being way too reductionist. First, there's light rail which has a global and domestic track record of mitigating this. Second, "potential" residents can move elsewhere. There is no law or ethical principle that a city has to make housing available to all comers at the price they want. I think your second paragraph has great points about what makes a good/livable community, and is closer to what I think zoning should take into account.
        closeparen 8y ago
        >There is no law or ethical principle that a city has to make housing available to all comers at the price they want. That's essentially what's being litigated in this debate. YIMBYism argues that there is such an ethical principal: society ought to be inclusive, the playing field ought to be level, haves ought not to have too much power over have-nots, etc. We contend that they apply just as much to urban land use as to healthcare, immigration, and tax policy. Modern zoning is a deployment of state power to help reinforce and grow the asset values of a small group who were in the right place at the right time, valuing their aesthetic enjoyment above others' ability to make a living. Maybe we don't have a positive obligation to create an unlimited amount of affordable housing, but we at least have the obligation not to use the power of the state this way.
  - zasz 8y ago
    The vast majority of California's water usage is agricultural. http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108 http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108 In fact, an apartment dweller uses only as much water in a year as is required to grow $200 worth of almonds. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts-crazy-stats-charts http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts-... Acting like we can't build more housing because of the longstanding drought is a seriously NIMBY argument that is usually made in bad faith. Not that you're making it in bad faith, I'm just giving some context for the sake of being informative.
  - mikeryan 8y ago
    The same water supply supports generally the entire SF Bay area, increasing housing supply in SF would be a minor pull on any water supply required to support the entire area.
ebikelaw 8y ago
When San Francisco builds a desk for an office worker and no corresponding house, that person moves to Tracy where household water consumption is roughly triple what it is in San Francisco. Given that San Francisco enjoys a reliable water supply, you should be asking where everywhere else gets their water.
the_economist 8y ago
San Francisco's water comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetch_Hetchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetch_Hetchy. California has plenty of water for the humans. Whether we have enough for the current scale of industrial farming into the future is uncertain.
stevenwoo 8y ago
San Francisco's supply of water from Hetchy Hetch is probably more guaranteed than the rest of the Bay Area, the SF Water company has large resources in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Almeda counties earmarked for SF that might appear to uninitiated as large spaces ripe for development - it's not and probably never will be.

Hetch Hetchy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetch_Hetchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetch_Hetchy

Is that really relevant to a housing discussion? California has water issues, but they're largely caused by agriculture, not residents.

throwaway5752 8y ago
Yes, you shouldn't zone/permit for residential construction unless roads, utilities, and education systems can accommodate the increased load. I really didn't know the answer, and appreciate Aloha's response. edit: I left unsaid that my understanding is that a lot of CA water is snowcap melt, and that there is some degree of uncertainty about how the changing climate will impact that.
- Jamerson 8y ago
  The people who want to increase housing don't ever bring up either the infrastructure of the city or the effect of urban density on communities. They just want to live close to work. Soon, I'm sure, the capacity will increase and in 20 years all of the articles will be about how to move tech companies to a nicer, less urban city.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    Living close to work has a drastically smaller infrastructure footprint than living far from work. Arguing against an urban development on traffic grounds is essentially always in bad faith: if the potential residents can’t take up space in your neighborhood, they will take up space on your freeway. Neighborhoods can scale; roads can’t. Every third sentence out of the YIMBY camp is about the effect of urban density in communities: how complete streets, walkable businesses, public space, etc. bring us both physically and socially closer together, walking back the hyperatomization of drive-alone commuting and automobile-scaled environments.
    - throwaway5752 8y ago
      I'm not the tone police, but I don't see how that is a de facto bad faith point. I think your "potential residents .. will take up space on your freeway" as being way too reductionist. First, there's light rail which has a global and domestic track record of mitigating this. Second, "potential" residents can move elsewhere. There is no law or ethical principle that a city has to make housing available to all comers at the price they want. I think your second paragraph has great points about what makes a good/livable community, and is closer to what I think zoning should take into account.
      - closeparen 8y ago
        >There is no law or ethical principle that a city has to make housing available to all comers at the price they want. That's essentially what's being litigated in this debate. YIMBYism argues that there is such an ethical principal: society ought to be inclusive, the playing field ought to be level, haves ought not to have too much power over have-nots, etc. We contend that they apply just as much to urban land use as to healthcare, immigration, and tax policy. Modern zoning is a deployment of state power to help reinforce and grow the asset values of a small group who were in the right place at the right time, valuing their aesthetic enjoyment above others' ability to make a living. Maybe we don't have a positive obligation to create an unlimited amount of affordable housing, but we at least have the obligation not to use the power of the state this way.
- zasz 8y ago
  The vast majority of California's water usage is agricultural. http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108 http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108 In fact, an apartment dweller uses only as much water in a year as is required to grow $200 worth of almonds. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts-crazy-stats-charts http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts-... Acting like we can't build more housing because of the longstanding drought is a seriously NIMBY argument that is usually made in bad faith. Not that you're making it in bad faith, I'm just giving some context for the sake of being informative.
- mikeryan 8y ago
  The same water supply supports generally the entire SF Bay area, increasing housing supply in SF would be a minor pull on any water supply required to support the entire area.

ebikelaw 8y ago

When San Francisco builds a desk for an office worker and no corresponding house, that person moves to Tracy where household water consumption is roughly triple what it is in San Francisco. Given that San Francisco enjoys a reliable water supply, you should be asking where everywhere else gets their water.

the_economist 8y ago

San Francisco's water comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetch_Hetchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetch_Hetchy. California has plenty of water for the humans. Whether we have enough for the current scale of industrial farming into the future is uncertain.

stevenwoo 8y ago

San Francisco's supply of water from Hetchy Hetch is probably more guaranteed than the rest of the Bay Area, the SF Water company has large resources in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Almeda counties earmarked for SF that might appear to uninitiated as large spaces ripe for development - it's not and probably never will be.